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)

The Nineteenth Century Conservation Movement and Recreation

By the 1890s, many Americans were ready for more vigorous recreation than that offered by the genteel spa resorts of southern Wisconsin. And while summers by the lake continued to attract greater numbers, touring, hiking, fishing sailing, biking, and hunting, as well as the growing popularity of baseball led many tourists to seek more adventurous outdoor challenges. The continued growth of the middle class enabled many more people to reach and enjoy the outdoors. But this also brought about a changed attitude towards nature from one of simple appreciation to the growing recognition that natural treasures needed to be protected from further development and destruction. Sportsmen were the first group to join the growing conservation movement and to lobby for the first forest reservations in the western United States. The number one sportsman and conservationist in the country was Theodore Roosevelt. Like many urbanites at the end of the nineteenth century, Roosevelt looked to hunting and fishing as a retreat from the cares of the city and an opportunity to approximate the experience of the first pioneers. By the turn of the century and into the next, "roughing it" came to be seen as a critical part of individual character building as well as an opportunity to engage in a distinctive American cultural activity. Many of the great men of the era, such as Henry Ford and Thomas Edison, enjoyed trips to the wild. By the 1920s, President Calvin Coolidge put the Brule River on the sportsman's map with his widely reported fishing trips to the region. Oddly enough many men who made their fortunes exploiting nature were among the first to build sanctuaries in wilderness areas. Factory owners and railroad men, as well as the doctors and lawyers who served them, found the St. Croix one of the least permanently spoiled havens in the Upper Midwest. [88]

Through the end of the nineteenth and into the twentieth century, recreation began to spread throughout the entire north half of Wisconsin to accommodate this new type of recreation. The Wisconsin Central Railroad enticed these more hardy travelers into the far north woods. The railroad company built its own hotel in Ashland called the Chequamegon in which it could house several trainloads of sportsmen and vacationers. In 1879, James Maitland wrote a pamphlet for the railroad called, The Golden Northwest. In it, he described not only the picturesque sights of northern Wisconsin, Minnesota, and the Dakota Territory, but also advertised the possibility for more active recreation. In 1885, the Chicago, Milwaukee & St. Paul Railway followed up on the interest in active recreation with its own pamphlet, Gems of the Northwest. In the brochure, outdoorsmen were depicted with the latest equipment in tents, fishing poles, and the like while "roughing it" in the great outdoors. [89] The formal attire sportsmen were photographed in interestingly demonstrated the elite nature of hunting during this time. Some hunters were decked out in three-piece suits complete with tie. [90]

New England states continued to exert influence in northern Wisconsin. Like wealthy Adirondack businessmen, executives in the logging and lumbering industry built lodges and estates along the Upper St. Croix and Namekagon Rivers. One example is that of the Velie Estate. The John Deere Company originally owned the two-thousand acres dating back to 1893. It was located in Douglas County, seven miles southwest of the Gordon Dam. In 1905, Velie built a twenty-four room lodge to serve as a fishing club for company officials. It included a playhouse, fish hatchery, and stable. Another sports club, most likely owned by the Farmers' Land and Cattle Company of St. Paul and the Saint Croix Timber Company, was located in an unidentified section north of the Upper St. Croix River. [91]

Figure 34. Pioneer Resorts of the Upper St. Croix-Namekagon.
(click on image for an enlargement in a new window)