A railroad bridge once crossed Green Bay’s East River near today’s Monroe Avenue and University Avenue, leaving little trace in the modern landscape.
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The railroad that used to cross the East River where Monroe Av & University Ave meet in downtown Green Bay. Credit: 1889 Plat Book of Brown County by C.M. Foote & Co
A Vanished Railroad Bridge in the Heart of Green Bay
The Hidden Story
Today, traffic moves through the busy intersection of Monroe and University Avenues with little hint of what once crossed the East River nearby. Old maps reveal a railroad bridge here, a vanished piece of Green Bay’s transportation history hiding beneath the modern city.
What We Know
An 1889 plat map of Green Bay shows a railroad crossing the East River near the present-day intersection of Monroe and University avenues. The bridge was part of a railroad landscape that once threaded through this part of the city.
The 1948 aerial photograph captures an especially interesting moment at this crossing. The railroad bridge over the East River was a swing bridge, Monroe Avenue (today is University Ave) crossed the river on its own movable bridge. Both crossings had to accommodate traffic on land while still allowing navigation along the East River.
The old Monroe Avenue drawbridge survived for decades after this photograph was taken. According to the U.S. Coast Guard, it was replaced by the fixed bridge in 1984. Remarkably, the federal drawbridge regulation governing the old bridge remained on the books until 2025, when the Coast Guard finally removed the obsolete rule.
Today, the railroad and bridge are gone, and the modern street network gives little indication that trains once crossed the river here.
Aerial image showing railroad in 1948
Aerial image in 2023 of the same area.
Why It Matters
This wasn’t an isolated railroad bridge. It was part of a much larger web of tracks that once crossed Green Bay. The line carried trains across the East River, connecting rail corridors on Green Bay’s east side with the sprawling railroad network across the Fox River around Fort Howard. Remove the old tracks from the map, and the bridge seems almost inexplicable. Put them back, and its location suddenly makes sense.
If You Visit
Best experienced: Historical Photographs
What You’ll See
Nothing of the old railroad bridge is left except for a few traces of pilings on the southwest side of the East River.
Best Viewpoint
Sidewsalk at Monroe / University / Elm St or the trail along the East River.
Access: Public
Accessibility
Mostly Accessible
Access Notes
The gravel parking lot next to the river is private property.
A quiet cut climbing a wooded hillside is a surviving trace of the Green Bay–Chicago Military Road, built during Wisconsin’s territorial era and later traveled by settlers and other travelers.
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Sunny pauses on a quiet wooded path that follows the trace of the old Green Bay–Chicago Military Road. Credit: Adventures in Place
This quiet path through a woods in Ledgeview was once part of the main road from Green Bay to Chicago.
Walk into Hidden Woods Greenway in the Town of Ledgeview just outside of Green Bay today, and there is little to suggest that this quiet path through the trees was ever particularly important. It climbs a wooded hillside, covered in leaves and crossed by roots, looking much like any other old trail.
But look at its width. Look at the cut into the hillside. This wasn’t always just a path through the woods.
Nearly two centuries ago, travelers passed through here on the Green Bay–Chicago Military Road. Before modern highways connected the two cities, this was part of the road south from Green Bay toward Chicago.
The traffic is gone. The forest has returned. But the road itself has not entirely disappeared.
What We Know
The Green Bay–Chicago Military Road was established during Wisconsin’s territorial era as an overland route connecting Green Bay with Chicago. Although built as a military road, it also became a route used by settlers and other civilian travelers moving through early Wisconsin.
Historical maps and original land-survey records from the 1830s document the road through this area. In this area, the roadway was mapped according to the survey. Comparing those records with modern mapping and terrain data helps place the historic route on today’s landscape. You can watch the accompanying Adventures in Place YouTube video for more on how this story came together.
At Hidden Woods Greenway, that comparison leads to something you can actually see on the ground: a broad, road-like cut climbing the hillside along the historic alignment.
Much of the old military road has since been altered, absorbed into modern roads, returned to farmland, or reclaimed by woods. Here, however, the shape of the old route remains surprisingly legible.
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Why It Matters
The surviving road cut is a rare place where an important early transportation route can still be read directly in the landscape. What now appears to be an insignificant wooded path once connected this area to a much larger network of travel, settlement and change.
Questions That Remain
How much of the visible road cut is actually part of the original military road? Historical maps and survey records place the route through this area, but the traveled alignment may have shifted locally over time. Additional historical and terrain evidence may help refine exactly how the road crossed this hillside.
The Big Picture
What makes this place remarkable is the contrast between what it is now and what it once was.
Today it is a quiet wooded greenway. Once, this hillside was part of an important overland connection between Green Bay and Chicago.
Places like this remind us that old transportation routes do not always disappear. Sometimes they become modern roads. Sometimes they vanish beneath farms and neighborhoods. And sometimes they survive quietly in the woods, recognizable only when old maps and the modern landscape are brought back together.
Keep Exploring
There are traces like this scattered across the landscape, places where an ordinary path, field edge, or country road preserves something much older.
Once you learn to recognize them, the landscape starts to look different. A quiet walk through the woods can become a walk along a road traveled nearly two centuries ago.
Sometimes the past isn’t buried very deeply. Sometimes you can still walk on it.
If You Visit
A short walk through Hidden Woods Greenway in Ledgeview (just outside of Green Bay) leads to a surviving road-like cut along the historic Green Bay–Chicago Military Road alignment. Knowing what it once was transforms an otherwise quiet woodland path into a tangible piece of Wisconsin’s transportation history.
Best experienced: Hike
What You’ll See
Look for the broad cut climbing the wooded hillside. Fallen leaves and vegetation soften its edges, but its width and grade distinguish it from an ordinary footpath. The feature becomes much easier to recognize once you know you are looking for an old roadway.
Best Viewpoint
From within the old road cut while climbing the hillside, in the Hidden Woods Greenway (see site sketch map) where its width, grade, and relationship to the surrounding slope are easiest to recognize
Access: Public
Accessibility
Limited Accessibility
Access Notes
Unpaved woodland terrain with uneven footing, leaves, roots, and a moderately steep hillside. Conditions may vary seasonally.
Research and route reconstruction by Adventures in Place using original land survey records from the 1830s and 1840s, historic maps, modern GIS, and field observation.
When the Wisconsin River Flowed North through Shawano
Beneath the fields and forests around Shawano lies the buried valley of an ancient river that once carried more water than the modern Wisconsin River.
The Hidden Story
If I told you that one of Wisconsin's largest rivers once flowed the opposite direction, would you believe me? Right beneath our feet, hidden under hundreds of feet of glacial sediment, lies the valley of an ancient river that may have changed the course of Wisconsin's history.
What We Know
Beneath the Shawano area lies a broad buried bedrock valley carved by an ancient river system before the Pleistocene glaciations.
The valley is now filled with glacial sediments, so its full size and shape cannot be seen from the modern land surface.
The buried valley extends well beyond the present-day Wolf River and Shawano Lake and is significantly larger than either feature.
Modern geological mapping, well records, and other subsurface investigations have documented the depth, extent, and general geometry of this buried valley.
The valley formed before continental ice sheets advanced across Wisconsin during the Ice Age. Later glaciations modified the landscape and buried the ancient river system beneath thick glacial deposits.
Although hidden from view, the buried valley continues to influence the region by affecting groundwater flow, sediment distribution, and parts of the modern drainage network.
Without geological mapping, well records, and other subsurface data, there is little at the surface to suggest that such a large ancient river valley lies beneath the Shawano area.
The buried valley has been studied by professional geologists and is recognized as an important component of northeastern Wisconsin's geologic history.
Questions That Remain
How precisely can the buried valley be mapped?
Existing bedrock elevation data are too sparse in parts of northeastern Wisconsin to confidently trace the valley's exact route. Additional well logs, drilling, and geophysical surveys could significantly improve our understanding.
How deep is the buried valley along its entire length?
Some portions are well documented, while others remain poorly constrained due to limited subsurface information.
Exactly when did the Wisconsin River abandon this ancient course?
The general sequence of glacial events is understood, but the precise timing of drainage changes continues to be refined.
Were there multiple episodes of valley erosion?
Did one ancient river carve the valley, or was it modified by several rivers over millions of years?
Are there additional buried tributaries?
Smaller valleys may still lie hidden beneath glacial sediment and have yet to be identified.
How does this buried valley continue to influence today's landscape?
Researchers continue to investigate how the buried valley affects groundwater flow, wetlands, sediment thickness, and the locations of modern rivers and lakes.
The Big Picture
The landscape we see today is only the surface of a much older world. Beneath Shawano lies the buried valley of an ancient river that still influences the region, proving that some of Earth's greatest stories remain hidden beneath our feet.
Keep Exploring
This is the story as I understand it today. If it sparked your curiosity, I encourage you to keep exploring. The buried valley beneath Shawano is part of a much bigger story than I could tell in one visit, and geologists like Dr. Eric Carson have done outstanding work explaining it in greater depth. Adventures in Place is about discovering remarkable places and asking better questions. I hope this story inspires you to look a little more closely at the landscape around you—and perhaps discover that some of Wisconsin’s biggest stories are hidden beneath your feet. I’ll almost certainly return to this ancient river system in future Adventures in Place stories as we visit other locations that reveal different pieces of the puzzle.
Contributors
Dr. Eric Carson — Geologist whose research and public presentations helped explain the buried river valley beneath the Shawano area.
Adventures in Place 