The First Monument in Green Bay
In front of the Green Bay courthouse you will find The Spirit of the Northwest, the first monument placed in the city of Green Bay, an homage to the age of exploration that defined the early days of New France and the Northwest Territory.
Since June 10, 1931, The Spirit of the Northwest statue has stood vigil in the courtyard outside the Brown County Courthouse. It serves as an homage to the era of European exploration that started around 1665 and three of the factions — Native Americans, French Catholic missionaries, and French fur traders — that helped shape the landscape of present-day Wisconsin.
Sculpted by Sidney Bedore, one-time a resident of Green Bay, Suamico, and Lake Geneva, this sculpture has the distinction of being the first-ever monument dedicated in the city of Green Bay.
Sidney Bedore, Sculptor
Before becoming a renowned sculptor, Sidney Bedore worked for the Barkhausen Brick Company on the southern side of Green Bay. It was here that Bedore discovered he had an uncanny talent to sculpt accurate human likenesses from clay.
Bedore left Green Bay and his job as a brick maker to enroll in art school, first at the Art Institute of Chicago and later at Beaux Arts in New York City. Upon finishing at Beaux Arts (and after winning the school’s grand prize for his work), Bedore caught the eye of Chicago-based sculptor Lorado Taft. This led to Bedore joining the Lorado Taft Midway Studios on the University of Chicago campus.
Bedore’s first major work was his 1922 sculpture of president Theodore Roosevelt in Benton Harbor, Michigan. This statue earned him national recognition for its accurate likeness of Roosevelt. His mentor Lorado Taft said that as a sculptor of Roosevelt, Bedore “has no superior.”
Taft so admired his pupil that he recruited Bedore to work on sculptures for Chicago’s Paradise Theater and the “Fountain of Creation,” Taft’s uncompleted final work from 1933.
The Spirit of the Northwest: Intended for Green Bay
Bedore had deep roots in the city of Green Bay. He was a descendant of fur trader Charles Michel Mouet de Langlade, a notable figure in Green Bay’s early history.
Even before he sculpted Roosevelt, Bedore had started working on what would become The Spirit of the Northwest, and his intention was always for it to be installed in Green Bay.
He initially fashioned a plaster version of the sculpture which drew the attention of a number of prominent Green Bay residents, most notably lawyer-turned-historian Arthur Neville.
This group really wanted the finished statue to be placed in Green Bay and eventually secured funding to bring the plaster model to the city. The miniature sculpture was displayed at the Neville Public Museum (opened in 1927 by the aforementioned Arthur Neville).
This display served to drum up local interest. With citizen support along with some appropriation from Brown County, the total funds came in at $7.500. Bedore agreed to the sum — even though it was significantly below the labor costs for the job.
The finished statue was unveiled on the lawn of the Brown County Courthouse on June 10, 1931.
Our latest exploration …
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Bathtub Spring
In southwestern Wisconsin you can find an endless supply of fresh water flowing into a roadside bathtub — a place known as the Bathtub Spring.
Three Historical Figures
The Spirit of the Northwest, carved of Bedford limestone, is comprised of three figures that were suggested by Deborah Beaumont Martin, librarian at Green Bay’s Kellogg Public Library.
Although there is a bit of recorded information information about these historical figures (well, at least two of them), there are conflicting dates surrounding their various accomplishments. Record-keeping was somewhat haphazard in the late 1660s. So with that said, here’s what we know about the three figures represented in The Spirit of the Northwest.
Father Claude Allouez
The center, dominating figure of the statue, representing a “Jesuit missionary,” depicts Claude-Jean Allouez, a French Catholic priest. After graduating seminary school in France, Allouez was assigned to missionary work in the New World, first arriving in Quebec in 1658 when he was 36 years old.
Father Allouez journeyed to the different Catholic missions in the upper Great Lakes region where he interacted with the Potowatomi and Meskwaki, helping some tribes with their fur-trade endeavors while evangelizing about Christianity. He’s remembered for giving the first Catholic Mass in Oconto.
In 1671, at a tribal summit held at Sault Ste. Marie (Michigan), French military officer Simon-François Daumont de Saint-Lusson claimed the region as part of New France in the name of French King Louis XIV. Allouez, who was fluent in some of the indigenous dialects, was there to help sell the annexation.
During his time knocking around the Great Lakes region, Allouez established the St. Francis Xavier Mission in De Pere. In 1676 he was called upon to continue the work of Father Jacques Marquette among the Illiniwek people living along the southern shore of Lake Michigan. He died there in 1689.
In addition to The Spirit of the Northwest statue, Allouez is memorialized by name in Wisconsin by the Green Bay-adjacent village of Allouez (and the village’s Father Allouez School), the Claude Allouez Bridge in the Father’s old stomping grounds of De Pere, and Allouez Bay in Superior.
You can read a selection of Father Allouez’s writings about his explorations at the Wisconsin Historical Society website.
Nicolas Perrot
The right-side figure (when facing the sculpture) depicts Nicolas Perrot, identified in early articles about the statue as a “pioneer trapper.” And while that description fits, he also served for a time as the New France commandant for the West, headquartered in Green Bay.
Perrot arrived in the land that would become Wisconsin sometime around 1665. He co-owned a fur-trading operation in Montreal and obtained furs from the indigenous tribes around Green Bay in exchange for firearms.
During his exploration and fur-trading, he spent some time working for the aforementioned Daumont de Saint-Lusson and attended the same tribal summit/territory annexation ceremony at Sault Ste. Marie as Father Allouez. He also used Allouez’s St. Francis Xavier Mission as a home base during his explorations of the region.
Perrot built a number of forts, primarily along the Wisconsin River and primarily serving as trading posts. These include Fort St. François (at Green Bay), Fort St. Nicolas (seemingly named after himself; near Prairie du Chien), Nicolas Perrot’s Post (a temporary overwinter camp that was later established as Fort Trempealeau), and Fort St. Antoine (at Stockholm).
Perrot is memorialized by Perrot State Park, located around where Fort Trempealeau is thought to have once stood.
Native American
While the first two subjects are modeled after specific Frenchmen, the third figure represents the entire indigenous population of the Northwest Territory.
Since the statue was first sculpted in 1931, the representative Native American has been labeled differently throughout the years. The figure has been called an “Indian guide,” a Menominee, an Outagamie Indian, a Native American, a member of the Fox Tribe, and, most currently, a member of the Meskwaki Nation (also known as the Sac & Fox Tribe of the Mississippi).
The Native American figure was originally sculpted with a single feather headdress. This feather has been replaced, broken, and sometimes vandalized on and off again over the years. As of this writing, the feather is once again absent (and as been for a number of years).
You can see the statue with feather intact in this photo at the Wisconsin Historical Society. (Note: The site dates the photo to “circa 1920,” but the statue wasn’t dedicated until 1931. So we can’t be certain of the date here.)
From Northwest Spirit to Red Banks …
After The Spirit of the Northwest was completed, Sidney Bedore doesn’t seem to have too many notable sculptures to his name. As mentioned above, he worked on Lorado Taft’s “Fountains of Creation” in Chicago. But that has never been completed.
Aside from that piece (and perhaps a few he worked on under Taft’s oversight) the only other Wisconsin statue attributed to Bedore is his sculpture of Jean Nicolet.
Bedore began sculpting this homage to the French explorer in 1934, but the finished piece wasn’t unveiled until 1951, just four years before Bedore’s death in Florida.
But that’s another story for another time.
Spirit of the Northwest Statue
- 100 S Jefferson St, Green Bay
- GPS Coordinates: 44.513248, -88.013654 [Google Maps]
- What3words: ///sugar.dome.haven
