St. Croix Riverway Time and the River: A History of the Saint Croix

CHAPTER 2:
River of Pine (continued)

Corporate Control of the St. Croix

Of all the lumber barons of the St. Croix the most powerful was the barrel-chested, bald-headed, Isaac Staples. A contemporary described him as "restless, alert, far-seeking, systematic, and persistent." No single man controlled more of the vast pine forest than he did. No single man logged as much timber each year. No single man milled as much lumber. He had virtually created the powerful St. Croix Boom Company and controlled its vital operations through his ownership of its stock. He was the valley's biggest and most successful farmer, and as President of the Lumberman's National Bank one of its most important bankers. Minnesota politicians anxious for advancement courted Staples favor while throughout the valley thousands of breadwinners traced their paychecks to his enterprises. He arrived a stranger in 1853 and remained to flourish as the presiding patriarch of St. Croix logging for the next generation. [73]

Isaac Staples came to the St. Croix as the representative of eastern investors. It was their financial resources that allowed him to build a firm foundation for his logging venture. His share of the profits, however, was substantial enough that over time he was able to purchase a controlling interest in Hersey, Staples & Company, in partnership with Maine businessman Samuel F. Hersey. With Hersey in Maine Staples had a free hand in handling the firm's business on the St. Croix, nonetheless, he eventually cut his ties with the Hersey family and by the 1880s operated his extensive business interests with complete independence. Of all the young Maine men who came to the valley in the wake of the 1837 Indian treaty, Isaac Staples had scrambled to the top of the sawdust mountain. This success and his overarching influence made him as resented as he was respected.

Yet, for all his success by 1885 Isaac Staples, perched in his Victorian mansion high on a bluff with the valley spread out before his feet, represented the past not the future of the St. Croix lumber industry. The sixty-nine year old magnet perceived issues from the older, frontier era perspective of individual ownership and influence. The patriarch did not appreciate that since steam power had welded the entire nation into a single market, the real opportunities in business would in future go to those who could combine small local producers into efficient and rational combinations. Most of his rivals made the same mistake. During the 1880s the parlors, restaurants, and exchanges where Stillwater lumbermen met were abuzz with speculation that Isaac Staples was vulnerable. In looking so intently for the patriarch's weak spots, the Stillwater men did not see their own vulnerability. When Staples allowed the erasable and eccentric Martin Mower to purchase a controlling interest in the St. Croix Boom Company, it seemed to confirm that the patriarch was losing his grip. In 1885, the Stillwater lumbermen fought a prolonged duel over who would hold the lucrative post of Surveyor General in the Stillwater District. The surveyor scaled all logs entering the St. Croix boom. Although it was a state position, the surveyor was paid by the lumber companies a hefty price for all logs scaled. The Lumberman's Board of Trade favored Judson McKusick, a member of a clan of mill operators and politicians involved in the city since its founding. Isaac Staples sought to demonstrate his suzerainty over his rivals by forcing the appointment of Adolphus Hospes, his son-in-law. When both men tried to carry out the office, the shipment of lumber downriver was disrupted by sheriff's actions, court orders, and law suits. The dispute ended with Staples imposing his will upon his rivals and forcing them to capitulate. [74]

While the Stillwater lumbermen wrangled amongst themselves, a new force began to assert itself on the St. Croix -- the Mississippi River Logging Company. Formed in 1870 by mill owners along the Mississippi between St. Louis and Winona, the company's goal was to guarantee a steady flow of logs from the forests of Wisconsin to their large steam powered mills on the great river. During the 1870s they had fought a bitter duel with lumbermen based in Eau Claire, Wisconsin for control over the Chippewa River. The Eau Claire men resented that the Mississippi River Logging Company intended to take the lion's share of Chippewa River pine to out of state mills. Wisconsin timber, they reasoned, should be used to provide Wisconsin jobs and build Wisconsin communities–and enrich Wisconsin businessmen. But after a decade of cold war on the river and all out opposition in the courts the Eau Claire lumbermen finally agreed to accept the Mississippi River Logging Company. The man behind this successful campaign was a German immigrant of true business genius, Frederick Weyerhaeuser. Not only did he harmonize the diverse interests of the many Mississippi mill owners, Weyerhaeuser was able to convince the Eau Claire lumber companies of the advantages of bringing the entire Chippewa River valley under the control of one rational, systematic management. Under Weyerhaeuser's guidance Chippewa River logging was done in the usual independent manner. But once logs were put into the river, the jointly owned company that controlled all aspects of the river managed them. Mill owners were delivered a guaranteed percentage of the drive. Conflict was minimized and everybody made a healthy profit. [75]

Mills involved with the Weyerhaeuser combination had long purchased lumber from the St. Croix valley. Unlike the Chippewa River mill owners, the St. Croix lumbermen expressed no jealousy about logs being milled downstream, perhaps because by the time Mississippi rafts were being formed, valley businessmen had already derived a profit from cutting and driving the logs. But as the Chippewa River valley was transformed into a cutover wasteland the partners of the Mississippi River Logging Company began to look to the St. Croix as their principal source of supply.

One of the first steps taken by the Weyerhaeuser partners into the St. Croix involved the founding of the town of Hayward, Wisconsin. It was merely a railroad siding on the recently completed North Wisconsin Railroad until the flamboyant lumberman Anthony J. Hayward convinced the Weyerhaeuser associates Liard, Norton, & Company to help him form the North Wisconsin Lumber Company. Hayward's grand style and constant interest in new ventures led to him to be dubbed by his associates as "the Grand Duke." He was supposed to provide the practical experience necessary to get the operation up and going, but he was too often absent from Hayward or inattentive to important details. For example, in 1883 he was gone to Madison, Wisconsin for several weeks. During that time he successfully lobbied the legislature to create Sawyer County out of Ashland County, but failed to secure such necessities as an adequate cook and oxen for his logging camps. Hayward also secured the legislature's permission to build a dam across the Namekagon River, but then after selecting an appropriate site for the works allowed it to be carelessly constructed with brush and earth. The dam, which would later fail spectacularly in 1907, created Lake Hayward to serve as a millpond for a water-powered sawmill constructed at the site in 1882. It took years of constant effort to make the North Wisconsin venture successful. In 1885 Frederick Weyerhaeuser bought out "Grand Duke" Hayward's share of the venture, although it was not until 1891, ten years after they started, that the partners began to see a return on their investment. [76]

Weyerhaeuser and his associates became involved in St. Croix logging slowly and discreetly. In November 1883, Weyerhaeuser purchased from Isaac Staples ten thousand acres of forestlands on the Moose River, a branch of the Kettle River. The sale netted Staples the princely sum of $262,819. Purchases of stumpage were usually handled with little fanfare. This transaction did not arouse great curiosity in part because it was made not by the Mississippi River Logging Company itself but by two downriver partnerships, Weyerhaeuser & Denkmann and P. & P.M. Musser, in cooperation with a Stillwater business, Sauntry & Tozer. The local men, however, were just a front. David Tozer was a grizzled old veteran of St. Croix logging, successful enough but never one of the major figures in Stillwater. William Sauntry, although younger and less experienced, was the key figure. He was ambitious, able, and anxious to win Weyerhaeuser's trust. It was he who first acquired the option on Staples's land and although he seemed to be the lead figure in the purchase, he and Tozer put no capital into the purchase. Sauntry became, in effect, Weyerhaeuser's agent in Stillwater. [77]

The Moose River deal proved to be very profitable for all of the parties concerned. Sauntry & Tozer eventually delivered 9.8 million board feet of logs to their downriver investors. In 1886, Weyerhaeuser took another larger step into the St. Croix valley when he engineered the formation of the Musser-Sauntry Land, Logging, & Manufacturing Company. Capitalized at one million dollars the company began to make pineland purchases throughout the St. Croix valley. Once again the Mississippi mill men supplied the bulk of the money and Sauntry took charge of forest operations. Between 1888 and 1907 the company produced nearly eight million board feet of logs. Through these deals and numerous smaller ones he participated in with Weyerhaeuser, Sauntry had advanced to the front ranks of lumbermen in Stillwater. The opportunity for the biggest coup of all, however, came in the fall of 1887. Sauntry informed Weyerhaeuser that Isaac Staples was prepared to exit the field. If the right offer were made, he would liquidate his 50,400 acres of pineland, his river improvements, and his shares in the St. Croix Boom Company. Here was an opportunity to control the future of logging on the river and the downriver mill owners did not hesitate. With the Liard, Norton, & Company, one of Weyerhaeuser's staunchest associates, taking the lead Staples was bought out for the princely sum of $650,000. [78]

The Weyerhaeuser syndicate made its move into the St. Croix valley at a time of growing anxiety within the lumber industry concerning the future availability of timber. The old myth that the Lake States forest was inexhaustible had been belied by the speed with which trees fell during the decades after the Civil War. During the 1880s a scramble ensued within the industry. Prudent lumbermen realized that only by securing large tracts of forestland could they guarantee a future supply of logs. The speed and scale with which Frederick Weyerhaeuser and his associates moved into the St. Croix valley, securing a half dozen major tracts, surprised and dismayed their rivals in Minneapolis and Stillwater. Minnesota newspapers compared their arrival to a sudden "scourge of locusts."

Yet, when the downriver men inspected their St. Croix lands they found that some of the tracts had been subject to a scourge. A Liard, Norton, Company cruiser complained that the St. Croix lands were "poorly located, inferior, and picked over." Instead of finding tracts of fine, strait white pine, much of the land contained tamarack, balsam, and hardwood. The best of the pine was not white pine but its inferior cousin, red pine, or as it was known in Wisconsin, Norway pine. White pine was present on the lands but not in stands as dense as had been formerly sought by loggers. With the lower value of the timber on their lands the mill owners needed to be very efficient in their logging operations to turn a profit. Great jams such as occurred on the St. Croix in 1886 were an anathema to men with thousands of dollars invested in giant steam powered mills. They watched the spectacular jam of that year with a disbelief that turned to disgust when they heard the Stillwater lumbermen ruefully predict that a similar jam would likely occur again. Having secured control over a vast portion of the valley's forest resources the Weyerhaeuser syndicate turned their attention to seizing control over the river. [79]

Although it was a bigger and more complex river system, Weyerhaeuser wanted the St. Croix to be run with the efficiency and regularity of the Chippewa River. On that river Weyerhaeuser controlled the driving company that manipulated all 149 dams in the valley and took responsibility for the delivery of all logs put into the water. To prevent any disruption of the flow of logs during dry seasons Weyerhaeuser had a massive dam, the biggest logging dam in Wisconsin, built on the Chippewa River at Little Falls. The structure could send a fifteen-foot head of water into the river; enough water to refloat logs one hundred miles down stream. The dam cost the lumbermen $147,457, but Weyerhaeuser believed it was better to make the upfront investments necessary to ensure smooth operations, than suffer uncertainty and delay later. The problem with trying to bring a new emphasis on efficiency to the St. Croix was that the industry had been too long under the control of the same men. Weyerhaeuser had already shown old Isaac Staples the door, but to improve log driving on the St. Croix he had to get around Martin Mower. [80]

Even his friends and associates had to admit that Martin Mower was "somewhat eccentric." Erasable, "grouchy," and litigious were words that most outsiders found an accurate description of the veteran lumberman. Mower had come to the St. Croix with his brother back in 1842 and within five years he was the proprietor of a string of logging camps. For more than thirty years he had been intimately involved in the management of the St. Croix Boom Company, and after 1879 he was the controlling owner. In personal appearance he was a disheveled bachelor, "sot" in his ways. But woe to the rival who failed to appreciate that he was a "capable and shrewd" businessman. Mower ran the St. Croix Boom Company, not to facilitate logging or milling endeavors but with an eye to his personal prosperity. Since he controlled the funnel through which all logs cut in the valley had to pass, Mower sat atop a money making machine. Under his management the St. Croix boom, unlike most boom companies in Minnesota and Wisconsin during the 1870s, did not increase its investments in river improvements. While great jams regularly delayed for weeks the shipment of logs, Mower awarded generous dividends, often over thirty percent, to the boom's stockholders, of which he was the largest. For several years Frederick Weyerhaeuser had tried to prod the gray-bearded old man of the river to improve and expand the boom company's operations. Throughout the 1880s the Weyerhaeuser syndicate tried to purchase Mower's stock, but he would not part with his guaranteed source of wealth. There is every reason to believe that he would never have sold to the downriver mill owners. But once more Weyerhaeuser's stealthy approach won the day. In 1889, Mower was approached by a group of young lumbermen, headed by William Sauntry, to "lease," not sell, control of the boom company for twenty years. In return for a generous annual fee Mower yielded to the younger generation, probably not knowing that in doing so he was giving way to Weyerhaeuser. [81]

Immediately upon securing Mower's exit the Weyerhaeuser syndicate met and authorized extensive river improvements on the St. Croix to prevent future jams. The plan was to build a large dam that could control the rate of flow in the river and regulate the passage of logs over the falls and through the narrow confines of the Dalles. Weyerhaeuser's model was the dam he had built at Little Rapids on the Chippewa River. But he would not be able to achieve his dream for the St. Croix without a legal battle. Weyerhaeuser's opponent was as unexpected as he was formidable, Isaac Staples.

Although it had appeared to all that Staples had retired from business when he sold off his forestlands to the syndicate, the old patriarch of the St. Croix had one last bolt to shoot. In 1887, Staples sunk fifty thousand dollars into the purchase of property and water rights at St. Croix Falls. It was the site of high expectations and grandiose dreams since the days of Caleb Cushing's failed investments. The hardheaded old lumberman had fallen under the spell of those dreams, but typically he dreamt with his eyes open. Staples planned to build a toll dam just above the falls. He would prevent logjams, but more importantly he would be in a position to collect substantial fees from every logger on the river. Even in his rocking chair Isaac Staples sought recognition that he was the "boss logger" on the river. It was a likely plan save for the one element in the equation that Staples had failed to reckon on, Weyerhaeuser. In the German immigrant turned "Robber Baron" Staples finally met someone who could out muscle and money him on the St. Croix. Weyerhaeuser insisted that if there was going to be a dam on the river, he would control it, and he used his established ties with the Wisconsin state legislature to secure a charter for his dam, then used that as leverage to prevail upon the Minnesota legislature for a similar charter. Then with construction crews already at work on his dam, Weyerhaeuser beat back Staples' last-ditch court challenges. Had Weyerhaeuser sought public notoriety he could have used the struggle to prove that he was now the "boss logger" on the river, instead he let William Sauntry take the credit while he merely drew contentment for being able to impose a more rationale, harmonious, and efficient order on the river. [82]

The new dam was a milestone in the lumber industry's campaign to transform the St. Croix. It was built eleven miles upriver from St. Croix Falls near Wolf Creek at the farm of homesteader Charlie Nevers. Joseph Brown, who operated a trading post near the site sixty years before, would have truly been shocked to see the massive works of the dam rise up twenty feet from the bed of the river. It stretched six hundred and fourteen feet across the St. Croix and backed up the river for between ten and fifteen miles. Although it was much larger than any other dam in the valley, it was constructed in a manner similar to other logging dams. It was secured by wood pilings and was controlled by a Bear Trap Gate. [83] But such was the scale of the structure that it was widely regarded as the largest wood-piling dam in the world and the eighty-foot gate was the largest in the world. Lumbermen had talked about such a dam for years. In fact, Seth Ayers a lumberman from the 1850s claimed to have erected a makeshift dam of rocks and tree stumps at the site. His purpose had been to build a head of water for his logging operations downstream at Osceola. What ever Ayers may have done it was nowhere near the scale of what Weyerhaeuser had ordered into existence. The Nevers dam cost close to $250,000 after the construction fees, legal expenses, and riparian rights were totaled. It was the most expensive logging dam ever built in the north woods. [84]

What the lumbermen got for this huge investment was a structure made of wood and stone that helped to manage the flow of logs from the upper St. Croix to the lower river. The broad waters impounded by the dam became a vast holding pen for all logs cut in the valley. When the men at the St. Croix Boom were ready for more logs word would be sent up to Nevers Dam and the lumberjacks there would open up several of the fifteen sluicing gates and pass the appropriate number of logs into the river. Similarly if the men on the boom experienced low water the great Bear Trap Gate could be lowered and within hours the level would rise on the lower river. In May of 1890 the St. Croix Valley Standard boasted about the impact of the new dam:

The benefits of the Nevers Dam are already being felt. . .Only one day has the Boom (here at Stillwater) shut down this season so far, and today all the gaps will be at work again. . ..The success of the mills this year is phenomenal, not a break to detain them. . .the cut will be large, several of the mills showing much better record at this date than for several years past.

Upon command the river drivers stationed at Nevers could send as many as four million feet of logs down to the boom each hour. Electric lights installed at the dam provided the option of operating the sluiceway twenty-four hours a day. With the completion of Nevers Dam the lumbermen took a large step away from being bound by the irregular patterns of nature and toward the industrial management of the St. Croix. [85]

The site of Nevers Dam might well have been the most important historic site from the logging era located within the Riverway. Unfortunately there is little that remains from the lumbermen's dam. In 1955, the Northern States Power Company dismantled most of the dam. What survived that process are the remains of several wing dams that can be seen protruding from the shore as well as several old log pilings and rock cribs farther upstream–hardly enough to meet the integrity provisions of the National Register of Historic Places. Nonetheless to the visitor with a sense of history the picturesque site can help conjure up visions of when the St. Croix was a river of pine.

When the great Bear Trap gate of Nevers Dam was closed, it was possible for lumbermen to reduce the flow of water in the St. Croix River to a mere trickle. Although this was rarely done, the lumbermen's new power over the river reignited their lingering feud with the steamboat men on the river. The feeling that the lumbermen had become overweening in their power had grown during the 1880s among residents of the villages upstream from the boom. Martin Mower's crabbed management of the boom company had made a bad situation worse. Unlike his predecessors he did nothing to try to ameliorate the inconvenience caused to river traffic by the mass of logs at the mouth of the boom. In April of 1891, the steamboat men won an important victory when the Wisconsin legislature amended the Nevers dam charter to provide some protection for steamboats on the river. Twenty-four hour notice was required before the dam could completely shut its gates. Steamboat men tried and failed to force the lumbermen to ensure a three-foot navigation channel in the river as far as St. Croix Falls. An attempt at more aggressive action to curb the logger's control of the St. Croix began in 1900 when steamboat men and their supporters in the villages above Stillwater tried to involve the United States Army Corps of Engineers. Major Frederic Abbott of the Corps proposed restricting the times when either boom or the dam might be able to limit other river users. The lumbermen, however, were once again a match for their opponents. They were able to document that thousands of mill and boom workers in Stillwater and numerous other towns throughout the Mississippi valley would lose their jobs if the flow of timber were interrupted. The attempted revolt against the lumbermen eventually led to the creation, in 1909, of the St. Croix River Improvement Association, an organization that would foster public concern for the well-being of the river. But at least till 1912 the needs of lumber continued to dominate the St. Croix. [86]

The clash over navigation on the St. Croix indicated that while logging remained very important to the St. Croix valley, it was by no means the only economic interest vying for control over resources. By the beginning of the twentieth century farmers, steamboat men, a growing tourist industry, and sportsmen all began to challenge the lumber industry's hegemony over the valley. In 1886, an event occurred that would have been unthinkable a generation earlier. When Liard, Norton, & Company tried to drive their logs on the Clam River they were forced by legal action to suspend the drive. Local farmers claimed their lands were inundated by logging dams and demanded compensation. Although there was little farming activity apparent from the river, nearly twenty-five settlers claimed damages. With the high water level rapidly passing, the company had little choice but to satisfy the claims as quick as possible or face the prospect of having their winter's cut hung-up till next year. The "settlers" proved to be tough negotiators, with one securing a nine hundred dollar payment–much more than his land was even worth. Land speculators bedeviled loggers further by buying the rights to likely dam sites on tributary streams and then holding the land until their price was met. [87]

For lumbermen who chose not to negotiate with their litigious neighbors the cost could be high. In 1903, the Chengwatana Dam, at the outlet of Cross Lake, was mysteriously dynamited in the middle of the night. The dam was the most important on the Snake River. It was built in 1848 when the area was wilderness. But by the time the dam needed reconstruction in the 1870s the lumbermen had to share the area with farmers who complained that the annual log drives flooded their fields. Little was done to address these complaints in the years leading up to the explosion. The explosion hit the operations of lumberman James McGrath hard. He had forty-five million feet of logs ready to go down the Snake only to be suddenly left without the water to do the job. His costly solution was to take the logs by river as far as Pine City, pull them out of the water, and ship them by rail to Stillwater. There the logs were dumped into the St. Croix and rafted down the Mississippi to the waiting sawmills. [88]

Figure 21. Lumber Industry Sites on the Lower St. Croix.
(click on image for an enlargement in a new window)