For most people, Superior, Wisconsin, is nothing more than a set of traffic lights that stand in the middle of the night, just a few miles north of Milwaukee. Although it is the lower one - the sister country of Wisconsin's two largest cities - it has a lot of things to do and see that it sees outside of Superior - things it considers superior.
The Lake Superior side is lined with forests and secluded beaches, and on the eastern side of the harbor, Allouez Bay is well suited for birdwatching. Amnicon Park is located a few kilometers east of the city of Superior and offers a variety of hiking, biking, canoeing, kayaking and other activities. A paved, five-kilometer Osaugie Trail takes cyclists to the place where Edmund Fitzgerald filled his hold with taconite. This narrow road leads to a 1,000-foot mountain that can be seen by boat-watchers driving to the Burlington Northern Ore Terminal.
If you follow US 2, you will come to the town of St. Croix, a small town of about 1,000 inhabitants, and there are two waterways, one northern and one southern. Travelers heading north can use the waterway to reach Lake Superior, while downstream travelers could use it to take them south into the Gulf of Mexico or southwest across the Stecroix and Mississippi. While driving downstream, you can also take a northbound trip to Lake Duluth, the second largest lake in Wisconsin and the third largest in America.
Jean and I drove to the town of St. Croix, where politician and actor Arnold Schwarzenegger earned a B.A. from the University of Wisconsin - Duluth's College of Arts and Sciences. I've never seen a photo of Schwarzenegger skiing, but he never forgets a good workout as we headed up to a frozen bay from where we could see the Bong Bridge grain terminal in the distance.
Superior was founded on September 6, 1854 as a city and also the seat of the newly founded Douglas County. Superior had the only natural access to the harbor, but it grew faster because Duluth had forgotten the first railway line and had to dig its own harbor entrance.
The city is located in Douglas County, Wisconsin, USA, north of Duluth, Minnesota, and is one of the largest cities in the USA and the second largest city in Wisconsin. It is also located on the Minnesota-Wisconsin border, about 45 miles north - west of Superior, Michigan.
It is surrounded by the bays of Saint Louis, Superior and Allouez, which surround the city and are separated only from the Croix river system. With a population of 1.5 million, it is the second largest city in the state of Wisconsin after Duluth, Minnesota. The city is separated by two rivers, the St. Louis River and the Superior River, which are separated by a short piece of land between the two lakes.
This waterway was an important route for the fur trade in Wisconsin until the French War of the Fox Indians closed the southern route. This waterway was an important route to the Milwaukee area during the Great Depression to transport goods from the Midwest to Europe and the Middle East before being closed by the French in the war against the Foxes and Fox Indians.
In 1632 Champlain appears on his map to show Lake Superior and its tributary Brule, to which du Lac is very fond. French merchants and missionaries settled in the area not long after, and in 1634 the first permanent settlement of the French in Wisconsin was founded near the lake.
The Richard Bong Heritage Museum is also located at the NW end of the Osaugie Waterfront Trail and is home to the largest museum of its kind in the United States. The St. Louis River is maintained by the Superior Parks and Recreation Department, and the longest freshwater sandbar in the world is located at Minnesota Point, also known as Park Point. Dwight's Point is a small peninsula on the north side of Lake Superior, north of Duluth. It is very scenic and has a snow slide and a great view of the shore of Superior and the lake itself.
Two other interesting museums are the Duluth Maritime Museum and the restored Walrueckensee-Superior-Freighter-Museum. The city has a number of museums dedicated to local maritime heritage, including the Maritime Heritage Museum, Minnesota State Museum of Natural History and even a museum on the banks of the St. Louis River. Both domestic and foreign ships are welcomed at the city's docks, harbour and coastline. The nearest commercial airport is Dulles International Airport in Dulith, which is being cut short by the U.S. Customs and Border Protection and the Minnesota Department of Transportation (DNR).
Superior and nearby Duluth are served by the Duluth Transit Authority, which provides regular service between the city and the two cities, with regular scheduled buses and daily ferry service to and from St. Louis.