Steamboats plied the Fox River in the days of Old Princeton. Commercial traffic on this section of river ended in the 1920s.As the title says: Bird’s Eye View of Princeton, circa 1908-1909.500 block of Water Street, north side, circa 1904-1908. Buildings, from left, I believe, are Edward Schrank saloon, Gottlieb Krueger dry goods, Fred Schendel saloon and Commercial Hotel, Frank Mueller drug store, Gustave Krueger meat market, Carl Bartol saloon, G Teske & Son general store, J.H. Manthey dry goods, J.M. Koeser furniture and undertaking, Lueck & Manthey dry goods, Herman Warnke saloon and O.H. Lichtenberg drug store.500 block of Water Street, south side, looking west, circa 1909-1912. Building at left is First National Bank, which later became Farmers-Merchants National Bank. Telephone poles and hitching posts were removed before the street was paved in 1917.Water Street, looking west from just east of the intersection of Water and Washington streets, circa 1907.Cattle Fair, held on the first Wednesday of the month, started in 1869 on the downtown triangle and moved to the west side in 1874. This photo shows business booming on Water Street during Cattle Fair in March 1908.400 block of Water street, looking west, circa 1927.The city installed its first siren atop the Farmers-Merchants National Bank building in 1927.Gottfried Schaal opened his hardware store at the corner of Water and Pearl streets in 1882. He built an addition onto the west side of the building in 1891 when he veneered the original building and addition with brick. Photo, circa 1907.I believe businesses, from right, might have been Gottfried Schaal’s hardware store, Giese Bros. (F.W. and Herman) grocery store, Theo. Bednarek’s tavern, John Roberts barber shop, Frank Fink’s tavern, Ador Manthey’s poultry, feed store, J.H. Manthey’s dry goods store and Mrs. Albert Dodge’s saloon.This photo shows two of Princeton’s historic Main Street buildings. The building at left was the original foundry, built in 1868. Next door is the overall and shirt factory, which opened in 1903. Silas Eggleston purchased the foundry property in 1893, reshingled it for use as a warehouse and later converted it to a residence and store. The overall factory closed for the last time in 1919. Paul Ladwig (Sr.) bought the property in 1932 and later converted it into a residence.Workers lay track west of Princeton in 1901 for the long-awaited extension to Grand Rapids and Marshfield.Martin Manthey, who local historians say was the first German-born resident of Princeton, arriving in 1854-1855, sold insurance, groceries, eggs, poultry and feed. In 1888 he moved his business from the former elevator building at 617 West Water Street, which was moved from St. Marie to Princeton in the 1860s, into the store built by John Buschke at 616 West Water in 1886.Ador Manthey later occupied the store.D.W. Eggleston operated the Riverside Hotel and M.W. Eggleston the photo gallery, circa 1905, just east of the Main Street bridge.The United Consumers gas station, built in 1921, near the southeast corner of Water and Washington streets was the first in Princeton.After the United Consumers gas station was leveled in 1932, Alfred Warnke paved the area for the Ford garage known as Princeton Motors.The fireman, Eugene Curran, was killed in July 1929 when a Chicago & Northwestern train derailed and crashed through a bridge into Black Creek near the Highway 73 crossing about four miles north of Princeton.The locomotive, one of the oldest in service in the railroad’s Green Bay division, was taken out in pieces about a week later and scrapped.The Princeton Republic estimated more than 500 cars and thousands of people visited the wreckage.
