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 the time of the dedication, Taft described the Ferguson Fund commission to sculpt the fountain as a turning point in his career that led to increased publicity, more commissions, and growing recognition in the community, which combined to give him the encouragement for further commitment to the arts. He hoped that the "Fountain of the Great Lakes" would mark a new era of civic beautification and that it would also mark the beginning of the Chicago school of sculpture. The dream that Chicago would be the epicenter of the sculpting universe had been bred during the World's Columbian Exposition twenty