The city of Kimberly faced a terrible problem in 1913. Today we are more careful with what we do with our garbage and waste, but at that time, people did not understand the importance of keeping their homes and yards clean. Often, garbage from homes was simply put outside and left there to decay. There was no plumbing, so people had outhouses. The human waste was left to decay too. Many people had farm animals and did not take care of the animal waste either. All of the garbage in the community started to cause a terrible problem. Flies quickly found a place to live in and around the garbage. Many people's homes were filled with flies and they could not get rid of them.

Leaders at the Kimberly-Clark paper mill saw that the flies were a nuisance. At that time, it was also believed that flies could be very dangerous to the health of the residents. Kimberly-Clark began a program to help clean up the community and to make people more aware of how they could change their lifestyles to control this environmental problem. The idea was to teach people to live more safely.

The first task was to show people how to properly store garbage. They were given garbage barrels with tops to keep the flies out. Residents were taught to keep their animal manure in a covered pit. They were told to put screens on their windows and doors. It was important to cover all food. People were told never to eat any food that a fly had landed on. Directions were given for installing a screen around baby beds, and people were warned to keep flies away from a baby's bottle. Sticky fly paper was also hung in homes to trap flies.

Kimberly-Clark managers decided to offer a prize for those who kept their yards clean and free of flies. In the summer of 1913, they held "The Back Yard Contest." Back yards were inspected. The yard that was most clean, had their garbage properly kept, and had no flies won the prize. First prize was $2.00 and second prize was $1.00. In 1913, these prizes were valuable and everyone wanted to win. People became more careful with their garbage, and the yards in Kimberly began to slowly become cleaner. The numbers of flies dropped as a result of people working together!

Source: "Kimberly-- A Village With a Future" Neenah: The Kimberly-Clark Company. 1913-1914. Pamphlet at the Kimberly Public Library.

Art Kaftan was a fencing champion. Fencing is a sport that uses swords with dull tips. When people fence, they do mock battle with the swords. You may have seen fencing in a TV show, and you probably played with make-believe swords when you were younger.

Can you imagine being in a serious sword fight? If you practice fencing, you will probably learn to get used to the feelings of doing battle. Art Kaftan got used to the feelings, and it's good for the rivers and streams of Wisconsin that he did.

When Mr. Kaftan was a young man, the young people of the Green Bay area would hold dances at Bay Beach park. They would gather there on a weekend night, listen to music, and meet their friends. Only a few people had cars at this time, and sometimes Mr. Kaftan would get to Bay Beach by paddling his canoe. As he paddled across the mouth of the Fox River one late afternoon, young Art saw the pollution coming from the river into the Green Bay. He knew that Green Bay was part of Lake Michigan, and that the lake had once been a very clean home to fish and other creatures.

There at the mouth of the river, he saw that the river had become like a large sewer pipe. Coming into the lake was a messy, stinky, dirty flow of water. In the water were pieces of wooden boxes, rotting pieces of vegetables, and wet blobs of gooey gunk. The mess had come from the homes and factories of the lower Fox valley from communities like Appleton, Kaukauna, De Pere and Green Bay. There were blobs that floated near the surface of the water and looked dark and long, like logs. People joked that these were the Fox River "alligators." Actually, the alligators were clumps of wood fibers from the factories that were located on the shores of the river.

At that time, factories and homes dumped just about any waste they had into the river. Art Kaftan thought things should be different, but he wasn't sure at first just what he could do. He decided to speak out. Where does a person speak out about pollution?

Mr. Kaftan found that he could do some good by attending meetings about pollution. He decided that he would speak out at these meetings. He said pollution should be stopped. He talked about ideas for controlling pollution. "We can stop the pollution," he said. Not everyone agreed with him. "No, we can't stop it," they said. "The problem is just too big." Like a swordsman, Kaftan fought back. "Yes, we can." Back and forth the argument went. It was a lot like the sword contests he had been in during college. Kaftan was used to the feelings of challenge. In the end, what he said made a difference. Things were done to reduce pollution, and the rivers of Wisconsin were made cleaner.

Source: Oral history archives of the Fox/Wolf Rivers Environmental History Project , State Historical Society of Wisconsin at UW-Green Bay.