Great Lakes Patrol assigned to operate against criminals who were ravaging the logging industry. These so called timber pirates conducted illegal cutting of timber on federal land and then smuggled the valuable commodity out of the area in order to sell it. The areas most affected were in the western Great Lakes region, along the coasts of Michigan, Wisconsin, Illinois and Minnesota. Much of these forested areas controlled by the government were reserved for the building of new warships. The illegal timber trade centered on Chicago and Milwaukee. It was nearly as violent as the alcohol trade, which was carried out over the
Fountain of the Great Lakes Beaux-Arts training that lent itself well to allegorical sculpture. For "Fountain of the Great Lakes", Taft claimed an inspiration from the Greek mythology. Danaus ordered his 49 daughters to kill their husbands and condemned them to delivering water to a bottomless vessel in Hades. This was in keeping with Taft's penchant for classical inspiration although this was a loose association where the number of daughters was reduced from 49 to 5 and the artist's task did not seem to be nearly as cruel as the mythological one. Fountain of the Great Lakes Fountain of the Great Lakes, or Spirit of