Tech has helped shape downtown Sheboygan, from wooden sidewalks to paying for parking with a phone app

SHEBOYGAN — Technology, in one way or another, has changed the face of Sheboygan's Eighth Street through the years.

During the city's infancy back in the 19th century, streets were void of modern pavement and featured wooden sidewalks along storefronts.

In 1872, gas lamps began to provide illumination for city streets, which later switch to electricity. Today's LED lights brighten the way with far more efficient bulbs than the early lamps seen in vintage photos.

Several Eighth Street icons, such as the Stefanie H. Weill Center for the Performing Arts, have updated their lighting system to LED lights to vastly increase lighting efficiency.

According to the City of Sheboygan website, horse-drawn street cars began operation in 1885. Electric cars replaced horses only 10 years later. During the early part of the 20th century, a trolley helped people get from place to place in Sheboygan. Many Sheboyganites would take a trolley to catch trains to distant cities in the days before interstate freeways.

The trolley system only lasted until 1940, when technology in the form of gas-powered buses replaced them. The last passenger train departed the city in 1971 with only 20 passengers on board.

Today's transportation is seeing yet another transition, according to a Sheboygan Press article a few years back. The city is expected to get an electric bus as part of a settlement from Volkswagen's diesel emission debacle several years ago. That bus has yet to arrive.

However, electric scooters from the Bird company arrived in 2021 and have been a summer feature ever since. In fact, the first year the scooters traveled some 55,000 miles according to a Press article.

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If you park a car in Sheboygan today, you have additional options for paying for parking if you lack change in your pocket. Shoreline Metro, the parking utility in Sheboygan, now will let you pay for parking using an app on your cell phone, Android or iPhone. You will need to download an app called HotSpot Parking Transit Taxis.

With the app, you can pay for your downtown parking with credit card information you input when you sign up or pay for on the spot using the QR code with your smart phone.

If you are unlucky enough to overstay your parking time, you can pay your ticket using one of three methods, according to the Sheboygan Police website: online payment, phone payment and in-person payment are all accepted.

Back in the 1950s, downtown had several movie houses. Only one of the original movie houses, the 1929 Sheboygan Theater, still stands as a theater. However, it no longer shows first-run movies. Rather, the facility has been converted into the Stefanie H. Weill Center for the Performing Arts. The advent of television had a strong impact on movie houses.

Getting a telegram was common in the later part of the 19th century and for most of the 20th century. According to history enthusiast Fritz Goebel, Western Union Telegraph Co. moved its offices from 527 N. Eighth St. to 528 N. Eighth St. when the building was razed for a new hotel and convention center now known as the Travelodge by Wyndham. Western Union, as a company, would close its doors in 2006 when it shipped the last telegram.

Even streets were changed in the 1970s. When Plaza 8 was developed, cars were kicked off the street and the ill-fated pedestrian mall was created as an attempt to save downtown retail establishments. However, the California-based designers didn't think to factor in Wisconsin's cold winters. For many years, one-way streets circled the city's downtown and would continue until a few years ago. After the pedestrian mall was deemed a failure, streets were put back in when Richard Schneider was mayor.

Today, one of the constants of Sheboygan is that change is never-ending.

Gary C. Klein can be reached at 920-453-5149 or gklein@gannett.com. Follow him on X (formerly Twitter) at @leicaman99.