I Saw Conservation Grow

Welcome to Discovering the Northwoods from the Manitowish Waters Historical Society. We will take you on a journey through our local history with the help of primary source documentation. To learn more about this rich history or about the historical society – check out our website at mwhistory.org. There you will find blog posts, show notes, our YouTube Channel, and a full transcription of this episode including maps and photographs.

As with many historical works from this era, there are phrases, terms, and descriptions that are inappropriate to our modern sensibilities. The Manitowish Waters Historical Society in no way condones these offensive remarks or passages. 

The document for this episode was recently acquired. This 70 year old document looks back to area conservation into the late 19th and early 20th century (attached). I saw Conservation Grow by Harry Kozel, which explores this time through stories from the Old Timers.

I Saw Conservation Grow

By Harry Kozel

Since the days of the white-pine log drivers down the Manitowish River, through the cut-out and get out era, and that period during the early twenties when thousands of acres of Iron Co. burnered over, the conservation as we know it today has come a long way. Let’s quote some of the “Old timers.” 

 

Matt Plunkett, Manitowish

Matt has been in and around Iron County since 1891. His first job was with the Chippewa Lumber and Boom Company on a steamboat that plied the Manitowish Chain of Lakes, towing the white-pine logs to the dam for their ride down the river. Matt says, “There is just one thing wrong with conservation, it should have been started 100 years ago. More timber burned than was ever cut.” He recalls one fire in the vicinity of their old farm that was fought for three weeks to save the buildings. The Powell Marsh burned often and on occasion the peat burned through the winter. The deer, Matt reports, “were very scarce in the nineties for there wasn’t much for them to eat in the big timber.” Second only to fire control, Matt believes is the tree planting program and is sorry the CCC and WPA did not devote more time toward that end. 

 

M. E. Brandt, Mercer

Mr. Brandt was here when Mercer’s first election was held in 1909 – “Things were rugged in those days; 204 votes were cast in the election, almost twice as many as the number of residents.” He says the first conservation efforts were to improve fishing. In about 1910, Mr. Sherlock, a summer resident on Long Lake, applied for federal fish for planting. When these fish were received, Fred Vaughn planted them in Long Lake, but it turned out they were Northern pike instead of walleyed pike, as supposed, for in a few years they were being caught and slowly spread throughout the entire Turtle Chain of Lakes. Through the efforts of the Jerome Fishing and Hunting Club, a planting of crappies was made in Trude Lake in 1915. Whether the introduction of these two new species was a wise conservation move is being questioned today.

Forest fires were a steady diet for Mercerites between the years 1910 and 1928. When an organized fire control system began to take effect under the supervision of Forest Ranger V. A. Moon. The spring of 1925 was very dry and by the first of May the mature stands of balsam which covered the area north of Mercer were really in fine shape to burn. Early in May that day came. With a high west wind to usher it in, the fire of a party burning brush on Rice Lake, took off, across Echo Lake, almost a quarter of mile wide at this point, and was endangering the buildings on the north edge of town. Every able-bodied person turned out to fight fire. Flames were extinguished on the roof of the Krause buildings and the fire swept on, and according to Leonard Scheels, the fire jumped Oxbow Lake. The firefighters were helpless to prevent the barn on the Dan Shea farm from going up in flames, although they managed to save the home after Leonard and Guy Wing had taken Mrs. Shea and her nurse out of the fire area by boat, up the river. By that time the river was the only means of escape. The fire finally slowed down in the wet swamps east of Spider Lake and was stopped, after burning approximately 4,000 acres. 

 

Charles Harper, Mercer

 

One of the oldest “Oldtimers” in Mercer is Charles Harper, who was here before the white pine was all cut in 1894, when Williams and Libby had a saw mill near Hanneman’s Store. He owned an extra large team of oxen and logged for the Scott and Howe Lumber Company. Charlie was on the only Fall log drive I have ever heard of – from Fisher Lake to Echo Lake. Because the crew all carried rifles and hunted deer all the way  down, it became known as the Winchester drive. He agrees with the rest of the oldtimers that deer were scarce 40 to 50 years ago and I’m sure he remembers one of those seasons, for in 1908, a hunter from Milwaukee shot him for a buck. He says, “lynx, bob-cat, timber wolves, fisher, marten, and milk were plentiful, but no beaver.” You should hear some of his tales of his trap lines and hunting trips.

 

Al Seifert, Springstead 

Al Seifert, and his two sons, Evert, on the Turtle Flowage, and Ervin on French Lake, have been ardent conservationists since their arrival in the country in the year 1910. Being in the resort business, they watched the trend in conservation grow from the early fish fry plantings which were shipped by train, in 1918, through the reforestation efforts of the CCC in 1933, to the growth of the forest protection division of the present date. Evert says, “The whole country burned over in 1920-1921. They fought fire for 3 weeks to save the buildings in the community and a train waited at Powell in case the people had to be evacuated. Their only tools were shovels and wet gunny sacks, and they thought everything would be under control when Ranger V. A. Moon drove out in his Model “T” and gave them backpack pumps to use on the fires.

Al has an interesting comparison on the roads they used to have. He left Waukegan, Illinois, on May 12, 1916 with a car and arrived at the Pripps residence on French Lake, 21 days and 3 bridges later. A lack of highway markers was a great problem. At Tigerton Mr. Seifert was directed to Phlox, to keep left for 27 miles; after driving 57 miles, he found himself 6 miles west of Tigerton.

The market hunters were the main concern of Frank Russel, of Park Falls, the first game warden the Seiferts met. 

 

Leo Shoenabeck 

Leo Shoenabeck arrived just in time to witness the last big white pine drive down the Flameau River in 1905. He logged the white pine off his homestead, floated it down river to Park Falls and sold it for $12.00 per thousand. Leo learned about forest fires the hard way, for he was burned out while working at Park Falls in 1910, just after building a new log house. To save time he bought lumber from the saw-mill town of Emerson and rafted it down river to the homestead. After Heinz started logging the hardwood and hemlock in 1912, fire was a constant threat, as people burned the slashed areas after cutting, the idea being to sell the land to settlers for farming. “Nobody gave a damn when it burned,” Leo says. That land could be covered with forests now, if there had been no fires, and someone could be cutting pulp on those bare hills. 

 

Heino Hamula, Van Buskirk

Heino can tell us both sides of the story on timber. Since 1913 he helped cut a lot of the original stand of timber and in 1935 he started to work for Iron County on the Forestry Committee. He estimates that 5 million trees have been replanted in Iron County during the last 16 years. Another worthwhile project has been the replacing of 1,650 old wooden survey corners with permanent brass-capped iron pipe. “Public opinion in the early days,” says Heino, “was not in opposition to the suppression of forest fires, but everyone felt that it was a hopeless, impossible task, especially in the slash area and all anyone could do was save the building by backfiring and letting the fire go on its way.” 

 

1912 Proposed Forest Reserve Map. Catalog number 2020.1.17R.

According to the old files of the Iron County News there were only 162 deer, averaging 160 lbs, reported killed in 1921, in 1922, only 136 were reported killed. The reporter of that date felt this figure did not include the total kill, and thought the number killed could probably reach as high as 200. This certainly agrees with all the “old timers” statements that although deer were scarce, they were much larger in the old days. One of the articles went on to state that with a restricted season every two years, they would probably be able to hunt deer in Iron County for quite a few years to come. 

Rest Lake Tower, ca 1912. Catalog number 2020.1.18.

I couldn’t help wondering if the writer was still with us during the 1949 and 1950 hunting seasons. 

The large serious forest fires of the early twenties were beginning to worry the people and considerable interest was being shown in the newspapers at that time. Articles were noted in most of the spring and fall issues on the need for forest fire prevention and the need for replanting of the large burned over and barren areas. By 1929 everyone seemed to agree on the urgent need for organized fire control. 

Two casualties of the logging and fire days were the towns of Emerson, in the Springstead area, and the town of Buswell on the south side of Papoose Lake in Vilas County. Emerson died a natural death with the end of the white pines; lost its post office in 1916, and slowly faded out of existence. The end of Buswell came abruptly one day in May 1917, when a fire that had been smoldering north of town for several days was brought roaring through town by a high northwest wind. The only buildings left were Tony Machyniak’s home and cabin on a hill overlooking the town. These were saved by persons staying on the roofs and sprinkling them with water. Quite a town in its time, Buswell had 300 to 400 residents in its heyday. 

The old records show that Wisconsin was making an effort to protect its publicly owned land way back in 1911. Fire towers had been built at Rest Lake, Boulder, and Lake Tomahawk, and the Indians had a fire tower in Lac du Flambeau at this early date. Henry Fruend, Pete Christensen, and P. A. McDonald were some of those early Rangers.