PORTAGE, Wis. - The Wisconsin Historical Society announces the updated listing of the Portage Canal in Portage (Columbia County) on the State Register of Historic Places. The Portage Canal was first listed on the National Register of Historic Places in 1977, and this expanded nomination further highlights the vital contribution the canal made to Wisconsin’s transportation and engineering history. Deputy State Historic Preservation Officer Amy Wyatt presented a certificate to Laura Hoekstra.

The Portage Canal is significant as a key engineering project designed to enable a water route from the Great Lakes to the Mississippi River by connecting the Fox and Wisconsin Rivers. By the time it was completed in 1851 and enlarged in 1876, the railroad replaced water as the dominant mode of transport. Nonetheless, the canal facilitated maritime traffic until its closure in 1951. It failed to meet lofty economic expectations but still had a profound impact on the local and state economy.

The historic importance of the Portage Canal lies in its close association with the old Portage trail, once traversed by Native Americans, French fur traders and British soldiers. The project’s engineering represents canal construction for the periods in which they were built, from initial conception and development in the 1820s into the early 1850s.

Additional information for the Portage Canal is available at

https://www.wisconsinhistory.org/Records/NationalRegister/NR56

To learn more about the State and National Register programs in Wisconsin, visit: www.wisconsinhistory.org.

About the Wisconsin Historical Society

The Wisconsin Historical Society, founded in 1846, ranks as one of the largest, most active and most diversified state historical societies in the nation. As both a state agency and a private membership organization, its mission is to help people connect to the past by collecting, preserving and sharing stories. The Wisconsin Historical Society serves millions of people every year through a wide range of sites, programs and services. For more information, visit wisconsinhistory.org.