Hello everyone, my name is Ranger Dave and welcome to St. Croix National Scenic Riverway.
I'm standing at Nevers Dam boat launch, you wouldn't know it by looking at it today but the largest wooden pile-driven dam stood here for over 65 years.
Nevers Dam was built in 1890 by the St Croix Dam and Boom company at a cost of what some people say was over $250,000 dollars and almost a year to build.
Nevers Dam was a byproduct of the lumbering era, it's primary purpose; eliminate the coutless amounts of log jams and control the flow of logs to the sawmills downriver.
Life of the men who built this dam was quite tedious. Most of them worked 12-hour days and only earned .50 cents to a $1.25 an hour.
Living conditions were primitive to say the least, most of the men lived in cramped, cruedly fashioned bunk houses
and slept on bunkbeds but without the bed, just the hard surface of wodden planks.
Hay was normally used as a mattress but was in short supply as it was fed to the livestock first.
Meals consisted of pork and beans for breakfast, lunch and dinner with an occasional cookie or pie for dessert.
With the dam being built, economic growth soon came to the area in the form of a small community of houses, businesses, roads and a school.
Upon its completion, Nevers Dam from shore to shore was 614' feet wide and 112' feet long.
Behind me, the St. Croix Falls Hydroelectric Dam was constructed in 1903; its primary purpose, to give electricity to the twin cities.
Nevers Dam at that point took on a second role; control the water flow to this new dam.
The logging industry officially ended in 1912 when the last log was sluiced through, signaling an end to the wood cutters hey day on the St. Croix River.
Nevers Dam only had one purpose after the logging industry officially ended, that was to control the water flow to the Hydroelectric Dam.
The small community that sprung up almost overnight, slowly dwindled out of existence.
The logging camps that once dominated the landscape were quickly abandoned and reclaimed by the forest.
With no logs to cut, the sawmills ceases operation and the people left to find work elsewhere.
The only real evidence that a community thrived here, is this road I'm standing on and this sign.
"River Road", the oldest road in North West Wisconsin.
River Road is the route most workers took to get to Nevers Dam and the Northern logging camps.
Driving this road today, you would just see a few homes and a lot of dense forest, just a shadow of what it once was.
Nevers Dam withstood 65 years of floods, log jams, storms and ice before finally coming to an end in 1954 when most of it was washed out by a massive flood.
What remained of the dam after the flood was taken down 1 year later for safety reasons.
Today at Nevers Dam boat landing when the water is low, you can still see some of the ice breaker islands
that were built to protect the largest wooden pile-driven dam in the world.
Now just memories in the history of economic growth.
Historical photos provided by Sanford C Sargent and the Minnesota Historical Society. Location credits to Polk County Wisconsin and St. Croix Falls Hydroelectric Dam.