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

CHAPTER 3:
"The New Land": Settlement and the Development of Agriculture in the St. Croix Valley (continued)

Settlement Spreads to the Upper St. Croix Valley

The settlement and development of agriculture along the Upper St. Croix River had a much more torturous history than the lower river. The eighteen northern most counties in Wisconsin became known as the "cut over." These included Burnett, Washburn, Sawyer, Douglas, and Bayfield Counties along the St. Croix and Namekagon Rivers. The southern St. Croix River counties were technically not included in this designation, even though major portions of them had been "cutover." Stretching from the northwest corner of Polk County and running along the St. Croix and Namekagon Rivers up into Douglas and Bayfield Counties is a region called the Pine Barrens. It was composed of "coniferous forests and open expanses of sweet fern and grassy barrens. . .numerous pits interrupt the plain surface in some portions, their presence introducing sufficient unevenness locally to justify classification as hill country." [225] The first road up the Namekagon, named the "State Road," that ran from New Richmond to Ashland, was not cleared until 1877, which had precluded the possibility of settlers venturing here. These counties were also the most densely forested of the St. Croix Valley and did not have the rich soiled, oak openings or prairies of the lower river that might have lured the adventurous pioneer. Only gradually were more roads built into this part of the valley. The Hayward-Cable road was built near the railroad in 1892 and turned into a "county highway" the following year. Other logging and tote roads penetrated the forest. By the turn of the century, commercial logging firms had blazed their way through this region leaving in the wake of the lumbermen's ax stump fields, brush, tree limbs, and discarded logs. This created a turning point in the history and settlement of the cutover.

By the 1890s, the American frontier was declared closed and the best western land had been taken. Many Wisconsinites, who had shunned the north woods in favor of lands in the West, began to return to the state. "There now remain only comparatively small areas suitable for settlement by pioneer farmers in this country," Dean Henry related to the Polk County Press in 1895, "and today Wisconsin offers the largest body of good agricultural land for such settlement possible to any state or territory in the Union. . .Where ten years ago we could not have stopped the migratory crowd intent on reaching the plains of the west, many are now ready to hear of what Wisconsin has to offer in an agricultural way, and the time is opportune for gaining a large number of desirable people if we can only convince them that our farming lands in the new North possess real agricultural merit." [226] Other observers also noted this trend. People from "Texas, Kansas, and the Dakotas and Minnesota,'" related one cutover resident, "'have come back and taken up their homes permanently here." [227]

The proximity to the path of settlement established by the St. Croix River, however, brought settlers into southern Burnett County earlier than the rest of the cutover. Back in 1850 St. Croix Falls was "regarded as the dividing line between savage and civilized life," wrote E.S. Seymour. "Beyond that point of the river, white traders and others have Indians wives; and the entire population, with few exceptions, is Indian or half-breed." [228] But the pressures of white settlement were felt within a decade. In 1856, the county was created out of Polk County, and the Homestead Act of 1862 brought in Norwegian and Swedish immigrants as well as some settlers from eastern states. Civil War veterans with homestead credits also made their way here. "A homestead of 160 acres of land can be taken inside of railroad limits," announced the Burnett County Sentinel in 1879, "any settler who has taken 80 acres before can take an additional 80 provided it lies adjacent to the first. He can also sign back to the government his 80 acres and take another 160 in another place, the time he lived on the first applying on time he must stay on the last entry." [229] Many pioneers eagerly responded to the offer. "There is quite a rush for homesteads in the vicinity of the last twenty miles location of the North Wisconsin railroad," wrote the Taylors Falls Journal in May 1879. [230] In 1880, the Burnett County Sentinel announced that, "Emigrants are coming thicker and faster. A load comes up almost everyday. Most of them are settling in towns Eureka, Luck and Sterling." [231] Some of these settlers were disenchanted farmers from southern Minnesota. "Grasshoppers are the cause of their leaving," explained the Burnett County Sentinel. "Year after year their crops have been destroyed by these pests until they had become sick of the country and they concluded to leave." [232]

Optimism abounded that business and agriculture would thrive here. Those who settled in the southeastern section of the county joined in the wheat craze of the 1870s and 1880s. "The farmers are very busy harvesting," declared the Burnett County Sentinel. "Nearly all the wheat and oats in this section are ready to cut; and from what we have seen and heard, it will be fully up to the average yields of former years. Corn never was looking better." [233] Approximately 879 acres of wheat were cultivated in the county with an average wheat yield of fifteen bushels an acre, "which ought to keep the people of the county in flour, instead of importing as has been done before." [234] In 1879, the Burnett County Sentinel wrote about the "Flattering Prospects" that the county expected to enjoy with the building of a railroad from Grantsburg to Rush City on the Minnesota side of the St. Croix River through St. Cloud. "The road taps not only a region abounding in pine and other timber, but also traverses one of the finest agricultural regions of [Minnesota] and Wisconsin." [235]

There was, however, no escaping the problems associated with excessive wheat growing and the limitations on agriculture in the cutover. By 1883, it was reported that, "Wheat does not turn out as well on the barrens and away from the timber as expected, but in the hardwood it is fully up to the average." [236] By 1888, the Burnett County Sentinel lamented that "The cinch bugs will make harvesting and threshing of wheat unnecessary this fall. Wheat is turning yellow and looks dead throughout the county." [237] In the following spring Grantsburg voted to purchase a carload of seed wheat for farmers whose wheat crops had failed for the past two seasons. It was not, however, a hand out. Farmers were expected to sign a note agreeing to pay the town back the principal outlay with interest in their 1889 taxes. Some farmers simply gave up. In April 1889, the Dahl family moved to Chicago because, "Mr. Dahl thought farming did not pay in Burnett County." [238]

Wheat was not the only crop farmers grew in Burnett County. They had also cultivated livestock feed such as oats and corn as well as barley, rye, and potatoes. With the failure of wheat, farmers began to grow potatoes as their new staple crop. In 1890, plans for a starch factory were laid out, and by 1894 the Burnett County Sentinel reported that, "Potatoes [were] coming in quite lively," and the starch factory was receiving culls for grinding. By 1895, the Rush City Post reported that farmers shipped ninety cars of potatoes from that city. The Burnett County Sentinel complained that the Grantsburg area farmers then could only get five empty cars out of the fifty to seventy cars that they needed. Schools were closed for two weeks in October because most of the students were picking potatoes. [239]

Burnett County's abundant wetlands provided another cash crop — cranberries. Before 1870, scant attention was paid to cranberry marshes along the Upper St. Croix and Namekagon Rivers. Lumber, not cranberries, was what interested businessmen. Only Indians and frontier settlers realized their potential and brought them to market in their canoes or wagons. Cranberries were harvested with rakes, and ten to fifteen bushels a day was considered a good haul. State and federal governments, who owned these marshy lands, considered them as fair game for public plunder. [240]

In the summer of 1872, the lumberman, A.N. Badger of Oshkosh, Wisconsin was scouting out pinelands in the St. Croix Valley and discovered its marshlands, including the "Big Meadow" north of Grantsburg. He was familiar with the experiments of businessmen in Oshkosh with cranberry cultivation and hurried back there to organize cranberry companies. When these Oshkosh businessmen returned, they entered claims for 5,000 acres of what they considered the most valuable marshlands north of Grantsburg and near Fish Lake. The first two crops they gathered from nature's bounty netted them $10,000 in profit. [241] These cranberry harvesters, however, were not content to sit idly by and let nature take its course, and began to make improvements. Since it took about five years to get an acre of marsh into commercial production, cranberry growers had to have a good deal of initial capital for investment. "Men without capital can not engage in the business," warned the Burnett County Sentinel. These investors began to alter and "improve" the land to produce greater yields. Ditches were dug to drain the land when necessary, and then dams were built across these ditches to flood the marshes when more water was needed. Flooding the marshes killed off wild grasses and "other encumbrances" and allowed more cranberry vines to flourish. By 1875, forty miles of ditches and ten miles of dams were constructed. At harvest time these companies employed local farmers and their families, and even local Indians. This necessitated building sleeping and cooking accommodations for the pickers, and dry-houses, which were two-stories high and varied in size from 20 x 40 and 30 x 80. Badger's mill, of course supplied the lumber for the buildings and the crates and boxes to ship the berries to market. Large growers usually provided music and even a dance hall to attract pickers. Local newspapers cooperated by putting out the cry for pickers. "Cranberry picking will commence next week," announced the Burnett County Sentinel. "A good many persons will be employed as all the berries will be picked by hand, no rakes used. 75 cents per bushel will be paid for picking." [242]

Burnett County willingly facilitated the development of the cranberry trade. "The county has been quite liberal in expending money for roads and bridges," reported the Brunet County Sentinel, "and the feasibility of constructing a bridge across the St. Croix River is now being talked up, and will, no doubt, be built within a few years." The purpose of the bridge would connect the cranberry farms to the Lake Superior & Mississippi Railroad in the Minnesota side of the St. Croix at Pine City. By 1875, Marshland, Minnesota became the headquarters for several companies owning marshes and cranberry farms in the area. [243]

"'How's cranberries,' is all the cry now!" wrote the Burnett County Sentinel in 1876. In that year the Buttrick and Gill harvesters expected "to get 1,000 barrels of cranberries from their marsh this season." In 1882, Burnett County shipped out ninety barrels of cranberries. This increased to eight hundred barrels two years later. [244] However, the manipulation of water levels and intensive cultivation of cranberries also presented environmental problems. Worms began to infest the cranberries marshes. The only way to kill off these pests was to flood the marshes, but if the area became short of water, only Mother Nature could solve the problem. "The farmers are feeling good over the storm last Sunday night," related the Sentinel. "It came just in time to save the cranberries, for the marshes were being overrun by worms." Manipulation of water levels also left the berries exposed to damage from freezing and thawing. In the fall of 1879 leaking dams and seasonal drought conditions left cranberry marshes uncovered for the winter. "These marshes need snow on them the whole winter to protect them from the frost. . .Half of the vines on the marshes. . .were winter killed." [245]

The forest fires that often ravaged cutover regions also threatened cranberry marshes. The first reported fire affecting them came in April 1877. "The cranberry marsh owned by Andrew Ahlstrom of this village, and the marsh of Albert Bugbee's, were burned over last week," reported the Burnett County Sentinel, "preventing them from bearing berries this year." The marshes did rebound somewhat despite this dismal prediction. "From all reports, the cranberry marshes are doing well considering the damage that was done last winter and by fires last spring," noted the Sentinel. "There will be no big crop gathered of course from any of the marshes, but it will be the largest crop that was ever gathered in this county." By 1887, Wisconsin produced 52,567 bushels of cranberries of which 18,000 came from Burnett County. [246]

In 1894, a major ecological forest fire disaster visited Burnett County. The Hinckley forest fire jumped the St. Croix River and burned approximately four thousand acres of cranberry land. After the fire an attempt was made to drain fifteen thousand acres of the marsh for small farms. When this failed Crex Carpet Company bought the land to make grass mats. It closed in 1914 when other native grasses of less use to the carpet company crowded out wiregrass. [247] Much of the land in the Big Meadows was eventually sold for taxes to prospective farmers. [248] Large-scale cranberry farming began again near Pokegama Lake by the turn of the century. S. H. Waterman & Sons invested heavily in the area expecting to put a hundred acres under cultivation. They carefully selected the best plants, and over the years produced "Jumbo Cranberries." By the 1920s, Andrew Searles and his son, C.D. Searles, natives of Wisconsin Rapids, continued the scientific cultivation of cranberries and turned the marshes of Burnett County into a thriving business. [249]

Blueberries also grew wild in the area. Although native to the region, blueberries thrived in cutover lands when its towering trees were gone and sunshine reached the brush and only jack pines and blueberries would grow. These berries were very susceptible to frost and drought, though, causing the crops to vary from year to year. Pickers eagerly awaited reports on the condition of the blueberry crop in the North Wisconsin News that was established in Hayward in the 1880s. Some years the pickings were so slim it did not "warrant any foreigners coming to pick, at any rate!" In July 1900 forest fires and frost wiped out the crop. However, in 1901, the blueberry crop in the Namekagon valley between Hayward and Spooner was reportedly worth $75,000. During good years "it was impossible to harvest even a small part of the berries available," recalled Eldon Marple, who picked berries in his youth before World War I. "They grew in such profusion and abundance and over such a vast area that only the berry-stuffing bear, deer and birds ever saw most of them." [250]

Blueberries were often so plentiful many families made money picking them through the summer months. Some pickers even camped out in the woods for the season. Buyers shipped the berries out by the carload. Local Indians also joined in the blueberry trade. "During the summer," wrote one settler, "Indians came from seemingly everywhere with wagons and ponies and some walking carrying packs on the backs, to pick blueberries. . .there were as many as 500 camping at Webb Creek." The Indians traded the berries for various groceries such as pork, salt brine, and bologna at the Webb Lake Store. At the end of the summer the Indians were reported to dress in feathers and beads, play their tom-toms, and dance their tribal dances "day and night for long periods. Settlers could hear their drums for miles." [251] The Chippewa were even reported to harvest blueberries at the mouth of Clam River, selling them in Rush City. [252]

Although blueberries were sometimes shipped to places like Kansas City, most of the crop from the north woods was shipped overnight to Chicago on the Soo Line, nicknamed "the Blueberry Line," "where the berries arrived on the morning market, still fresh and with the dew on them." Conductors on the train would sometimes select a choice spot in the Namekagon Valley and invite passengers to grab a hat or apron full. "Passengers reported that the berries were in clusters as large and heavy as a bunch of grapes," reported Mr. Marple, ". . .a person could eat his fill while sitting in one spot." [253]

Although it had some trying times, Burnett County's future looked promising at the turn of the century. It had a gristmill, starch factory, and eight cooperative creameries and a cheese factory. In 1896, a refrigerated railroad car set off for New York City every Wednesday. By Monday morning folks in the East were enjoying Burnett County butter. Interest in settling this Upper St. Croix Valley began to grow. "We will boom as well as any of the places in this northern section of the country," boasted the Burnett County Sentinel. [254]

Although the cutover was often described as a decimated landscape, it was a truism of the nineteenth century that farming would follow lumbering as part of the onward march of civilization. The expectation was that blighted land would be turned into productive, verdant fields. This assumption prompted the Wisconsin state legislature in 1895 to authorized Dean Henry to research a book on the agricultural resources and opportunities in the state. A good part of the book focused on the more thinly populated areas of the North Country. In the past, lumbermen were the only ones interested in this heavily forested region. Once all the pine was logged, "the land which grew it received no more thought from the lumberman than the sawdust at his mill." The land's apparent lack of value prompted many lumber companies to forfeit their lands through tax delinquencies. Part of their reasoning was that if they recruited settlers and sold some of the land while there was still pine in the area, the lumber companies would pay the lion's share in taxes for roads, schools, and other improvements that did not interest them. If they hung on to their land until all the pine was gone, or until new growth could be harvested, they would be paying taxes for years on lands that had no present value to them. The initiative for settlement and development of Wisconsin's North Country, therefore, did not come from the lumberman, hence the state and other promoters had to take an active role. [255]

Besides its abundant timbered forests, Burnett County was amply endowed with lakes, swamps, marshes, bogs, and wet meadows. In 1850, the federal government passed the Swampland Grant Act that gave Wisconsin approximately three million acres of federal wetlands, a good part of which held valuable timber. These lands were then sold through public auction with the usual pre-emption rights. Because of the ubiquitous practice of loggers trespassing on state land and harvesting its valuable timber, the state felt compelled to dispose of its lands quickly and let private owners police their own lands. This land was desirable because it could eventually be drained and turned into productive farmland. The quick sale of land, however, often resulted in their being sold below market value or being bought up by land speculators. In 1871, Wisconsin Governor Lucius Fairchild asked that state lands be withdrawn from the market in order to appraise their value accurately. This suggestion went unheeded until the turn of the century. But at that time Burnett County still had thirty-five thousand acres of state-owned land that could still be sold, which was unusual for the cutover. [256]

Besides recruiting the ubiquitous Dean Henry to prepare a book on agricultural prospects of the cutover in 1895, the state re-established its Board of Immigration that year. The Board, originally started in 1879, was abolished in 1887 after most of southern and central Wisconsin had been settled. In 1907, it was reorganized and operated for the next twenty years. The board's main job was to attract settlers to the cutover by sending representatives to fairs, distributing promotional literature, and hooking up potential buyers with land dealers. The state distributed fifty thousand copies of Henry's book, Northern Wisconsin: A Hand-Book for the Homeseeker. Its reach extended into English, German, and Norwegian emigration pamphlets that used illustrations from the book. The Immigration Board also worked in conjunction with the Northern Wisconsin Development Association and the Northern Wisconsin Farmer's Association. The Farmer's Association dispatched "Grasslands Cars" through Wisconsin, Iowa, Illinois, Minnesota, and Nebraska. These converted passenger railroad cars were lit up by large electric signs boldly declaring, "Farm Products From the Best Region on Earth for the Homeseeker."

Railroad companies joined in these efforts. Because they needed to sell their land in the cutover, they offered to haul the cars free of charge. The railroads did this until 1906. The railroad cars were decorated with maps, pictures, and carried samples of farm products. The School of Agriculture also extended its Farmer Institutes into the cutover region. The state agency also encouraged the establishment of county immigration agencies. Beginning in 1895, Wisconsin also held immigration conventions throughout the state to excite interest in the cutover. [257] The state of Wisconsin's promotion and Dean Henry's scientific research in the cutover, historian Robert Gough argued, "conferred legitimacy on the idea of the cutover as a promising region for agricultural settlement." [258]

The twentieth century settlers of the cutover, however, faced different challenges than their eighteenth and nineteenth century pioneer counterparts. Northern Wisconsin was already a drastically altered landscape. The logging and mining era had left behind old company towns across the north. Railroads had penetrated into the far North Country to serve these industries and they built towns to support their needs. When logging firms moved on, town merchants, bankers, and newspaper editors were without a clientele. Railroads owned thousands of acres of land that had been granted to them by the federal government. They joined forces with the state's efforts to entice farmers into the area. [259]

The agricultural prospects of the cutover also began to attract interest from the Milwaukee Journal. On March 12, 1900 the paper ran a special "Northern Wisconsin Edition." Articles discussed the present condition of the cutover, what role Milwaukee could play in its development, and its agricultural resources and prospects. The Journal's editors enthusiastically claimed that northern Wisconsin's agricultural and livestock possibilities would make it the "'richest part of the state.'" The cutover even attracted the attention of the U.S. Secretary of Agriculture James Wilson who proclaimed to a Chicago audience in 1902 that northern Wisconsin would make a great agricultural region. [260]

Burnett County eagerly joined in the recruitment of settlers. By the turn of the century most of its forests had been logged over and the county needed to reappraise its future. The county had the good fortune of hosting a state immigration convention. It "attracted so much attention through the daily press that the county got a [lot of] good advertising." It soon formed its own Board of Immigration. Initially the county put its efforts simply into photographing its lands. It received a boost from the enthusiastic efforts of Edward L. Peet, a Burnett County newspaperman. Peet wrote articles and printed speeches and maps in the Journal of Burnett County in which he described the progress of settlements and of the great potential demand for agricultural products. In 1902, he furthered these efforts when he wrote a promotional pamphlet entitled, Burnett County, Wisconsin in which he extolled the unique virtues of Burnett County for prospective settlers. [261]

Peet had no particular love for the lumber barons of the county and was glad to see their days of dominance come to an end. "Up to a few years ago but little was done to attract the settlers to this county," Peet complained. "The interests of the lumbermen and others were in an opposite direction and more was done to keep settlers out than was done to bring them in. . .The day of lumbering is passing away and agriculturists are the ones who can in the future make money by locating in Burnett county. . .The scarcity of timber from the lumberman's standpoint and an over supply from the standpoint of the tiller of the soil are one and the same thing. It is just this condition that is now turning the attention of farmers to Burnett county as a place in which to make a home and is also letting much of the land out of the grip of lumbermen who have had no use for new settlers in the county." [262]

Burnett County's identity was still strongly associated with the St. Croix River, and Peet considered it a major asset for future settlers. It provided easy access to the headwaters of navigation on the Mississippi and the Twin Cities, and the northern part of the county was within thirty-five miles of Duluth and Superior, which were at the head of navigation on the Great Lakes. The railroad line that ran northward through the county, though, was critical for settlement. The man of science -- Dean Henry -- had been cautiously optimistic about farming prospects in the cutover, Peet -- the man of words was completely optimistic. Henry candidly wrote, "There is no royal road to farming in northern Wisconsin." Clearing a farm up here would be long, hard work. "The brush, stumps and undergrowth is often sufficient to make one's heart grow faint. . .before the ideal field can be secured," he warned. "No one should make the venture of home building in the new north before he has carefully counted the cost in the beginning and looked clear through to the end." [263] Ed Peet claimed Burnett County's farming prospects were as good as in southern Wisconsin. "A crop of timber is a sure index to the soil," Peet argued. "Hardwood land is the best agricultural land we have and runs largely to clay soil. . .White pine. . .is never found on poor land. . .People who are accustomed to a black soil and nothing else will have great difficulty in believing that crops will grow on any other color. . .Farm it well and farm fewer acres than you would of clay and you will make money." Peet admitted not all the soil in county was good, but claimed it could still be useful. "If you are coming to this county with plenty of money and want to engage in stock farming you are making a safe investment to buy clay land and go into the raising of clover and other tame grasses." [264]

Peet aimed to attract a particular type of homesteader and wrote, in no uncertain terms, whom he preferred. "The best advice the writer of this book can give anyone," he wrote, "is to not attempt to move a family to any place among strangers if the head of the family is unable to make a living where he now is. Cheap land is not the only thing needed to bring prosperity to the home seeker. There must be a disposition to hard work and physical ability to match the disposition. The ‘ne'r do well' is not wanted in Burnett County. . .Those who can help themselves from the start are the folks who are wanted. . .The natural local conditions will do the rest for them." [265]

Besides the wholesale denuding of the northern forests, the other major ecological change that occurred in this region was the draining of swamp and marshlands. This was seen as a progressive development in the early twentieth century. "Man is at work now continuing this drying process and the county is undergoing many changes, " wrote Peet. "Within the memory of the present residents of the county, lakes have changed to marshes, marshes to meadow lands and meadow lands have become good dry plow lands. . .There are but few swamps in the county that will not at some time in the future be reclaimed and turned into profitable farm land." [266]

Like earlier homesteaders in the lower St. Croix, the weather was a major concern of prospective settlers. Promoters of the North County at the turn-of-the-century optimistically spoke of the healthy but bracing quality of the climate. The shear abundance of wood for fuel, it was argued, made the winters more tolerable here than in warmer but fuel deficient areas. "Our winter storms are sometimes bad but they are very mild affairs compared with the prairie blizzards," commented Ed Peet. "No person who has ever experienced a prairie blizzard had any fault to find with our winters. Hot, scorching winds are unknown and drought seldom causes even a partial crop failure." Peet, however, also expressed the naïve and even quack scientific thinking of the times by claiming the climate was changing because of the denuding of the forests. "The climate is also changing," he wrote, "the winters are milder and not so long. . .and other unfavorable conditions will change." The expectation was that the climate would become more like that of southern Wisconsin. [267]

New settlers marveled at the fertility of the soil when new growth bloomed so quickly in areas loggers had cleared recently, especially if fires started in the left over brush had burned it. Popular, aspen, and white birch "seeded thick as grain in a field, and grew fast." Blueberry and raspberry bushes thrived, as did the deer that feasted on them. "The ground is just covered with blueberries," exclaimed the Burnett County Sentinel. Wild hay and pasture grasses, such as timothy, flourished. This new growth only encouraged the notion that the cutover would make a great dairy region. "The highest scientific agricultural authority says that in no place in the world is there any better grass for butter and cheese making than in Northern Wisconsin," proclaimed Ed Peet. "All over this region grasses and clover thrive. . .It seems to follow as naturally as a second growth of timber." Even Professor Henry predicted that northern Wisconsin would become one of the great cheese producing regions in the country. [268]

Farmers had not been unknown in the cutover. After all, lumbermen had to eat. Loggers, however, did not want homesteaders who would want the usual amenities of settlement, so they initially created corporate farms that supplied them with wheat, potatoes, vegetables, beef, and hay. An example is the Moore Farm. It was located in Burnett County (T42N, R14W). It supplied hay and potatoes for the Shell Lake Lumber Company until 1903. The first independent farmers in the area were lumberjacks. In winter they worked in the logging camps and in summer months they grew foodstuff to supply the camps. They were not self-sufficient or commercial farmers. However, their farm sites were chosen more for their closeness to winter employment than for their agricultural potential. [269] Burnett County had its share of winter lumberjacks and summer farmers. "They began [farming] when lumbering on the adjoining lands was the only industry thought worth following," wrote Ed Peet. "They have always had a good home market and have done well." [270]

Historic site surveys of the St. Croix National Scenic Riverway have identified few sites associated with this pioneer phase of cutover farming. One such site is the S.W. Slack farmstead (T36N, R20W, Sec. 30) in Chisago County, Minnesota. The site was originally within the subdivision of the town of Nashua. This "paper townsite" of the 1850s never attracted settlers and was later developed into what historian William Folsom described as "two fair farms." One of those farms was operated by S.W. Slack on an elevated stretch of ground that sloped gently down to the St. Croix. Slack occupied the site from at least 1888 and farmed it until the World War I era. In addition to crop raising Slack kept cows, sheep, and horses. All that survives of his farmstead today are clearings on the ridge above the river and a depression in the ground where the farmhouse once stood. Test excavations conducted there in 1982 revealed the remains of the Slack's domestic life, including flat glass, ceramic serving vessels, shoe parts, buttons and medicinal bottles. More in depth study at this site might shed light on the everyday life of the men and women who pioneered the cutover. [271]

As the cutover region began to expand, "Later day settlers have now taken up the lands from which the pine was cut so long ago," reported Peet ". . .and within a few months the railroad company has closed out the greater part of its lands to prairie farmers who are moving in with more capital than any of the early settlers ever dreamed would be brought into the entire county." [272] Burnett County farmers benefited from the proximity to the agricultural changes happening in areas further south along the St. Croix. The Burnett County Agricultural Society began holding annual fairs in 1877, and enjoyed its connections with the Farmers' Institutes. "Our farmers who used to raise hay and oats for the logging camps, and many of them who used to be half farmer and half logger," wrote Ed Peet, "are now devoting all their energies to the farm and modern methods are being adopted. They are going into dairying and stock raising and a manure heap has now a value in it." [273] The county's late settlement and access to rail lines, from the short haul logging railroads that reached into the county in 1902 allowed it to bypass the typical agriculture of settlement of wheat. [274]

A legacy of the logging era to settlers in the cutover was that they would not be "homesteaders" in the strictest sense of the word. By 1900, nearly all land in the cutover was in private hands. The Homestead Act, therefore, could not be used in most of the cutover. Although the state took up the role of promotion of agricultural settlement in the cutover, it did not direct or regulate it. Instead, the state of Wisconsin relied on private enterprise to turn this apparent wasteland into productive use. Unlike their nineteenth century counterparts, most settlers purchased their land from private landowners rather than claim land from the government. Cornell University had a considerable amount of land in Sawyer County to dispose of. One of the most notable land dealers was the American Immigration Company (AIC). It was formed in 1906 when nine lumber companies, including Weyerhaeuser-Laird-Norton subsidiaries and the Northern Wisconsin Lumber Company located in the Hayward area, decided to form a consortium to unload their land.

By 1939, AIC sold 438,000 acres to settlers. The company had also made a half-hearted attempt at recruitment with their American Colonization Company that folded in 1907. Railroad companies also sponsored low-fare "home-seeker excursions." These allowed prospective settlers to survey land before they bought. However, many land agents who met these trains often put the hard-sell on unsuspecting homesteaders, who made the mistake of buying "sight-unseen." One homesteader remarked in 1919 that land "'was being unloaded on unwary people.'" These agents often made a purchaser include inferior land along with the good. But land values in the cutover were relatively inexpensive and land agents offered reasonable down payments and repayment schedules. All parties expected land values to go up and those conventional mortgages could be obtained to pay the balance when it came due. This was true for the first two decades of the twentieth century when farm values in the cutover generally quadrupled and farm products fetched a good price during World War I. A lender in Polk County boasted there were no foreclosures there before 1920. [275]

Another ploy used to sell lands in the cutover, especially in Sawyer and Washburn Counties, was to claim they had mineral deposits. The U.S. Geological Survey had surveyed the Penokee-Gogebic Range in 1854 with the use of a simple compass that found magnetic attraction in the area. "'Mineral lands,' was the bait," recalled one pioneer, "iron and copper was everywhere! Any area that had magnetic rock formations could be hawked as mineral lands." Timber and railroad interests put pressure on the state of Wisconsin to do more prospecting. The American Immigration Company and the Loretta Mining Company, along with others, did some of their own surveying as well. By 1917 approximately one hundred holes had been drilled, mostly in Sawyer County. The results of all this drilling revealed no iron deposits but an underlay of Huronian rock that was laced in iron. The best that could be said of the results was that some of the holes provided great artesian wells of ice-cold water. Some copper deposits in the Minong Copper Range had been mined by Indians, but had little commercial interests. Mining in the cutover of the St. Croix Valley proved another elusive promise of wealth and opportunity. [276]

Unlike most of the cutover, Burnett County had a fair amount of government land that could be claimed. Because of its ample wetlands, a substantial amount of land was still owned by the state. At the time Peet's pamphlet was published, however, state land had been withdrawn from the market. "Vacant government lands are about a thing of the past in the northern portion of the county," he wrote. Prospective settlers had the choice to buy land from the Chicago, St. Paul, Minneapolis and Omaha Railway or from land speculators. Railroad land was, however, limited and many townships in the county did not have any railroad-owned land. The largest amount of land for sale was the "Baker Lands" of the Cushing Land Agency in St. Croix Falls. Most of the land available was in the sparsely settled northern portion of the county. The oldest settlers had only lived there for four or five years. "These settlers are men of thrift and industry," Peet claimed, "and have set about the task of transforming the wilderness into comfortable homes with indefatigable determination. Where a few years ago there was one unbroken stretch of forest there are now found innumerable fields of corn, oats, potatoes and all kinds of garden vegetables. . .the crops they have raised furnish ample proof that the soil is very productive." While Peet admitted the soil was mostly sandy with a mixture of about thirty percent clay, he claimed it had the benefit of moisture retention. He optimistically reported that the "settlers who do live there and give attention to their work meet with excellent success and at this writing it would be difficult to find finer gardens than those now to be seen on the "sand barrens." [277]

In 1901, an unusual group of settlers had come to Burnett County. Several women who had grown up in the sandiest part of Minnesota "and were not afraid of light soil came over to see what the county was like." They were interested in the lands along the St. Croix and Clam Rivers. Pleased with what they saw, they took advantage of the liberal Homestead Law that allowed single or widowed women the opportunity to claim land like a male head of household. These women made their filing for land, "went home, did missionary work and sent others to take up land in the same town." Within six months twenty widows and single schoolteachers bought land and started farming in Burnett County "and have already made a good showing." [278]

For the most part, however, the cutover was initially a man's world. Like earlier frontier eras in American history, in northern Wisconsin young adult males predominated. It took a young, strong back to clear these stump farms. Yet, most men found they could not get a farm going alone. Starting a farm in the cutover required the labor of the entire family. Father, mother, and children spent many springs clearing the land of rocks, removing brush and stumps, building basic shelter for the family and animals, and digging wells. In this early phase of development women's contribution was recognized and appreciated by their husbands. Men who could not find a wife usually gave up on farming. [279]

The slow, difficult process of turning the cutover into productive farms forced many heads of families to take up the lumberjack trade in the winter leaving their wives to care for the families and homestead during the long, lonely winter months. "The first three winters Dad worked in the logging camp," recalled Carl Kuhnly, whose family settled in Burnett County at the turn of the century. "He would walk about ten miles to come home on a Saturday evening, then back again on Sunday evening." [280] "Farmers in this country couldn't get any money excepting from the timber in pineries north of here," recalled Harry D. Baker, therefore "farming was very poorly developed with small clearings, log houses, little production, only a few cattle, and very meager living which was supplemented. . .by shooting deer for meat and by fishing and berry picking and making of maple syrup and maple sugar. Not until the development of the dairy industry in the nineties did farming become really at all profitable and the settlers. . .had a very bitter struggle." [281]

One way to avoid the difficult task of clearing land was to raise livestock. Some farmers turned to sheep. They thought these wooly creatures might do well among all the low brush. H.L. Russell, Henry's successor to the School of Agriculture in 1907, however, warned farmers that sheep were susceptible to parasites and would not do well eating forest scrub. Farmers eventually found out Russell was right. Dairying was the most obvious choice for livestock farmers. The Wisconsin School of Agriculture did not abandon farmers once on the land. It threw itself into experimenting with fertilizers that would enrich cutover soil. It established a branch station at Spooner, hosted a series of winter meetings with farmers in Bayfield and Ashland Counties, and ran a demonstration farm near Superior. The School also assisted counties in organizing county agent programs. The ubiquitous problem of clearing stumps also prompted the Agricultural School to experiment with stump-pulling devices to make the job easier. Dean Harry Russell even managed to buy up surplus military dynamite after World War I to blast stumps out of the ground. [282]

By 1911, the most northern parts of Burnett County were settled. In that year the Soo Railroad line extended its trackage from Frederic to Lake Superior. The line crossed the St. Croix River near the Yellow River at a town called White City. Thr bridge constructed to cross the river at this point is now on the National Register. Shortly thereafter the railroad commission began offering its allotted lands at public auction. One of their first buyers was Ed Peet, the enthusiastic promoter of the county. He proceeded to build the first hotel, which he called Danbury House and re-christened the town by the same name. [283]

The Chicago, St. Paul, Minneapolis and Omaha (M.ST.P.) railroad brought "land-hungry [settlers] from the cities and overcrowded farming areas" to the "stump farms" of Washburn County in the early twentieth century. For the next twenty years "settlement and fires cleared land until it was hard to believe that this new landscape had once had great forests." Fires were not just started as the accidental aftermath of logging debris catching fire. Many of these pioneers used fire as an easy way to clear the scrub brush to provide pasture for their livestock. "These fires often went uncontrolled and sometimes did not burn out for weeks," recalled an old settler, "leaving little life in their path. . .Vast areas became prairie with blackened stumps and rampikes to show where the forest had been." [284]