Allouez Village Hall is located at 1900 Libal Street, Green Bay, WI 54301.
Phone: 920‑448‑2800.
Neighborhoods
The Village of Allouez's [†] governmental history can be understood as a series of choices made to avoid annexation from its large municipal neighbors, Green Bay and DePere. Decades before incorporation, Allouez sought to provide its citizens with services to compete for development with neighboring municipalities. This pattern was not uncommon in communities neighboring large cities in Wisconsin during the twentieth century.
A petition to form a new town from the western portion of the Town of Bellevue, that was cut off from the larger eastern portion of the town by the East River was accepted by the Brown County Board of Supervisors in 1874, creating the Town of Allouez. Spurred by the new town's first large-scale industrial activity later that decade, steady agricultural and residential development of the town continued. Due to the growing number of residents and the town's location between the cities of Green Bay and DePere, an electric suburban streetcar line connecting the two cities was extended through Allouez in 1896. Around the turn of the twentieth century, several institutions chose Allouez for a new suburban location, including the St. Joseph Orphan Asylum in 1877, the new Wisconsin State Reformatory in 1898, and the Catholic Diocese of Green Bay in 1911. To aid in governing the growing town, a small wood frame building was constructed to serve as the town's first town hall in 1912.
By the 1920s, residential subdivisions began to be platted in the Town of Allouez on the outskirts of the Cities of Green Bay and De Pere. To promote further residential development of the rural town and avoid annexation into these cities, the Allouez Town Board established a series of utility services in 1924. Suburban residential development continued steadily through the mid-twentieth century. By 1970, the Town of Allouez had a population of 13,573. With a limit to available land left for development, a master plan for the town was completed that year, recommending controlling the location of commercial development, promoting select multi-family residential development, and advising the development of more educational and recreational facilities.
As the second most populous municipality in Brown County in 1971, with a population of 15,000 residents, the Allouez Town Board began procedures to incorporate as a Village. At four and one-half square miles, the town exceeded the State's minimum area requirement for incorporation as a village by half a square mile. By obtaining village status, the town hoped to avoid further annexation into the cities of De Pere or Green Bay, have better access to state and federal funding, and gain increased zoning authority. A petition requiring 50 signatures was circulated and filed to the Brown County Circuit Court in early 1972; however, the bid to incorporate failed to pass at referendum.
To better provide municipal services and prevent annexation into the cities of Green Bay and De Pere, the Town of Allouez again sought incorporation as a Village in 1985. The referendum passed, officially incorporating the Village of Allouez that year. Since that time, the Village has fully developed and matured as one of Green Bay's upper-middle class residential suburbs.
† Adapted from:Rowan Davidson, Associate AIA&Jennifer Lehrke, AIA, LEED AP, NCARB. Legacy Architecture, Inc., Neufeld, Albert C. and Ellen H., House, 2017, nomination document, National Register of Historic Places, Washington, D.C.
Nearby Towns: De Pere City •