Mission:

The City of Green Bay is a proud community dedicated to enhancing the quality of life for all residents, businesses, and employees through diligent management of our assets and wise investment in our strategic growth.

We value our history, our citizens, our diversity, our businesses, our workforce, our volunteers, our neighborhoods, our downtown, and our waterfront.

History:

Green Bay's history as an inhabited region began long before the French claimed it. Archaeological findings establish the region as a seat of primitively sophisticated cultures many centuries before the white man's arrival. The dense woods were alive with black bear, wolf, fox, and bobcat as well as mink, weasel, and raccoon. Thick furs, especially from bear and deer, provided protection from the long winter's cold, and small water animals like beaver and otter provided delicious meat as well as pelts. The bay's waters gave bountiful perch, bass, walleye and northern pike, whitefish, trout, musky, and sturgeon.

When Nicolet arrived, the area's inhabitants were the Winnebagos, a Sioux-speaking tribe. Besides hunting and fishing, the Winnebagos cultivated corn, bean, squash, and tobacco. Wild rice, a dietary staple, grew in abundance in the river and its tributaries, and was gathered along with nuts, berries, and edible roots of the woods. The tribe has roles clearly delineated according to sex. The men hunted, fished, fashioned the stone or wood tools need for the hunt, and made canoes. The women cleaned and cooked the kill, prepared the hides and furs for use as clothing and shelter, wove twine for fish nets, tended the garden, and gathered rice. Women were active in tribal politics and voted in all councils. Their status in the tribal structure was high, and no tribal action was possible without the approval of their majority. It was with this tribe that Nicolet spent the winter, exploring the waterway beyond La Baie and forming alliances important to commerce. After a year in the wilderness, he returned to Quebec in 1635.