Wisconsin’s Outagamie County, dotted by rivers and located off Lake Winnebago, was once a firm Republican stronghold but has emerged as one of the swingiest areas of one of the swingiest states.
The county of nearly 200,000 people, whose seat is Appleton, has elected a Democrat as its chief executive since 2011 and increasingly helps notch up statewide vote tallies for Democrats, even though its congressional district is largely considered safe for Republicans.
A rare purple spot
Democratic candidates had carried Wisconsin in seven straight presidential elections until 2016, when Donald Trump eked out a victory that stunned Democrats who barely campaigned in the state. Joe Biden beat Trump by a similarly small margin four years later.
The Fox Valley that includes Appleton offers a microcosm of state dynamics. Democratic pockets — identified on maps by blue — are growing in the urban sections while a historic red Republican base dominates the countryside.
“If I had to pick a ‘purple’ region of the state, it would be here, although I’d suggest it still leans pretty clearly on the Republican side,” said Arnold Shober, a professor of government at Lawrence University in Appleton.
Notorious home senator
Outagamie County has the mostly unwelcome honor of producing one of US history’s most notorious politicians, Joe McCarthy.
The senator catapulted to fame in 1950 by launching a witch-hunt in which he alleged mass infiltration by communists in the US government and popular culture.
His fellow senators censured him in 1954 and “McCarthyism” has since become a byword for unfounded smear campaigns, although he retains a small following in the Appleton area, with supporters gathering at his grave once a year.
The county courthouse removed his bust in 2001, although it has been brought back out with context as part of historical exhibits.
Escape by Houdini
Appleton also has a very different son whose name carries on — Harry Houdini.
The magician was born in Budapest in 1878 but his family quickly immigrated to Appleton where his father served as a rabbi.
A childhood trip to the circus inspired his passion for magic and Houdini would go on to startle crowds across North American and England with tricks including escaping from straitjackets and handcuffs.
Appleton has begun to embrace Houdini’s legacy in recent decades, naming a plaza and a school after him.
Capital of paper
With the Fox River supplying a vital source of power and northern Wisconsin once covered by forest, Outagamie and neighboring counties in the 19th century became a global capital in paper production.
Kimberly-Clark, founded in 1872 and best known for Kleenex brand tissues, still runs a mill in nearby Neenah to design products.
But the company moved to Texas in 1985 and it closed its last industrial-scale pulp mill in 2012.
‘Turn on the lights’
Appleton enjoyed another advantage from the water — it was a pioneer in electricity
In 1882, the Hearthstone House, owned by a paper baron on a bluff above the Fox River, became the first private residence to be lit up with light bulbs produced by hydroelectricity using the system designed by Thomas Edison.
Curators show with pride the switches that activated the lights and say it was here where the now universal phrase was coined — “Turn on the lights.”
