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

CHAPTER 4:
Up North: The Development of Recreation in the St. Croix Valley (continued)

Steamboat Excursions

Besides changes in the animal population, the late 1880s brought an end to the commercial boating industry. Residents and businesses came to depend on and prefer the year-round efficiency, comfort, and dependability of railroads. Commercial steam boating, which had once been the lifeblood of the St. Croix Valley by bringing in supplies and pioneers and then taking their produce to the world, could no longer compete against the iron horse. The river, however, did not lose its allure. If anything, its mystic grew. By the 1890s, the excursion boating business revived the "Fashionable Tour" -- at least in part. Aside from logs, the only traffic on the river was pleasure-seekers on steamboats. Although the railroads supplanted the transportation and commercial role of the river, they eagerly assisted the tourist trade by coordinating their schedules with boat excursions. A friendly rivalry developed between the towns along the St. Croix over who attracted the most excursionists. The day trip excursions offered from Minneapolis to Osceola made it the leading Soo Line city along the St. Croix. "Osceola largely leads the towns on the St. Croix," boasted the Polk County Press in October 1887. The Soo Line sold 335 excursion tickets out of Osceola that season. St. Croix Falls followed a distant second with 191 tickets sold. Marine was next with 130, and Dresser Junction sold a mere 56 tickets. [81]

With the growth of pleasure excursions, Osceola came into its own as a tourist town. It boasted that its waterfall was "unrivaled by any waterfall in the northwest." [82] For its Fourth of July celebrations the town attracted one thousand people who enjoyed a parade, a baseball game between Osceola and St. Croix Falls clubs (which Osceola won 24 to 23), and a picnic on Eagle Point Bluff, "a beautiful place for a picnic or celebration, and one of the finest groves in the valley." Other amusements visitors and residents engaged in to pass a lazy summer day were climbing a greased pole, a potato race, tug of war, cracker race, egg race, logrolling, sack race, foot race, a wheelbarrow race, and a 100-yard backward race. In the evening dances were held under the stars. [83]

In the late summer of 1888 Osceola also hosted a picnic for the veterans of the Grand Army of the Republic and their families. The town expected a thousand visitors, but threats of rain reduced the numbers to only four hundred picnickers. The rain, however, held off long enough for the usual speeches to be made, a picnic lunch served, and a late afternoon excursion made through the Dalles. "The day was pleasant but cool, and was heartily enjoyed by all the visitors," reported the Polk County Press. [84]

The next summer Osceola hosted a picnic for eight hundred Soo railroad employees. While they picnicked on Cascade Bluff, a cornet and a string band entertained them. Games and dancing followed. "A delightful day and enjoyable time was had," reported the Polk County Press. "Osceola is proving to be the most popular place on the river for railroad picnics." [85] These words were prophetic. By 1893, the town hosted one thousand railroad picnickers with the usual entertainment. [86] One interesting group that came to Osceola for a picnic in July 1891 was the Knights of Pythias, an African American group. Many people from Osceola joined them for dancing and baseball. Later they took a trip up river together. "As many white people as colored attended the picnic," noted the Polk County Press. "All danced and rode together and a real nice time was enjoyed." [87]

Figure 33. The lower St. Croix in the 1890s. Note the numerous logs washed up on sand bars. These logs posed a major hazard to recreational use of the river. From the State Historical Society of Wisconsin.