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)

A New Deal for the St. Croix

Oddly enough, however, the Depression and the New Deal programs of Franklin Roosevelt laid the groundwork that would help transform the north woods and the St. Croix Valley into a vacationland and marked the beginning of federal involvement in the fate of the river. With so many Americans unemployed and the private sector of the economy severely shaken, Roosevelt sought ways to employ people using the resources of the federal government. Among his most noteworthy programs were the Civilian Conservation Corp (CCC) and the Works Progress Administration (WPA). These programs helped establish the trend for greater government involvement in preserving and protecting the St. Croix River and its tributaries, its forests, and facilitating the development of recreation.

In June of 1933, 198 young men of the Civilian Conservation Corp of Company #647 arrived in Burnett County from Fort Sheridan, Illinois. The company was composed of young men whose future prospects for work and careers were discouraging in depressed cities. Useful, vigorous jobs in the countryside were supposed to channel their energies into productive endeavors instead of leaving them idle in the streets. The four hundred thousand strong CCC, under the auspices of the U.S. Army, became renowned for its accomplishments in forest, soil, water, and wildlife conservation. Federal or state agencies that developed a conservation project could request a CCC company. Camps were formed in national and state forests or in soil conservation districts. Forest fires, of course, had been the most immediate and biggest problem for conservationists and residents since the last century.

Wisconsin quite early in its history had recognized problems associated with the depletion of its forests, and in 1867, the legislature formed a commission to assess the state's forest reserves. Increase A. Lapham, the commission chair, produced a study entitled, Report of the Disastrous Effects of the Destruction of Forest Trees Now Going on So Rapidly in the State of Wisconsin. The report provided a comprehensive view of the effects of logging and lumbering. It specifically noted that the elimination of the forest cover reduced stream flow and led to widespread flooding and erosion. Professors at the University of Wisconsin and their students contributed to the call for measures to stop the ravage of forests fires. These fires ravage the north country at the end of the nineteenth century, and in 1897 the Wisconsin legislature finally initiated a program to monitor and preserve its natural resources. Members appointed a state forestry warden, who implemented a system of town wardens and volunteer firefighters. Some watchtowers were built and two-way radios came into use. However, these efforts were not enough. [168]

In 1908, after a particularly bad season of fire damage, a citizens' committee formed to pressure the state legislature for better forest protection. Governor James O. Davidson then appointed a State Conservation Commission to study the problem of forest fires and make recommendations to the legislature. This eventually resulted in the creation of fire protection districts in 1923. In 1925, these districts were given $25,000. By the 1920s disenchantment from the indiscriminant promotion of agricultural settlement, especially in the cutover, encouraged Wisconsin conservationists to push for a constitutional amendment to allow for state-owned and managed forests. This was passed in 1924 thus overriding the Wisconsin Supreme Court's 1915 ruling. In 1927, the state passed a forest crop law that encouraged counties and private owners to put land into forest plantation by implementing a tax plan that recognized the long-term nature of forestland use. The Wisconsin Conservation Department became an independent agency and was given responsibility for the protection of all forestlands. In addition to these developments, in 1929 a new zoning law made it possible for counties to zone lands as out of bounds for agricultural settlement. "It was a final recognition that an unsuccessful farmer, settled on unsuitable land in an isolated place," wrote historian Robert C. Nesbit, "was anything but a taxable asset to the county." [169]

Minnesota had also taken action to monitor and protect its forests. The Minnesota State Forestry Association, one of the earliest forestry organizations in the country, was established in 1876. Members worked primarily on the grassroots level, through civic groups and fraternal organizations. After the disastrous Hinkley fire in September 1894, Minnesota lawmakers took more direct action in forest management and preservation. The state auditor was authorized to also act as state forest commissioner. The forest commissioner then appointed a chief fire warden, who in turn appointed deputy wardens to monitor conditions throughout the state. Christopher Columbus Andrews, a leading conservationist, served as the first chief fire warden. Under his leadership Minnesota adopted a progressive philosophy of forestry management. In addition, the state established a School of Forestry at the University of Minnesota to train professionals, establish a state nursery, state forest park preserves, and more state parks that emphasized natural resource conservation. The Conservation Commission, organized in 1925, served as an umbrella agency over forestry, fire prevention, game and fish, lands and timber, state parks, and state public campgrounds. By the mid-1920s, the state of Minnesota offered a wide-variety of well-managed recreational venues and facilities for visitors to the north woods. [170]

Wisconsin was thus poised to take full advantage of New Deal conservation programs. The CCC built twelve camps in its national forests, twelve in its state forests, and eight in its state parks. The state employed more than ninety-two thousand workers in the nine years it existed. [171]

The cutover of Wisconsin and Minnesota was sorely in need of revitalization. The state governments of Wisconsin and Minnesota cooperated with county agencies to receive several companies to help redevelop the St. Croix Valley. Most of the workers were from urban areas, especially Chicago, but many young men from local counties were also able to get work with the Corp. One of the first camps was located two miles east of Pacwawong Lake in the upper reaches of the Namekagon River in Burnett County. It was called Camp Smith Lake. Others were Clam Lake Camp, Ghost Lake Camp, Sawyer Camp, and Camp Riverside nine miles northeast of Danbury. Wisconsin's Interstate Park hosted two camps, one from 1935 to 1940 and the second from 1938 to 1940. Pine County in Minnesota hosted a CCC camp, and on the lower St. Croix River a camp was stationed in Bayport (now occupied by the Anderson Windows storage building). This camp was entirely made up of veterans, primarily sailors and ex-marines. [172]

The main objective of CCC programs in the valley was, of course, reforestation and conservation. The young "CC boys," as they were called, built fire roads and lookout towers, which finally helped end the ravage of fires that had swept through the area in the nineteenth and early twentieth centuries. Once the fires were brought under control, the forests had the chance to recover. The CCC then planted scores of trees from the millions of seedlings they grew in their own nurseries. Forest experts were enlisted to provide advice on location and type of soil to plant them in. [173]

An example of charred cutover land returned to verdant forests was the handiwork of Camp Riverside. Shortly before the company arrived a fire had swept through fifteen hundred acres in Burnett County. The inexperienced young CCC men had a big job ahead of them. For the next six years they cleared debris and planted nearly 2,500,000 Jack, Norway, White Pine, and Spruce trees. They built seventy-five miles of fire roads, and laid 107 miles of fireproof telephone lines to the Burnett and Washburn County fire protection districts, as well as connecting lines to forestry units elsewhere in the state. The CCC also erected two fire towers — the Sterling Tower in Polk County and the McKenzie Tower in Burnett County. Firebreaks were cut across areas that posed high fire hazards, such as in the jack pine barrens. Water table surveys were made in order to install fire-fighting wells and pumps.

The Riverside CCC also constructed a 130-foot, two-span timber bridge across the St. Croix River along the historic St. Croix Trail that marks the overland route from the Twin Cities to Bayfield, Wisconsin. This overland portage was abandoned when the railroads came to the north woods. The camp boys also built an earthen dam on Loon Creek, which enters the Yellow River just before it joins with the St. Croix River, to raise the water level of the Loon Creek chain of lakes. They added four more parks and equipped them with campsites that created increasing the recreational opportunities in Burnett County. And three thousand pheasants raised from chicks were released into the second growth forests for sportsmen. [174] As Burnett County became reclaimed by forest and farmland diminished, the county government found its tax rolls reduced. One way it found to raise money was to cater to hunters. Cabins and house trailers on government property were leased thereby enhancing recreational usage of land in the St. Croix Valley. These small, crude shelters dotted the St. Croix and Namekagon Rivers in Burnett County until they were taken over by the National Park Service in the 1970s. [175]

In addition to forestry programs, fish propagation and river and stream improvements were among the more popular programs of the CCC. One of the legacies left by the logging era was dozens of streams and rivers along the St. Croix, including the St. Croix itself, were filled with silt when the forest was gone and nothing was left to hold the soil in place. The banks of rivers had also been severely eroded by increased rainwater runoff and from log drives. Many lakes had been so filled in by silt that they became more like swamps and muskegs. Alder took root where once there had been blue water. Back in the nineteenth century many hunters and trappers had reconciled themselves to the inevitability of the disappearance of game. Fishermen, however, had fully expected their sport to continue unabated after the forests had been logged over and lands turned to farms. When fish numbers began to decline in the nineteenth century throughout Wisconsin, there was an outcry to do something about it. Unfortunately, early stocking practices were not carefully considered. In 1881, carp were introduced into rivers and streams in southern Wisconsin because they were able to survive in warm and semi-stagnant water. The carp, however, bred quickly and made any future efforts in promoting more desirable species difficult. By 1935, the state began to hire men to clean out the carp and expanded native fish hatcheries. Inexperienced volunteers, however, dumped untold numbers of fry into the waters where most died. With the assistance of the CCC the Wisconsin Conservation Commission then began the practice of allowing fry to mature and released them under more careful supervision. The St. Croix Valley benefited from these efforts. [176]

The Civilian Conservation Corp along with the Wisconsin Conservation Department built a fish hatchery near Hayward on the Namekagon River. The CCC also planted a grove of conifers on the grounds of the hatchery and along the road leading up to it. Streams were cleared of debris and the Corp recruits built diversion dams where temperatures and water speeds could be carefully monitored. The lakes in Burnett County were mapped for depth and type of bottom, and "fish refuges" were built and sunk to nurture fish life. [177] The CCC also planted trees along barren riverbanks to prevent erosion and the silting of fish habitats. This provided shade and cooler waters for fish. The agency also placed V-shaped log dams in streams to create shallow spawning beds. [178]

Although fishing recovered in the valley and attracted sport fishermen, locals became concerned that visitors took more fish than they could possibly use. Fred Etcherson had lived in the St. Croix Valley nearly all his life and developed a very conservative attitude towards fishing and was irritated by the waste. "When I go there to fish, I get two. . .if I got someone who is going to go home with me to help eat them trout, I might take four," he related. "I want one left for tomorrow." But the visitors "catch more than they can take care of, so they throw them away." [179] There was clearly some tension between the locals who saw fishing as a supplement to their diet and vacationers who often saw it as sport more than sustenance. The CCC then provided advice to the state on fishing laws regulating size, bag limit, seasons, and licenses

Among the variety of work done by the CCC was plant disease control to limit the spread of white pine blister rust, and insect control to stop the spread of grasshoppers and moths. Grasshoppers were poisoned, while slashing and burning the timber in infected areas curbed the jack pine tussock moth. Wildlife was counted and surveyed and their habitants enhanced. Roadside picnic areas and state parks were developed or enlarged. Facilities for visitors were built, such as visitor centers, and were equipped with rest room facilities. The CCC landscaped the grounds. Nearby timber stands were cleaned up, as well as springs and ponds, and nature trails and access roads were laid out.

Since it was located primarily in farm country, the main mission of the Bayport CCC Camp was soil conservation. With supervision from the Federal Soil Conservation Corps, the CCC recruited ninety-one Washington County farmers who held eleven hundred acres of land for a five-year soil conservation program. The men spent a considerable time fluming and riprapping gullies and constructing drainage ditches along roads. They planted at least 250,000 trees on farms to prevent erosion, and assisted in rebuilding fences. The Bayport Camp also helped educate its recruits for future jobs beyond the CCC. Classes were offered in radio, concrete work, forestry, wildlife conservation, agronomy, and animal husbandry. Several CCC workers were later able to find work outside the Corp with this training. [180]

In the Wisconsin Interstate Park the CCC developed, under the direction of the technical staff of the National Park Service (NPS), a survey of the park and a master plan for trails and rustic shelters. All buildings were built from stone that came from a quarry in the park following the guidelines of Albert Good, an architect noted for his rustic designs. The CC boys cleared a trail along the St. Croix River by removing rocks using a variety of methods, such as crowbars, block and tackle, and even the "Indian method" of "fire and water." Rocks were heated for several hours or even days. Once heated through, cold water was poured on top to crack and shatter them. In 1937, the first camp razed the old bathhouses in the park, brought in new sand for a beach on the river, and built a trailside shelter, and a log restroom. The second CCC camp completed a new bathhouse, a shelter along Horizon Rock trail, a park office, a picnic shelter by the beach, as well as picnicking and parking areas. [181]

The over-used Minnesota side of the Interstate Park also needed a lot of work. In 1937, it welcomed 327,496 visitors. On some Sundays ten thousand people crowded into the park. CCC workers built a variety of structures ranging from a refectory, stone curbing, stone retaining walls, and a stone drinking fountain. When the CCC was disbanded, the Works Progress Administration built a twenty-two acre campground, a shelter-refectory combination building housing restrooms, laundry, kitchen, and utility facilities. The National Resister of Historic Places recognized the unique rustic designs with its designation of the "Interstate State Park CCC/WPA/Rustic Style Historic District" near Taylors Falls. [182]

The WPA also constructed overlooks along the St. Croix River. The first one it constructed sits atop a ridge located approximately one-to-two miles south of Stillwater offering a long, southward view of the St. Croix River. Workers implemented a semi-circular design, defined by a curvilinear roadway, stone sidewalks, and stone retaining walls. The site is still used as an overlook and features a plaque that discusses the geology of the St. Croix. WPA workers also constructed a wayside rest area near the nationally historic St. Croix Boom Site, located approximately three miles north of Stillwater on Minnesota State Route 95. It functions as a scenic overlook, historic site, picnic spot, and rest stop. With assistance from the National Youth Administration, the WPA constructed low, stone, retaining walls encircling the cliff bank high above the river and placed stone fire rings within the designated cooking/picnicking islands, which were also defined by low, semi-circular stone "walls." Curvilinear sidewalks meander through the site and a steep stairway leads visitors down to the banks of the St. Croix River. [183]

Besides conservation New Deal programs targeted certain areas for economic development. Water development projects for poverty-stricken or overly exploited areas offered the means to encourage regional planning and to create a multiple use of waterways for economic development as well as for recreational uses. One of the most famous New Deal sponsored projects was the Tennessee Valley Authority (TVA), which created hydroelectric power and thereby provided a shot-in-the-arm for the local economy. The TVA was hailed as a model of federal leadership bringing an impoverished, backward area to life. Comparisons, of course, had been made between the poverty of Appalachia and the cutover regions of northern Wisconsin, Michigan, and Minnesota that had failed to create viable farming communities since the 1920s. The New Deal inspired federal and state planners to respond to the growing poverty of this area.

The St. Croix River counties of Washburn in Wisconsin and Pine County in Minnesota were among the areas in greatest need. Pine County led its state in tax delinquencies. This prompted the Minnesota Natural Resources Board to recommend reforestation as in the area's long-term best interest. Beginning in 1935 federal and state officials began to work together to create a forest reserve near the Kettle River on the St. Croix Valley. This tract was owned by Northern States Power Company, which leased it to the Department of the Interior. In the latter part of 1935 and into 1936 the CCC established the St. Croix Recreational Demonstration Area (RDA). It was composed of 30,000 acres, which made the St. Croix RDA the largest in the country. The vast pine, spruce, and hardwood forests near Hinckley, Minnesota, had been decimated through cultivation and from the disastrous fire of 1894. The large, but poor, area included scenic views along the high banks of the Kettle and St. Croix Rivers. Its potential for recreational use made the site ideal for the New Deal Program. Existing farmhouses and outbuildings were demolished to make way for five developed areas; including facilities for a park administration and visitor center, three group camps, and one public campground and day-use area. Between 1936 and 1942, the CCC and the WPA constructed buildings, structures, scenic overlooks, cut roads and trails, erected dams, installed fish rearing ponds, and landscaped portions of the RDA. The entire "St. Croix Recreational Demonstration Area" historic district, comprised of 164 contributing resources, was designated a National Historic Landmark (NHL) in September 1997 because of its landscape architecture, recreation and culture, transportation, and domestic use. [184]

With the help of CCC workers the area was planted with pine, spruce, and hardwood trees. In 1943, the federal government donated to the state of Minnesota the newly restored forest. While most newly created state and county forests aimed to serve to dual interests of commercial logging and sporting activities, the unique scenic appeal of the rugged high banks of the St. Croix at Kettle Falls led the state of Minnesota in 1943 to preserve the historic RDA as the St. Croix River State Park. [185]

Unfortunately for the St. Croix Valley, as unemployment dropped in the late 1930s from its high of twenty-five percent to approximately fourteen percent, it became more difficult to continue to get money and men for the program. When the threat of war for the United States seemed imminent in the spring of 1941, many camps were turned into non-combatant training centers. In December, after Pearl Harbor, the CCC was disbanded completely. Work left uncompleted was finished by day laborers from the WPA.

Although defunct, the CCC had a lasting influence on the St. Croix Valley in reforestation, professional management of state forests, lakes and streams, and control of soil erosion. Once these resources were preserved and used more wisely wild life and fish were able to flourish, and to this day vacationers relish the natural beauty. Another legacy of the CCC is the St. Croix State Park on the Minnesota side of the river near Hinckley. Just as in Burnett County, farmers here had tried to raise crops on the land after loggers cleared it. The sandy soil, however, was not responsive to the best efforts of these tillers and most eventually gave up. Their tax delinquent property was then taken over in 1931 with the intention of making the area a state forest. [186]

The WPA also engaged in dam building in the region. One of the most notable projects was the dam on the north fork of the Chief River in Sawyer County along the Tiger Cat Flowage and Round Lake. The area had been plagued by a drought that dried up old springs which then in turn dried up lakes, forests, and over-cultivated land. Round Lake, which did not have much drainage to begin with, "dropped so low that some lakeshore residents had to take a long walk to go swimming." The North Fork of the Chief River, however, had a vast drainage network, which made its water reserves more than adequate. The proposed plan was to build Tiger Cat dam higher to hold back the flows of Twin and Dead Creeks. This would raise the water levels of all the lakes in the chain. Plenty of water would still flow into the Chief River so as not to destroy its fish habitat. Surplus water was to be detoured through ditches into Placid Lake to raise that lake ten feet and the rest would flow into Round Lake to return its water level to what it had been previously.

On April 9, 1936 an application was made to the Public Service Commission and aroused much controversy. However, the mandatory public hearings in May of that year allayed many fears. On February 25, 1937 Sawyer County was granted a permit to build the dam. Although the WPA supplied the labor the dam cost $75,000. The ditches, or canals, cost an additional $10,000 to the county. The project was in some respects too successful. Residents of Round Lake complained there was too much water that was now washing away their beaches, piers, and shorelines. [187]

The Army Corps of engineers also played a role in enhancing the recreational potential of the St. Croix River. Beginning in 1927 and over the course of the following fifty years, the Corps dredged 1,711,616 yards of sediment from the river, which had been left behind by the logging industry. Most of this came from the Hudson bar, the Catfish bar, and the mouth of the Kinnickinnic River. Powerboats, water-skiers, sailboats, and yachts, in addition to the canoes of an earlier day thereafter became increasingly more common. [188]

The Works Progress Administration used more than construction techniques to promote tourism in the St. Croix Valley. While some of its workers did a variety of manual jobs, the WPA also hired artists, musicians, and writers to promote the arts and culture in America. Many writers were employed to write state guidebooks. These books essentially provided a brief history of the particular state, its resources, and unique characteristics, as well as provided descriptive guided tours of the states. Wisconsin: A Guide to the Badger State (1941) and Minnesota: A State Guide (1938) included the St. Croix Valley in its tours. In contrast to the cultivated farm land of southern Wisconsin, the Wisconsin guide book described the northern half of Wisconsin as "a forest wilderness, smelling of pine pitch and brush fires, where rivers thunder across trap-rock ledges, or flow quietly on clean sand beds. The land is pitted with swamps, hidden ponds, and uncounted lakes, and wildlife abounds in both the uplands and the lowlands." The guide reported that Wisconsin's tourism industry brought in $250 million dollars in 1938, which made it one of the state's leading industries. "Its program is of two types," noted the WPA writers, "that undertaken by local, Federal, and State agencies, and that undertaken by individual promoters, real estate men, and chambers of commerce." They credited the Wisconsin Conservation Commission, which established a recreational publicity department in 1936, with the dramatic growth of the industry. The state added its influence to the publicity campaigns already being conducted by private and community-based associations, which specifically targeted Chicago and other large metropolitan areas in the Midwest. [189]

The WPA guidebooks offered several auto-tours that crossed the current boundaries of the Saint Croix National Scenic Riverway. Tour 16 began in the east in Norway, Michigan and then traversed Wisconsin along Route 8 through Rhineland, Prentice, Ladysmith to St. Croix Falls and ended at Taylors Falls. The Interstate Park, wrote the guide, looked "down from timbered banks to the boiling waters of the St. Croix River. Here towering columns of rock and pot holes, made by some prehistoric waterfall, lie within a wild, natural valley." It described the unique features of the Dalles, of course, and noted the network of roads and trails that traversed the park to invite the interested traveler. Tour 17 began in Green Bay and followed route 29 to Wausau and then to the Minnesota line, featuring the Lower St. Croix from River Falls to Prescott. [190]

Tour 9, began along Lake Superior and ran along U.S. Highway 63 went through Ashland, Spooner, and Hager City. "US 63 slants southwest from Lake Superior," wrote the authors, "through a country of sand and jack pine, a region of lakes, stream, and low young forests to which hundreds of sportsmen come each year to hunt and fish." This route extended through the small town of Cable, whose history was marked by forest fires, violence, and economic downturns. By 1938, however, WPA workers reported, "Rebuilt on a more modest scale, Cable had become by 1907 a center for fishermen seeking trout in near-by [sic] Namekagon River. Now there are about 45 resorts and many private cabins and cottages on the lakes near the village." [191]

Hayward was described as a well-established vacation center for the region. The town reportedly expanded five and six times its normal size during the summer months due to the influx of tourists. There were approximately, "50 resorts and innumerable private cabins and cottages scattered throughout the surrounding woods." Fishermen could rely on the well-stocked rivers and streams, supplied by two state fish hatcheries near Hayward and one near Spooner. Tour 10 also ventured southward from Lake Superior, through Solon Springs, Gordon, and Spooner by way of U.S. Highway 53. Again, subsistence farming and tourism provided the greatest economic opportunities in this northern cutover region. Travelers on Tour 13 skirted the west side of the Riverway along State Route 35, passing through Dairyland, Siren, Osceola, Somerset, and Hudson. Once in Hudson, they could find, "A small landscaped Municipal Park and Bathing Beach" at the entrance to a toll bridge extending across the Saint Croix River to Minnesota. Prospect Park, described as overlooking Hudson and the upper river, also provided free facilities, with kitchen and a public dining room. [192]

Federal writers with the WPA also discussed "Sports and Recreation" in a state history of Minnesota. They especially touted the Arrowhead District with its large national forests and abundant lakes, but also gave brief attention to leading lakes and rivers, including the St. Croix, for its fine small bass fishing. The WPA's Minnesota: A State Guide also featured the St. Croix on one of its designated tours. Tour 1 began in the Canadian twin cities of Port Arthur and Fort William, Ontario. From there it proceeded along Route 61 to Duluth and down to Hinckley. In Hinckley the guide encouraged travelers to visit the Monument to the Fire Victims of 1894. The St. Croix, however, received a cursory description. "The scenic ST. CROIX RECREATIONAL AREA," the guide said belonged, "to the Federal Government. . .in Pine County, along the west bank of the St. Croix River." It warned that all the facilities, including Pine Camp, a Girls' Camp, and a CCC camp were rustic in their accommodations. It did, however, recommend the river for canoeing enthusiasts and trout fishermen. No mention was made of the Interstate Park and its main tourist attraction for the past century — the Dalles. From there the tour continued to St. Paul and then down to Red Wing and Winona. Tour 19, however, began at St. Croix Falls where it crossed to Taylors Fall. It did mention the Minnesota Interstate Park, but used none of the picturesque language of the last century. Its geological features merely received a scientific description. The river was described as "a quiet stream, beloved by fishermen, canoeists, and summer residents, whose cabins are hidden by the trees that line its banks." The tour continued down river through Marine and Stillwater. The guide noted their quaint charm and provided historical background information, which largely focused on its logging history. In Bayport, visitors could view "a fine panorama of the mile-wide lake, with its unusually clear water and sandy beaches. Across the lake the bluffs rise precipitously. Resorts and summer homes are numerous along the shore; the finer estates have hanging gardens built on terraces." From there the tour reverted northward to the Chisago Lakes region, where its Scandinavian background received mention, but nothing was said of the beauty of the lakes and the resorts on them. WPA writers had merely called attention to what others had known since the early twentieth century. The St. Croix was a vibrant vacation spot and regional highlight, popular on the automobile tour circuit and as a hideaway for short-term and seasonal resort guests. [193]

The WPA Writers' Project also put out smaller pamphlets on recreation in each of the forty-eight states. In the Minnesota booklet the St. Croix River and Valley was given its own automobile tour up State 95 from Point Douglas to Taylors Falls — a fifty-three mile trip. None of the fifteen recommended tours received more than a cursory description, but the Interstate Park did get its deserved attention on the St. Croix tour complete with mention of camp sites and boat excursions into the Dalles. [194] The Wisconsin recreation book provided a descriptive tour of "The Northwestern Lakes Region," which included Burnett, Washburn, Sawyer, Polk, and St. Croix counties as well as the other counties that comprised Indian Head country — Barron, Rusk, Dunn, Chippewa, and Eau Claire counties. "Within the area are thousands of lakes, many of them famous among fishermen for the excellent muskellunge, bass, walleyed and northern pike fishing," the guidebook explained. "The St. Croix, Totogatic, Namekagon, Clam, Yellow, Apple, Red Cedar, Chippewa, Flambeau, and Thornapple Rivers produce all kinds of game fish, and many of their feeders are fine trout streams. All kinds of wild game native to Wisconsin live in the northern part of the region. Hundreds of resorts dot the area." Hayward was described as "the leading resort center in northwestern Wisconsin. . .[with] some of Wisconsin's best muskellunge waters. . .All varieties of game fish are plentiful. Deer and small game abound in the forest regions." Spooner was singled out as a host to many resorts on the surrounding lakes. "Most of the streams near Spooner are rated highly as trout, bass, and walleyed pike waters." Canoe trips down the Namekagon started at Trego. The seven-mile rapid on the St. Croix River near Grantsburg "is one of the best smallmouthed black bass waters in the world." Danbury, Webster, Siren, Luck, Milltown and Balsam Lake "serve scores of resorts on the numerous lakes that dot this region." St. Croix Falls received special note as "a farm trading and resort community near Interstate Park, Wisconsin's oldest State park, at the Dalles of the St. Croix River." [195]

The St. Croix Valley, however, did not need to rely solely on WPA guides to promote itself to tourists. By 1936, local tourist boards, headquartered in Eau Claire, formed an organization to promote "Indian Head Country." The geographic contours of northwestern Wisconsin, in part shaped by the St. Croix River, lent itself to an artistic rendering of a profile of an Indian face. With this description, St. Croix Valley hoped to create a distinctive identity and locale for vacationers. The organization responded to requests for travel information, participated in sports shows, published annual vacation books, quarterly newsletters, and produced advertising and press releases on behalf of member communities and resort owners. A booklet, featuring the vacationing opportunities in the various counties in this area, was published annually for the next half-century or more. By 1949, Indian Head Country, Inc., served fifteen counties in "the development of the vast recreational assets of Northwestern Wisconsin, through the execution of a program of advertising, highway development, conservation and legislation." [196]

While outdoor recreation dominated the tourist business, the 1930s also witnessed a growing interest in historical attractions. Tourism associations and community chambers of commerce also called attention to historic sites along the river. In 1936, members and friends of the Minnesota Historical Society decided to host their State Historical Convention at various locations along the St. Croix River. They took a tour along the Minnesota side of the river, from Hastings to Afton, Stillwater, Marine, and as far north as Taylors Falls. At different points along the way, participants read papers relating to the natural and cultural history of the St. Croix Valley. The event raised awareness of the impact that people had had on the area throughout its history. The WPA State Guides also contributed to this growing historical awareness by noting historical features of the area such as its logging days or Indian haunts. [197]

In 1938, the Minnesota Historical Society completed a "Statewide Archaeological and Historical Survey Project" with the assistance of the Minnesota WPA. The University of Minnesota and State Conservation and Highway Departments collaborated to research, identify, and mark historic sites, buildings, trails, cemeteries, and significant private burials. One of its stated purposes was to develop "the information into a useable form for public consumption." It constituted "an investigation of all of the various types of sites mentioned for their historical preservation" and authorized the erection of interpretive signs at those deemed significant. As a result, the tourism industry began to incorporate cultural resources into its range of attractions. No longer were nature, leisure and sport the only "draws" for visitors to the St. Croix. [198]

Towns along the lower river also tried to attract tourism dollars. Inter-urban trains and expanded use of automobiles made day trips from the Twin Cities possible. Stillwater, which had been laid low by the double disaster of the end of the logging industry and the decline of its once successful farm machinery industries, shook off the cobwebs with a series of important infrastructure improvements. Between 1913 and 1916 the city took tentative steps toward transforming its riverfront. Once the scene of lumber rafts, warehouses, and rail yards, the prime real estate was gradually reclaimed as parkland. Old frame buildings were torn down and a concrete levee was built to keep back the all too frequent spring floods. By the time of World War I a public pavilion had been erected and the area was graced with the name Lowell Park. It was not, however, until 1935 that the approaches to the park were cleared of the rail tracks and trestles that cast an industrial gloom on the riverfront. [199]

Access to Stillwater was enhanced during this period by the building of the Stillwater lift-bridge, a major public works improvement jointly funded by the states of Wisconsin and Minnesota. Since 1910 a pontoon swing bridge had provided easy passage from Stillwater to the Wisconsin shore. But by 1925, that structure was, in the words of Stillwater's mayor, "fast deteriorating" and was seen as a safety risk. By 1928, it was necessary to close the bridge to heavy traffic. In 1929, a contract was awarded to design a new bridge for the site. Two years later a vertical-lift bridge was opened in Stillwater. The rare lift mechanism was deemed necessary because of the St. Croix's status as a navigable river. In actuality river traffic in the post lumber era had dwindled to insignificance and the elaborate lift mechanisms of the bridge were rarely called into use. The towering steel truss towers of the bridge with their great concrete counter-weights nonetheless quickly became notable landmarks. [200] The new bridge, together with Stillwater's restored riverfront enhanced the attractiveness of the city to day-trippers from St. Paul. By the end of World War II the stagnation of Stillwater's business district after 1914 became a positive asset as its marvelous array of 1880s and 1890s architecture graced the town with an historical ambiance that was attractive to tourists.

By the late 1930s, resort ownership and tourism venues expanded dramatically. Fueled by the automobile and highway construction, this was indeed the era when recreation took hold as a very profitable and popular part of modern American culture. [201] Reflecting on the meaning of recreation for people during the years of the Great Depression, historian Theodore Blegen concluded:

Sports and recreation eased the stress of life in the 1930s, but their role is larger than their special contribution to a period of anxiety. They contributed to balanced living in the modern, industrializing state. In their diverse forms, they took advantage of increasing leisure and of the interplay of town and country in the era of modern transportation. In a broad sense sport has contributed to the poise and well being of Minnesotans from pioneer days to the present. The contribution was enlarged as population increased, as urban life with its industry and business became more marked, and as sport itself and recreation were made the object of organization and of civic and state exploitation. [202]

Resort ownership also provided a viable economic alternative for families out of work and cheap accommodations for those who could afford them. Small resorts, usually featuring cheaply constructed housekeeping cabins, provided an opportunity for many farmers and women to survive in times of economic uncertainty. The St. Croix River Valley's future as a recreational region certainly benefited from the meeting of these two needs for economic opportunity and respite from daily toils. [203]

The New Deal programs provided a tremendous infusion of capital into the region, supplementing well-established recreational resources that had originated largely through private means. The National Park Service, in collaboration with the state conservation departments of Wisconsin and Minnesota, offered a tremendous wealth of professional staff, well established planning procedures, and previously drafted master plans to the emergency conservation work undertaken by the CCC and WPA. This activity signified the introduction of a federal presence along the riverway and a turn towards aggressive, public development of large tracts of land designed specifically for recreations and leisure activities. [204]