HISTORY OF THE CHIPPEWA VALLEY - CHAPTER 41


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Faithful Record of all Important Events, Incidents, and
Circumstances that have Transpired in the Valley of the
Chippewa from its Earliest Settlement by White People,
Indian Treaties, Organization of the Territory and State;
Also of the Counties Embracing the Valley, Senatorial,
Assembly and Congressional Districts, and a Brief
Biographical Sketch of the Most Prominent Persons in the
Settlement of the Valley. BY Thomas E. Randall 1875.  Free
Press Print.  Eau Claire, Wisconsin

CHAPTER 41

As long ago as 1850 a law was passed for the organization of
Dallas County, the territory which lies mostly in this
valley and drained by the Red Cedar. Aside from the wealth
of pine timber, much of the soil is very rich, which of late
has induced many farmers to avail themselves of the
homestead law and secure homes there. It was at first
included in the eleventh judicial district, but
subsequently, in 1865, was attached to the eighth, and in
1868, after several modifications of its boundaries, its
name was changed to Barron, and it was attached to Dunn
County for judicial purposes until 1872, when it was
detached there from and the year following organized for
judicial purposes; the first term of court, however, was
held in October last, 1874, but as there is no jury cases on
the calendar, we may infer that the settlers up there are
very peaceable.

Knapp, Stout & Company, have a mill at the outlet of Rice
Lake, where a flourishing village has started up, and where
until recently, the county offices and courts have been
held, but a vote of the electors lately taken, the county
seat is removed to Quarderer's Camp (Barron), some six or
eight miles west and south of the former place.

Considerable dissatisfaction exists at this result, and the
probability is that its removal is only a question of time,
as several of the county officers refuse to recognize the
decision of the vote.

The prejudice against the aforesaid company induced the
settlers to vote for the removal, but this will probably
soon die out and harmony be restored.

An important decision had just been rendered in the Supreme
Court in suit brought by several non-residents holders of
land in this county to set aside the sale of lands for taxes
on account of illegality in their assessment. Held, that the
assessment and sale was informal and void.

A portion of the lands donated by Congress, in 1856, for the
benefit of the St. Croix and Lake Superior, now known as the
North Wisconsin Railway, lies in this county, and being
drained by the Red Cedar, some of them have suffered from
the depredations of loggers, for which suits are now pending
to recover damages.

Repeated efforts have been made in the legislature, by the
non-residents proprietors of lands in Chippewa County, to
create a new county there from , comprising the pine lands,
with a view to lighten the burdens of taxation, but so far
such attempts have proved fruitless, owing, probably, to the
fact that the resident population oppose the project.
Fraught, as the present arrangement is, with injustice, it,
nevertheless, has its advantages in the laying out of roads
through wild, uninhabited districts, so necessary to the
lumbermen in getting supplies to their camps. A wise
provision has been made an act by the legislature in
granting ten percent of the proceeds from the sale of swamp
lands in the county to construct bridges and open leading
highways, which has been of essential benefit both to
lumbermen and settlers on the soil, most of whom are
homesteaders. It has been noticed, however, that for a road
to derive any of these advantages, the lower terminus must
be Chippewa Falls. A State Road, authorized by the
legislature in 1868, extending from Eau Claire, via Bloomer,
to Ashland, is utterly ignored by the County Board of that
county, not even the cost of laying it out being allowed to
the commissioners appointed to the purpose. This is
perfectly natural, and there may have been some
irregularities in the survey or report justifying its
action.

Many of the upper branches of the Chippewa are crossed by
the line of the Central Railway, which, when completed, will
develop extensive settlements, and it is hoped may open
large mining operations in the portion of the valley.
Loggers already find the road very convenient in
transporting their men and supplies; the steam mills are
going up near the tracks as fast as the road is completed.

The completion of this road and the North Wisconsin,
obliquely crossing as they do in the northeastern and
northwestern sections of our valley, may develop its
resources but will necessarily divert much of the trade and
profit from other centers of business, which it seems as
though the people of this valley ought to have secured.

Railways, too, have proved terribly destructive to pine
timber wherever crossed by their tracks, as not method has
yet been devised to prevent sparks from the locomotive
setting fire to combustible material, as it speeds along on
its course.

These and the steam mills will undoubtedly destroy large
tracts of our most valuable timber, and it will be much to
be deplored if some of the railroads now contemplated shall
pierce and destroy the pine forests whose destruction is
already menaced, but which can be only accomplished by the
agency of fire. The organization of two new counties may be
expected to follow the completion of the Central Railway,
fifty-five miles of which is unfinished. A branch road from
a point called the Elbow to Chippewa Falls is contemplated,
which time and enterprise may eventually accomplish; and
from thence to intersect the North Wisconsin at some point
in Barron County, with the Chippewa Valley Road extended to
the Mississippi, would place that city in a most enviable
situation in regard to railway communication, without
threatening any serious danger to the pine timber, in whose
preservation every inhabitant of the Great West should feel
an interest. True, it is now being cut off with alarming
rapidity, but fire alone can stop its growth, and a health
forest of pine timber may be cut over every ten years, if
fire can be kept out and consume them.

A growing forest of towering pines is one of the grandest
sights in the world, and a standing monument of God's
goodness and provident care, and next to the grasses and
spontaneous fruit bearing trees and shrubs is, of all
inanimate things, the most convenient and valuable, as so
much ready capital to be appropriated by labor of human
wants; mines of gold and silver offer tempting prizes as the
reward of the toiler, and the rich soil of the prairies
promises abundant returns for the husbandman's labor, but
none of these yield results so surely and in so little time
- are not immediately available - as a pine forest out of
which to hew a fortune; hence, while the supply lasts, we
may expect the business to be overdone.

Scientific experiments will show the differences between the
old and the new machinery and methods in the manufacturing
of lumber.

The best work ever done by H.S. Allen and Company with the
old process and machinery - the mills having been enlarged
since by the addition of only one small gang - produced a
litter over seventeen million feet of lumber during the
season; now, with the same power, but with new wheels,
improved saws, and the most superior machinery produced by
modern invention, the Union Lumbering Company annually turns
out forty-five million feet of lumber of superior quality.
Rotary and gang saws, patent log turners, self-setting
carriages, machines for boring grub planks, saw setters and
saw files, with many other labor saving appliances are
employed, and driven by this splendid water power.

Experience has shown that lumber cannot be manufactured and
sent to market from miles above Chippewa Falls, so as to
compete with mills lower down on the river, and one after
another has succumbed to the unequal and adverse
circumstances, until scarcely a crib of lumber passes over
the raft-slides of the three great dams at the Falls, Paint
Creek, and Eagle Rapids. What use may yet be made of the
vast power, which these two upper dams afford, time alone
can determine; but so long as lumber must be rafted and run
to market, the waterpower of the lower dam, at the Falls,
will probably be used for its manufacture.

The city of Chippewa Falls is the headquarters for a very
large share of the lumber, or rather logging, operations on
the Chippewa; its future prosperity depends largely upon the
permanence and stability of the booming works at Paint Creek
and Eagle Rapids - works of immense strength, but the river
is every where hemmed in between high banks, affording
scarcely a cove, pocket, or lagoon where logs can lie safe
out of the surging current, and have not been tested by such
floods as have heretofore swept away in a day the earnings
of years. Should these works prove efficient against such
dangers, few localities in the Northwest occupy so
commanding a position as the city of Chippewa Falls. Its
citizens are noted for pluck, energy, and boundless
confidence in the future greatness of their city. No place,
perhaps, has been so unfortunate in the destruction of its
best hotels by fire. The first one, a large, three-story
structure, erected in 1856 by H.S. Allen and Company, was
destroyed two or three years later, rebuilt by Mr. Sellers
in 1862, took the name Tremont in 1865, under the
proprietorship of Mr. Pierce and Mr. Upham - men who know
how to keep a hotel - shared the fate of the former in 1870,
and the following summer saw a splendid five story brick
palace go up on the same site. It was erected by Mr. Pierce,
Mr. Upham, and William R. Hoyt, Esq., at an expense of more
than one hundred thousand dollars, contained over eighty
rooms, was lighted with gas and heated by steam, too costly
and extravagant in all its appointments for such a place at
that time, and when finished had completely bankrupted it
projectors, and the property being sold by the assignee,
came into the possession of George Winans, formerly a
Mississippi raft pilot, who took possession of the house
himself and probably would have made it a success in time,
but during his absence in the winter of 1873 the fire fiend
was let loose and this grand structure, the pride of the
whole valley, fell prey to its fury. Its loss was very much
deplored, and it will long live in the memory of the people
of this part of the State, as the scene of a very pleasant
gathering in the winter of 1871-2, of the old settlers of
the northwestern part of the State. It will probably never
be rebuilt. Soon after the Waterman House shared the same
fate, but phoenix like, it has risen from its ashes, and
with the Central, run by the old indomitable firm of Pierce
and Upham, and some new houses of lesser note, affords very
good hotel accommodations to the city and business
community.

In addition to the vast waterpower afforded by the Chippewa,
numerous dams have been erected on Duncan's Creek, and two
large flouring mills and two planing mills are in successful
operation on this stream, owned respectively by H.S. Allen,
McRae Brothers, and S.M. Newton and Company.

Besides many large business blocks and elegant private
residences, the city boasts of having the most imposing
courthouse in the valley, erected in 1873-4 and the cost of
$75,000.

Presbyterian, Methodist, Episcopal, and Catholic churches,
and two commodious graded school buildings, also adorn the
city. The soil of the surrounding county is generally
fertile, and is being rapidly settled by thriving farmers,
who find an excellent home market for all their produce in
the city. Two weekly newspapers are published here. The
Herald, published by Colonel Ginty, is ably conducted, is
the exponent of Republican principles, and has the public
patronage. The other, called the Avalanche, is owned by an
association and edited, at present, by a gentleman named
Hollister. Its politics are Conservative.

With all these and many other advantages, with its present
and prospective railroad facilities, and the growing
importance of its commerce, the city of Chippewa Falls
undoubtedly had a grand future before it. A thriving
tributary village has started up in the town of Bloomer,
known heretofore as Vanville, but lately changed to Bloomer.

Mr. Smith, Mr. Brooks, and Mr. McCauley have a flouring
mill, saw mill, and a shingle mill there driven by Duncan's
Creek. The village is fourteen miles from the city, has a
Congregational Church and a commodious graded schoolhouse.

In all that pertains to thrift and progress, Dunn County,
during and since the war, is not a whit behind the most
prosperous localities in the northwestern part of the State.
An intelligent, enterprising farming population have secured
homes in the fertile portions of the count, and the many
beautiful rural residences are seen in every township, and
the village of Menomonie has an imposing courthouse, two
Baptist, two Methodist Episcopal churches, one
Congregational, one Catholic, one Lutheran Scandinavian, and
an Episcopal Church edifice in process of erection, two
model graded schoolhouses, and a great many beautiful
private residences. In addition to their sawmills, Knapp,
Stout and Company have and extensive flouring mill, a very
large and commodious slaughter and packing house, and are
extensively engaged in farming in the neighborhood of the
village.

At Red Cedar Falls, six miles above Menomonie, S.A. Jewett
and Company have a sawmill and quite a village has sprung up
around it. The mill was erected by the Gilbert Brothers from
Gilbert's Creek, just before the commencement of the late
war. The present owners purchased a considerable amount of
pineland on the tributaries of the Red Cedar in 1855-6, and
have enlarged the mill to a second-class establishment. Its
capacity is about eight million feet per annum. Mr. Jewett
is from Bangor, Maine, and is connected with the banking
house of Jewett and March of that city.

One newspaper, the Dunn County News, is published at
Menomonie. It was started in 1859, by S.C. and E.B. Bundy,
with the title of Dunn County Lumberman, and is now
published by the Honorable R.G. Flint. It is a sound
Republican journal, and fully up with the times in all that
relates to the welfare of the county and village.

The Barron County Chronotype is a new paper just established
in that County, by S.C. Carpenter, but is now published by
R.F. Wilson, H.C. Putnam, and Knapp, Stout and Company.