Manitowoc

Manitowoc built its economy on the Manitowoc River’s mouth into Lake Michigan, first as a shipbuilding center for schooners and Great Lakes freighters, then, during World War II, as one of the unlikeliest submarine manufacturers in the country — a landlocked-feeling Wisconsin city that turned out 28 fleet submarines, launched sideways into the river because the channel was too narrow for a bow-first launch, then floated down the Mississippi to reach open ocean. Lia found that detail almost unbelievable until we saw the actual river and understood exactly why they had to get creative.

The USS Cobia and the Maritime Museum

The USS Cobia, a Gato-class submarine of the same design built here (though she served from a different shipyard), is now permanently docked beside the Wisconsin Maritime Museum and open for full self-guided tours through every compartment — torpedo rooms, the cramped galley, officers’ bunks stacked inches apart. Climbing through the narrow hatches gave us a visceral sense of what a wartime patrol must have felt like, sealed underwater for weeks with dozens of other men in a space barely wider than a hallway.

The car ferry and the lakefront

Manitowoc is also the mainland port for the SS Badger, a coal-fired car ferry that’s crossed Lake Michigan to Ludington, Michigan since 1953 and remains the last such ferry operating on the Great Lakes — we watched it depart from the lakefront one evening, its distinctive black-and-white hull pulling out past the breakwater, a genuine working relic rather than a tourist reenactment. Afterward we walked the quiet lakefront park as the shipyard cranes across the river went dark for the night.

Getting There

Green Bay Austin Straubel International Airport (GRB) is the closest with commercial service, about 45 minutes north. Milwaukee Mitchell International (MKE) is roughly an hour and a half south. A car is necessary for getting around Manitowoc and reaching the ferry terminal.