Green Bay is the
county seat of
Brown County,
Wisconsin. The city is located at 044º 28' 46" N 088º 08' 12" W, at the head of
Green Bay and the mouth of the
Fox River, with an altitude of 581 feet. It is 112 miles north of
Milwaukee. According to the
2000 census, Green Bay had a population of 102,313 people.
The city of Green Bay is a port through the bay which connects to Lake Michigan.
A small trading post was established at this location in
1634 by
French-
Canadian explorer
Jean Nicolet[?]. In
1671 a
Jesuit Mission was set up here; at the time the settlement was known as
La Baye. A fort was added in
1717. The town was incorporated in
1754. The town passed to
British control in
1761. As British settlers in the area came to outnumber the French, the name "Green Bay" became the more common name for the town. In
1783 the town became part of the
United States of America.
The United States Army built Fort Howard here in 1816. Wisconsin's first newspaper, The Green Bay Intelligencer[?], was first published here in 1833. In 1850 the town had a population of 1,923. The town was reincorporated as the city of Green Bay in 1854. The Railroad arrived in the 1860s.
In the 1950 census the city had a population of 52,735.
Green Bay is home to the National Railroad Museum[?], the Neville Public Museum with exhibitions of art, history, and science, and to the Green Bay Packers professional football team.