First, creating wagon access at Woodruff in 1888, one year later. We made it, but had no time to lose, in a half an hour after we pulled the latch string on the dam-keepers shack, we sat down to just such a meal as a logging camp cook always knows how to spread before sportsman, who have been working hard and living on fish and grouse straight for a week. McMillan Lumber Company, McMillan. Thank you for sharing these wonderful photos and interesting history! Skilled drivers prodded them along. Actually, logging companies would release and rebuild dam reserves throughout the spring to flash logs downstream. Shortly after the ink was dry on the 1837 and 1842 treaties ceding Ojibwa lands to the government, timber cruisers were systematically surveying the newly available land (especially near robust river systems). Of further interest, the U.S. Census marked 1890 as the end of a continuous frontier line, as the great American Western frontier had been tamed by the completion of railroads and settlement practices. P. 12. So they'd keep the gates closed on the dam until they'd get a head of water and a load of logs behind it. Group tours and weekends by appointment. 1360 Regent Street #121 More specifics regarding logging communities, mills, practices, technologies and traditions need to be explored, utilizing the thorough document by historians Paul Brenner, Michael Dunn and Malcolm Rosholt. Below is a list of all 242 camps in Wisconsin, organized by town. Malcolm Rosholt. Judicial documents reveal in 1887, the Chippewa River Improvement and Log Driving Company under the ownership/authority of Charles Henry received legislative charter to build the Rest Lake Dam. Consequently, Manitowish Waters created a private fire company run by town citizens, which remains as one of the few private fire companies in the state of Wisconsin. 16. The mills used huge saws powered by the rivers to cut the logs into boards. The bunkhouses the mess hall the barns and no doubt the blacksmith shop and maybe others. Lac Du Flambeau Historic Preservation Office. Here in the logging camp we findthree large buildings made of rough boards.This one is the blacksmith s For the purpose of clarity and consistency going forward, the Weyerhaeuser entity controlling the Rest Lake dam properties will be cited as Chippewa Lumber and Boom Company to align with nearly all modern historic accounts. And then they'd open up the dams and what that caused was raise the river down below the dam for quite a ways and it would sluice the logs down over maybe so, Log jam and hoist/boom bewteen Vance and Sturegon Lakes. Wisconsin Historical Society. contract and responsible for the logging site complies with the Wisconsin Sustainable Forestry Initiative (SFI) Training Standard as adopted by the Wisconsin SFI Implementation Committee (SIC). State Conservation Commission of Wisconsin for the Fiscal years of 1921 to 1922. electricity for the Sawmill complex and the village. The Mission is "the public education of Wisconsin forest history, multiple-use sustained yield forest management, and people and their environment." Camp 5 Museum Foundation is a 501(c)(3) Non-Profit operating the Wisconsin Forestry Museum and Laona and Northern Railroad. An industry that built the city of Eau Claire, and in the 19th century supplied more lumber than anywhere else in the country. (23) The Milwaukee Road line from Boulder Jct. Page 1607. Even though the mountain rivers in the video have steeper gradients than Manitowish Waters, the rapids above Sturgeon Lake also suffered terrible logjams requiring an operating log boom during the river drive era. State of Wisconsin Collection. p.61-71. Image # 97107. Begin or dive deeper into researching your family tree, Learn about the spaces, places, & unique story of your community, The largest North American Heritage collection after the Library of Congress. Retrieved 1-26-2018. In his book 100 Years of Pictorial and Descriptive History of Wisconsin Rapids (1934), T. A. Taylor describes a typical menu: In the early camp days the main bill of fare was salt pork, navy beans, and flour. Below, Michael Dunn provides an excellent overview of seasonal logging practices supporting Manitowish Waters phase 1 white pine river drive logging: The Chippewa Lumber and Boom Co. opened the logging age here. The population of the United States was growing rapidly between the 1870's and 1900's and there was a demand for lumber to help expand settlers west and to build more cities and towns. In spite of immediate and strenuous objections by Ojibwa leaders, missionaries, and some government agents, the treaties of 1837 and 1842 were enforced to largely benefit Euro-American commerce and settlement. (75), At this point, the timeline of phase 2 logging in the Manitowish Waters area is mostly complete. Rail access to nearby Manitowish and Powell rail stations provided both supplies and passengers to support a budding tourist industry all before 1900. 57 http://mwlibrary.blogspot.com/search/label/logging. Retrieved 1-26-2018. Vilas County. Able to accommodate logs delivered by both water and roads his family created a small but well-engineered system. (26) Interestingly, after extensively researching and documenting a 25 foot head of water at the original dam site located a few meters downstream of the outlet of Vance lake, in 1880 the U.S. Congress changed the height of the dam to 15 feet. Manitowish Waters role in regional logging vacillated throughout the late 19th and early 20th centuries. And then they had a steam boat which would haul these rafts to the quiet water. Retrieved 2-15-2018. Retrieved 2-15-2018. Even more notable, the alleged trespassing and timber stealing occurred while the United States was shifting human resources to fight the Civil War, limiting enforcement of timber trespass laws. By the 1850s, emerging logging operations in the Chippewa Valley followed logging practices from New England and sent timber cruisers to Manitowish Waters. Michael J. Dunn, III. Jokingly, he referred to the lake bottoms as our Home Depot., Rice Creek BridgeProvider's name: Ticket to Buswell Facebook page URL: https://www.facebook.com/TicketToBuswell/photos/a.1635977279981942.1073741829.1635294486716888/1681200825459587/?type=3&theater. Cut-over land in northern Wisconsin, ca. Thus, keeping loggers tethered to the logging company and making economic mobility difficult. Manitowish Waters Historical Society 30 http://mwlibrary.blogspot.com/search/label/devine%20family. Wisconsin. It took almost all summer and the efforts of up to two hundred men to push the drive all the way to its Chippewa Falls area destination. The Dingle was a cold space that essentially linked the bunkhouse to the cook house/dining area. View the original source document: WHI 94178. 60 http://content.wisconsinhistory.org/cdm/singleitem/collection/maps/id/1572/rec/4. Michael J. Dunn, III. Enjoy a nice lunch at the Choo-Choo hut. Manitowish Waters Historical Society. 1 State of Wisconsin Collections. .P. During that time, it's open 10 a.m. - 3 p.m. Tuesday - Saturday. Many practices, cultural behaviors, traditions, and technologies migrated to phase 2 railroad logging. State Forest Reserves. Commercial plat books for Wisconsin are generally prepared by private map publishing companies in conjunction with county governments. Koller Library. Arguably, the most significant Manitowish Waters phase 2 logging route was the Chicago Northwestern line access to a government logging spur line for the Flambeau Lumber Company, beginning just south of the Powell depot to Little Star Lake by 1900. He and my Mother became sweethearts when she delivered food to him at the logging camp. In the lake states the examination of timberlands became a highly skilled trade. (55) Turner further argues, the frontier is the outer edge of the wave-- the meeting point between savagery and civilization.(56) Turners late 19th century scholarship guided frontier analysis for nearly a century. The State Historical Society of Wisconsin: Madison. Road access was also available to the Loveless lumber enterprise, a track systems could move logs and processed lumber overland to organized unprocessed logs and finished lumber. Investigations by the camp doctor revealed the disease bearing vector for the outbreak was a communal wash cloth for washing loggers hands and face. (16) Early pioneers faced additional obstacles in owning their homesteads, including: liability for back taxes, recording fees, fines, and professional support to navigate survey complexities to ensure a deeds accuracy. Paul Brenner. We arose the next morning at the usual rise in time and logging camps, 2 o'clock, and long before daylight we were ready to start. (43). One of the greatest logging and lumber traditions in the Manitowish Waters area was the Loveless families Phase 3 logging enterprise on Alder Lake. Since 1934, the Wisconsin Logging Museum invited visitors to step back in time to experience a time when Wisconsin Pine was filling out rivers and supplying a growing nation. Madison, Wisconsin 53715-1255, View RecollectionWisconsins profile on Facebook, View UCmHTkq5FI2puKBqT_TDQ3Dgs profile on YouTube, The Toolkit Blog: Digital Projects Support, The Iconography of the Chippewa Valley Lumberjack 1869 to 1913, Early Statehood, the Civil War, and Reconstruction, Industrialization, Agriculture, Urbanization, and Labor, The Wisconsin Idea, the Progressive Era, and World War I, http://wisconsinhistoricalmarkers.blogspot.com/2013/03/wabeno-logging-museum.html, Things to do in the Wisconsin Northwoods-Watch a Lumberjack - Linda Aksomitis, http://smulansblog.blogspot.se/2006/09/det-kom-ett-brev.html. Humbly, avoiding drinking and brawling, Loveless worked diligently as a builder, hunter, lumber camp cook, trapper, market fisherman and guide.(82). Pages 73. Boulder Junction The Early Years: 1880 to 1950. Etiquette demands that when one has knocked an enemy down he shall stamp upon him or pound him. May-Sept: Daily Mon-Sat: 10am-4:30pm, Sun: 1pm-4:30pm. The lunch carrier built a fire to warm up thetea or coffee, but the food, which was supposed tobe hot, often froze, not because it was not hot,but because the tin plates the food was served onwere ice cold. 37 http://mwlibrary.blogspot.com/search/label/logging. 9 https://mwhistory.org/menu-page-for-maps-and-journals/maps-folder/original-survey-maps-from-the-manitowish-waters-area-1860s/manitowish-waters-42-05-east-1862/. Not surprisingly, local pioneers and logging operators accessed timber on the vast properties of absentee land and lumber barons, trespassing to capture their slice of the American Dream.(17) Later, as communities sprung-up in counties where the Pine Land Ring held significant lands, county agents retaliated with manipulative tax policies, high public salaries, and new public works projects which cut into cartel profit margins. From the 1850s until the first documented Rest Lake dam construction in 1888 timber cruisers were moving through the region on a regular basis to give feedback to land agents who served: speculators, universities, railroads, and logging companies. Notes have been provided to indicate what is on each map so you can download the right map for what you need. (68), 1909 Milwaukee Road Map Wisconsin Historical Society Digital ID: GX9028 V69 1909 P Image ID: WHI 98378. Koller Library. Since 1934 the Wisconsin Logging Museum has invited visitors to step back in time to experience an age when Wisconsin Pine was filling out rivers and supplying a growing nation. Buswell was just a few miles north of the northeast corner of Manitowish Waters Township, and sprung-up immediately upon the arrival of the Milwaukee Road Railroad. In Manitowish Waters, residents had the unique opportunity to use pike poles to reach up to 20 feet in lakes to retrieve logs that sunk during earlier steamboat rafting operations. Early Island Lake pioneer, Abe LaFave had strong ties to Buswell and his children attended the Buswell School. 1943. First to the dam and then later on to these different hoists. Eagle River, WI 12-21-2017. Share. Unfortunately not where we could see any logs going through it. While, Malcolm Rosholts publication, Lumbermen on the Chippewa, is fantastically illustrated, supported by strong research, and is arguably the most comprehensive publication on Wisconsin northwoods logging, found at: http://content.mpl.org/cdm/compoundobject/collection/mcml/id/3757/rec/1. An early sportsman adventurer traveling from the rail stops at Eagle River to Manitowish by canoe describes the Rest Lake camp in 1890: The dam was 3 miles below and we were trying to reach it before dark. Wisconsin's oldest standing logging camp in its original location. The legacy of lumber companies helping tribal interests are mixed at best. Explore more than 1,600 people, places and events in Wisconsin history. James P. Kaysen. Because the Wisconsin River provided easy transport between forests and early settlements, forests along the river were the first to be clear-cut. Long distances between supplies and markets, bad transportation and dangerous waterways and roads made lumbering difficult. $20 Kid's BOO-gie Run) Wisconsin Logging Museum (Paul Bunyan Logging Camp) in Carson Park *8:15 am--Group Photo with Paul & Babe *8:30 am5K & 10-mile run/walk start *10:30 amAwards ceremony & Halloween costume contest . Our Dad then worked at our local Sawmill for about 30 years. This other picture is the Boulder Lake Dam. Today, residents and visitors in Manitowish Waters can enjoy drinks and dining on the same historic logging camp property at the Pea Patch Saloon. With the arrival of railroads to the Manitowish area in 1889 the settlement of this pocket of the Northwoods frontier mirrored the American West.
