About 1878, John Leathem and Thomas Smith came to this area from Door County, Wisconsin. They cut the towering pines along the west shore of Green Bay and built a saw mill to make lumber and shingles. Over 400 hundred men were employed in the mill and winter logging camps at times, and soon a busy village called Leathemport grew up around these operations.
The village contained a boarding house, small homes for the working men's families, a company-owned store, storage sheds, a large dock, and anchorage in the bay for large ships.
During the sailing season, schooners and barges arrived to take on lumber and shingles for transport to markets around the Great Lakes. The waters of Green Bay were plied by numerous vessels, making the bay the busy highway of the era.
After a decade of logging, the forest was nearly depleted. Leathem and Smith sold their business to William Horn, who ran the mill for a few more years. Horn renamed the area Arthur Bay in memory of his young son Arthur, who had tragically drowned when he fell off the Leathemport Dock. In 1891, Charles L. Bailey purchased Horn's land and established a successful commercial fishery on this property.
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