HISTORIES: "In the Beginning" of Barron, Barron County, WI ==================================================================== USGENWEB NOTICE: In keeping with our policy of providing free information on the Internet, data may be used by non-commercial entities, as long as this message remains on all copied material. These electronic pages may NOT be reproduced in any format for profit or for presentation by other persons or organizations. Persons or organizations desiring to use this material for purposes other than stated above must obtain the written consent of the file contributor, or the legal representative of the contributor, and contact the listed USGenWeb archivist with proof of this consent. The submitter has given permission to the USGenWeb Archives to store the file permanently for free access. This file was contributed for use in the USGenWeb Archives by: Linda Mott 24 June 2000 ==================================================================== In the Beginning One hundred years ago, John Quaderer, then 31 years old, arrived on what is now the site of the City of Barron. He was born in Switzerland in 1829 and came to America in 1852. In 1860 the outbreak of the tragic Civil War was still one year away and Wisconsin had become a state only 12 years before (1848). What is now Barron County and the areas which surrounded it was a vast wilderness of giant white pines and hardwood forests. John Quaderer was a foreman employed by Knapp Stout and Company. Like all large organizations this lumber firm started in a small way and as the years went by, it grew into an industrial giant. It established sawmills at Rice Lake, Menomonie, Dubuque, Iowa, and at St. Louis, Missouri. In 1873 this firm owned 115,000 acres of pine lands along the Chippewa and Menomonie Rivers. In 1879-1880 it added another 100,000 acres to its holdings. Some of this land was purchased from the Government for $1.25 per acre. At one time this firm operated six farms in Dunn and Barron Counties totaling about 7,000 acres to produce vegetables, pork and flour to feed its hungry crews. In one year its busy saw mills produced 55,000,000 feet of lumber, 20,000,000 shingles and 20,000,000 lath and pickets. Twelve hundred men were on the payroll of its logging and saw mill crews. Company stores in 1873 sold $750,000 worth of merchandise. In the 1870s Knapp Stout and Company was reputed to be the largest lumber company in the world. It carried on operations in Barron County and adjacent counties for over 50 years. Mr. Quaderer built a logging camp on the south bank of Quaderer Creek and opposite what is now the Court House Square, and also a small company store. In 1874 he also built a hotel which was known as the Quaderer House, for many years. For a while its upper floor was used as a court house. Mr. Quaderer acquired title to much land along Quaderer Creek and the Yellow River. His name probably appears on nearly all abstracts involving real estate in the City of Barron. In 1876 he gave the block now called "Court House Square" to Barron County to be used for the location of a Court House. The first court house, built on Court House Square, was built in 1876. It was a frame building and faced Quaderer Creek. N.M. Rockman and his bride, early pioneers, used part of this building as a home, for some time. In this year Charles S. Taylor was appointed District Attorney. For a time he and his wife lived in a small log cabin. In later years N.M. Rockman served as Barron County treasurer for a period of 21 years. The first county jail was completed in 1879. It was located on the North side of La Salle Avenue across the street from the present court house. This jail was a two story frame building and cost $800. The Sheriff's family occupied the second floor. On July 2, 1876, Charles S. Taylor wrote the following letter to his wife shortly after he arrived here. He wrote from Rice Lake, then called Rice Lake Mills. "At Barron there is a hotel (a good large one painted white and tolerably furnished inside, in which are the county offices, two rooms); and a large new barn belonging to the hotel. Across the road is a little store in which is also a postoffice. There are two small, new residences, one of hewn logs and the other a frame, I believe. The county house is now being erected, it is all enclosed. There is a blacksmith shop, small, and about a half mile away, a homesteader's house. This comprises the sum total of the seat of justice of the County of Barron. The place is in the midst of woods, except that the owners of the place, has perhaps, cleared. But oh, what a difficult 'get-at-able place' it is. Sixteen miles of almost unbroken woods from Prairie Farm. Then such roads, mud and ruts, pine stumps and oak. On the way are quite a number of homesteaders little clearings and one schoolhouse, also the old S.K. Young schoolhouse, northeast of Prairie Farm. The timbered land between Prairie Farm and Barron is considerably over half hardwood, of great density and beauty, the rest is either pine or pine and hardwood mixed, with considerable pine clearing. A marked peculiarity of the pine lands here is that the soil is excellent on most of them, the hardwood lands are all good, of course. Between Rice Lake and Barron, twelve miles, over half the distance is heavily wooded with hardwood, part of the distance is covered with pine, or has been so covered, with part of the land of a light soil." Some time after Mrs. Taylor arrived here she wrote: "Picture to yourselves a little hamlet in the woods, having a hotel and a tiny store across Quaderer Creek and on this side a new frame courthouse just ready for occupancy, a small printing office where the Barron County Shield was started October 10, 1876, a saloon, and two or three dwellings. On the courthouse grounds, around the dwellings and in the streets were trees and pine stumps. All north and east of the courthouse square was forest, there was not even a street opened there." --From the Souvenir Historical Album of the Barron Centennial-1960 (used by permission)