When the first settlers arrived in the Sheboygan area early in the 1830s, they found seemingly endless pine forests and stands of hardwood covering the county. Because lake transportation was the lifeblood of the early community and timber was abundant, a shipbuilding industry arose in the area. Over a period of 45 years, ten different shipyards operated along the banks of the Sheboygan River, including Rieboldt and Walters, the largest, at the present Reiss Coal Company site, as well as the Olsen Roths dock, Olsen Sheboygan Chair Company dock, Johnson dock, Huntley Tannery dock, Phoenix dock, the gas company dock, Madewell Chair Company dock, and Crocker A dock. These yards employed thousands of skilled craftsmen and laborers and built ships of all types, from small sailing craft to large steamers. Milwaukee's first fire boat, the Cataract, was built at the Rieboldt and Walters shipyard in Sheboygan in 1889. In later years Rieboldt and Walters moved its operations to the Sturgeon Bay area. By the late 1890s, the number of ships on the Great Lakes had begun to decline, the age of the wooden ship was nearly over, the vast forests of central Wisconsin were depleted, timber supplies lay ever farther north, and iron and steel were becoming the preferred materials for shipbuilding. One by one the shipyards closed, with some moving to other cities better able to accommodate the construction of metal hulls. During the mid- to late 1800s, Sheboygan's shipyards produced over a hundred ships of all types to sail and steam throughout the Great Lakes. Today all of Sheboygan's shipyards are gone.