Long-time Door County summer residents Dr. Carl Kannerwurf and his wife Patricia Sharpe were well-recognized postal historians who were intrigued by their explorations of Kewaunee County. The 45 mph signs indicated something, and research indicated the something was generally what had been an old postal community.

Finding places such as Zavis, Darbellay, Royal Creek, Casco Pier and more, were those few had ever heard of.  Curiosity drove them to discover the 45 Kewaunee County post offices documented in the Library of Congress. Years of in-depth research followed. The resulting history is found in Here Comes the Mail: Post Offices of Kewaunee County written by the Kannerwurfs and Virginia Feld Johnson, c, 2010.

Carl first came to Door County in the 1930s when “Pop” bought property along Lake Michigan north of the Sturgeon Bay ship canal. Enamored with stamps, post marks and postal history even as a youngster, he was writing a book on Door Co. when he was “beaten to the draw.” Meanwhile, as residents and tourists do, he frequented Stangelville to buy Konop’s sausage and Krohn’s cheese. Luxemburg meant kolaches and other Bohemian goodies at Don’s Bakery and the scrumptious Belgian pies at Stodola’s. Albert Theys’ and Hillside orchards at Luxemburg meant apples, and cherries came from Wienke’s Farm Market. Renard’s cheese curds – in Luxemburg or at Rosewood – were favorites. Carl was one who knew Algoma fishermen are recorded as developing the now popular whitefish boils out of necessity while on the lake one freezing cold 1930s day. To stop for a bite at Port ‘O Call in Kewaunee means sitting over the water, watching the boats come and go from the marinas into the lake. Kewaunee’s lighthouse is a treasure and going north on Highway 42 into Algoma, Crescent Beach with Algoma’s iconic red lighthouse at the end of the pier is a feast for the eyes. Both places are great photo ops though Crescent Beach is one of Lake Michigan’s best kept secrets. Its boardwalk, with its benches, offers a chance to walk the beach, picnic, go for a dip or just relax with something special from von Stiehl Winery.

One could almost say Carl and Pat’s forays into the county – and the resulting postal history – came about because of some of the best ethnic foods in Wisconsin. It was in finding communities that are one building, or maybe only a 45 mph sign, that led to Carl’s most recent award. As a late Professor of Electrical Engineering at Northwestern University, Carl’s scientific research has been widely published and he has been the recipient of numerous professional honors. Had he lived to see his latest honor, he’d be beaming while trying to hide it behind a smug little look, like the cat who swallowed the canary.

In honor of his outstanding contributions to philately in Wisconsin, Dr. Kannerwurf was unanimously approved for selection into Wisconsin Philatelic Hall of Fame, 2015. In his nomination, Bill Robinson said, “Carl exemplified both the quiet and studious historian, but was absolutely unstoppable when it came to talking about his specialty. He was a philatelist having serious interests in other collecting areas but the last third of his life was dedicated to Wisconsin postal history collecting, and his book gives testimony to his efforts.”

Waukesha County Philatelic Society supported honoring Kannerwurf who made major contributions to the history of Kewaunee County. The Society felt that the book is a model for other postal historians and said, “It can only be hoped that others will produce similar books about the postal history of other Wisconsin counties.”

The Kannerwurfs’ noted Kewaunee County historical collection has been donated to the Area Research Center at University of Wisconsin-Green Bay, to Wisconsin Postal History Society and to other appropriate places. Scanned images of much the collection can be found at Algoma Public Library. All sales proceeds from the postal history and its follow-up Yours Truly, from Kewaunee County, a collection of old picture postcards, is directed to the Kannerwurf-Sharpe endowment at Algoma Public Library where monies are designated specifically for updates in Kewaunee County local history and genealogy.

Here Comes the Mail, Post Offices of Kewaunee County and Yours Truly, from Kewaunee County are available at the Lighthouse Gift Shop in Kewaunee, Village Kitchen in Casco, Krohn’s Dairy Store in Luxemburg, Heritage Hill and Bosse’s in Green Bay, Algoma Public Library and Amazon.com.

To learn more about Wisconsin Federation of Stamp Clubs and more, go to www.wfscstamps.org. The site will lead to many others across the country.

Commercial Fishing, Boiling the Nets and Grandpa in a Tree!

Huge tripods suspending large cast iron kettles over a blazing wood fire bring up images of Halloweeen and witches' brew. Halloween would come 7 months later though. Those bubbling cauldroms meant serious business and there would be time for another kind of brew after the fires were out and all was packed up.

Junior’s dad was home for the weekend. As a deckhand who eventually made captain in the U.S. Corp of Engineers, his winter work included repairing the tugs – lots of painting – or sounding the local waters, supplying information for government charts. Winter work often allowed him to be around on an early spring weekend or two, something that didn’t happen from then on until late fall. It was a time when he could help his father and brothers in the family’s commercial fishing business. The fishnets needed cleaning and there was work to do. Grandpa and the uncles, and all the commercial fishermen, used gill nets for ice fishing all winter.

Just after dawn one frosty Saturday morning, Junior and his dad packed the family Model A and headed for Little Sturgeon Bay. By the time they reached the net cleaning area, steam from the boiling kettles was already rising above the cedar trees. Everybody was hustling and bustling in an almost carnival atmosphere as the various fishermen’s families took turns throwing logs under the big black kettles mounted on tripods while the men dunked their nets in the kettles of boiling water that dotted the bay shore clearing. All the while, the strong smell tar permeated the spring air.  Whether the tar was being used for coating lines and equipment as a preventative or to generate more heat in the fires is something Junior forgot. Perhaps it was both.

Teams of horses stood by waiting to pull the wagons full of nets. Jumpier than usual, some teams shied nervously as they backed their loads near the steaming pots. It was spring and they weren’t getting needed exercise. All winter long the horses worked with the fishermen, getting nets and supplies distributed around the area bays and then hauling boxes of fish off the ice to market distribution points. Before long the same horses would be taking up their summer jobs - working on farms. Right now it was between the big work seasons. Understandably the horses were nervous. Fire, steam and all that commotion didn’t help.

After Junior’s family took their nets from the boiling pots, their winter season was over – at least after the horses and wagons hauled the nets to Sturgeon Bay for use on the Lady Marie, the family’s fishtug. But, as it turned out, there was a little more to that fishing year.

Once the net boxes were loaded on wagons and the team had to begin pulling, it became obvious that the horses were even more jumpy. As a lumber camp teamster and a graduate of a horse short course at University of Wisconsin, Grandpa was an experienced horseman. Sensing problems, Grandpa sent Junior’s dad to Sturgeon Bay for the family truck so some of the net load could be transferred to it. Getting up  the hills on the way back toward Sturgeon Bay was hard work, and Grandpa feared a runaway.

As soon as Junior’s dad was underway in the truck, Junior and his cousin were told to hop on the back of the wagon. They were instructed to jump off immediately if the wagon picked up speed. Even partially loaded, a runaway was a possibility. Riding on the wagon was fun for the boys who enjoyed themselves as they went east through the farm country toward Sturgeon Bay. Just about the time the boys were taking things for granted, Grandpa brought the wagon to a stop and told them to get off. They were at the foot of a hill just before the little country airport, and Grandpa wasn’t sure of the team on the grade. With the boys walking behind, the wagon started forward. But just then Junior’s dad came over the hill driving the red truck and scaring the team which took off running in a flash. The dreaded run-away!

The wagon was bouncing, net boxes were flying and Grandpa was standing, trying to rein in the team that was racing toward town with the boys running in hot pursuit. In what seemed like only a few seconds the wagon was an empty while Grandpa was still pulling on the reins. As son as Junior's dad was able to turn the truck around, the boys jumped in.  The truck was chasing the wagon which remained upright for over a half mile before it flipped over into the ditch, pitching Grandpa into the air. As the hitch broke free of the wagon, the wagon continued down the road when the limb of a tree drove through Grandpa’s Navy pea coat, leaving him hanging in a tree!

The horses kept going until a farmer far down the road stopped his vehicle to try to approach the team on foot. As it neared him he was able to grab one of the bridles, thus bringing the hitch to a stop. Grandpa got out of the tree uninjured. And the pea coat? It made quite a mending job for Junior’s mother a few days later. 

The boys were safely home before the nets and net boxes were all retrieved, but the vivid memories of that wagon on its side in the ditch with front wheels spinning and Grandpa hanging in a tree at the edge of a swamp are the images forming never-to-be-forgotten family memories.


Left: Net drying racks and net mending needles. Nets needing repair are mended as they are reeled on to the racks.

Sources: Paintings, or parts of paintings, are used with permission from the artist N. Johnson. Photos are in the family collection

Windmills - Everything Old is New Again

Standing high on the hill on Algoma's north side, St. Mary's Church is on the navigational charts of Lake Michigan. Built to guide and protect the souls of its members, the church guides mariners as well. Across the peninsula, sailors in the bay of Green Bay know they are off Dyckesville when they spot the Rosiere windmills in the distance high on the bluff on the east side of the bay, windmills guiding sailors while protecting the environment with clean energy. On a good day, it’s even possible to see the windmills far beyond the bay’s east shore, nearly to Rio Creek.

Recent years have brought talk about building windmills in Lake Michigan off Algoma. Advocates for off-shore wind turbines weren’t thinking about guiding mariners but they were thinking about the energy producing windmills, perhaps like those in the North Sea. Windmills aren’t anything new. There was a time when Kewaunee County was dotted with them. Algoma, Casco, Kewaunee and Luxemburg had more than a few. Reminiscing with the old Peter Allen song lyrics - Everything old is new again...."

Wikipedia tells us windmills were first recorded in Iran, near the Afghanistan border by the 9^th century, and perhaps even as early as the 7^th. It was the 12^th century before they were documented in Europe. As early as the American Revolution, windmills were used on Cape Cod, pumping seawater to make salt. Nearly 100 years later a Scotsman used a wind turbine to power his “holiday home.” Offering to sell his surplus to the city for streetlights, he was rejected as some felt such a thing was the devil’s work. Electricity still seems like magic.

At first windmills were used to grind grain and pump water, which is no doubt why they caught on as they did in the American Midwest. As regions of the country saw water supplies sinking, wells had to be dug deeper and deeper making it increasingly harder to pump. And, a farm's value was enhanced when labor-saving wind power was used for the previously labor intensive feed and grain cutting

Original U.S. windmills generally had four paddle-like wooden blades. Newer technology brought mills with thin wooden slats nailed to wooden rims and a “tail” that directed it into the wind, something like a weather vane, or a sailboat rudder. In the years between 1850 and 1900, over 6 million windmills were built in the U.S. alone and Kewaunee County was not left behind. As late as the 1950s and 1960s, a ride through the county's countryside brought sights of farm windmills and perhaps a small windmill or two mounted on a roof. Some type of windmill was found on most farms and, like barns and silos, the almost iconic structures are fading into history.

1883 Birdseye Map section

Ahnapee Brewery was using a windmill for grinding malt and pumping water before blacksmiths Thomas Fergus and Herman Haucke repaired it in January 1880. The arms supporting the oblique vanes - or sails that gave the mill its motion when the wind blew on them - and the gearing had been badly worn. New ones were necessary. Since this job was the first of its kind in the city, the city appears to not have had many other windmills at the time.

Frank McDonald was on the cutting edge among home owners on 1891 when he erected a windmill to provide water for his Fremont St. residential property. His home featured piping. The Ullpergers were not far behind. In an April 2005 interview with this blogger, Sy Ullsperger said the brick for his family’s 1896 home came from the brickyard and that the yard had a windmill for mixing cement. Storm’s was the yard, and photos show the brickyard having a windmill although it was possibly there when Albert Boettcher sold his business to Ferdinand Storm and Emil Witte in 1896.

 

1901 Advertising

Knospe Bros. – the farm implement company – sold Aermotors, a windmill geared for attachment to any kind of machinery. A few years prior to 1900, the paper opined that windmills were seeing such wide use that it wouldn’t be long before most farms would have one. Fred Heier/Heuer bought one of Haney’s Monitor windmills in December 1899 and expected to put it to good use on his Town of Ahnapee farm. Heuer’s windmill had a 14’ wheel that was expected to furnish enough power to drive a feed cutter, feed grinder, cream separator, wood saw and pump.

By November 1895 the windmill for the new Ahnapee and Western Railroad water tank was in place near the depot supplying locomotives. The old tank near the 4^th Street Bridge was taken down, however it is unclear if it too had a windmill. In spring 1898 the Ahnapee and Western water tank and windmill were taken to Casco where the water was far better. Algoma’s water often caused the boiler to foam thus making Casco a more convenient location. The equipment was put up at Ahnapee (the city's name then) before the railroad was extended to Sturgeon Bay.

Walter Knospe apparently felt that a man selling and installing the popular windmills should himself have one because in 1904 he added a windmill to his own building. As one of Algoma’s most successful implement dealers, he was selling Aerometer windmills as early as 1899. When Jule Defnet got a windmill for his well, it was Knospe’s popular model. Henry Jennijohn/Jennerjohn and M. Miller followed suit.

Knospe customers Peter Duerst and Andrew Laubenstein had their windmills put up in February 1903 when the paper commented on the men’s understanding of such technology. It didn’t take long for Duerst’s mind to change as the “hustling farmer” traded his two windmills to Haney-Gaspar-Ihlenfeldt in 1907 when he bought a 6 hp gasoline engine to drive his feed cutter and wood saw. Duerst bought a manure spreader at the same time but it was definitly not run by wind power. When Knospe installed windmills at Kolberg in December 1904 for William Guth, L. Boettcher and A. Ullman, each man had two working windmills on his farm. It was said each believed in using nature’s forces while saving their own for better days. Joe and Frank Wacek put a windmill on their Woodside farm in 1900 and Joe Bie felt he would have an exhaustible supply of water with his. Pierce Town’s Charlie Toppe’s windmill furnished water for man and beast as did West Kewaunee's Anton Kollross and John Kunesh. Ahnapee’s Karl Lineau and Adolph Feld depended on their windmills for the operation of their dairy-milk route businesses. Not only were farmers making use of mechanical energy, the Record noted all the wood sawing going on throughout the area, some with windmills providing power and others powered by an engine. Wind power was here to stay.

Looking around the county, other businesses were also employing wind energy. Theodore Tronson was using windmills to provide power to his sawmill business at Silver Creek. Several years later, a September 1897 Enterprise reported Kewaunee’s Hotel Erichson was putting up a windmill to pump water. An early 1900s postcard photo of Anton Grassel’s buildings at Sharp Corners - the northeast corner of today’s Highway N and Rendezvous Road at Neuren - show a windmill. The post office was in the section behind the tavern in the foreground. The sign right of the windmill says “store.”

John Teich was said to be an expert on windmills when he installed Herman Teske’s in January 1902, but there were other experts besides Teich, Knospe and Haney. Wenniger, Bohne, Loberger and Retzlaff are names that stand out in Kewaunee County’s pump business, but not all built the tall metal windmills. Caspar Loberger’s pump and windmill business was operating on Luxemburg’s Main Street in 1912, however he moved to Oconto the following year. Wenniger’s wooden – and then iron - pumps were manufactured in the building that became his saloon on the north side of Algoma’s 2^nd Street bridge. Bohne had establishments in both Algoma and Kewaunee. Retzlaff operated from Luxemburg and is a name long-recognized in well-drilling. Haney Bros. of Algoma and Kewaunee advertised. While some of the companies manufactured pumps, not all installed windmills.

Today’s windmills are far different than those popular in Kewaunee County a century or more ago. They no longer dot the county, however several county sites sport wind farms with any number of sleek three-blade windmills. Here and there, residents have their own windmill and sell their unused power to the power companies. Will windmills be built in Lake Michigan?  It’s anyone’s guess.

Sources: Ahnapee Record; Algoma Record; Commercial History of Algoma, Wisconsin, Vols. 1 & ll, c. 2006 and 2012; Interview with Sylvester Ullsperger, April 2005; Yours Truly, from Kewaunee County, c. 2013; 1912 Kewaunee County Plat Book.

Field Daisies & Christmas Trees: A Wedding & A Divorce

Traveling rural roads, this year’s eye-popping fields of wild daisies are sure to bring smiles. The glorious field daisies are earlier and far more prolific than in years. Field daisies bring to mind the stories of weddings 100 and more years ago when wildflowers graced the bouquets and decorated the tables of wedding feasts served at the bride’s home. Such was the wedding of A.J. and Mae.

Daisies abounded at the July 1913 wedding, a wedding that almost didn’t come off. The bride was sick, but the daisies had been picked. The cow was butchered and though some of it needed cooking, much of the food was ready. Sick or not, the wedding couldn’t be postponed. How would guests be contacted? What would happen to all that food? Flowers could always be picked again, but probably not the daisies.

The wedding went forward, but had there been colored pictures in those days, the bride surely would have looked green. As it was, she didn’t look over-joyed.

A.J. wanted to marry Mae and farm, however he had little money and Mae was in mourning for her father. His brother lived near Rio Creek where A.J. got a job in early July 1910, working with a crew of carpenters and builders. March 1911 found him in Milwaukee seeking employment, gradually finding a job. His rooming house at 7^th and Clybourn is now under the freeway interchange. Milwaukee was far away in those days and much of the courtship was via the mail.

Born in Sheboygan, A.J.was a child when his parents moved  to a farm near Carnot. As his siblings, A.J. had a remarkable musical talent, being accomplished on the violin and on a number of brass instruments. He and his brother Gus played with others in several brass bands, although A.J. played singly or with another as a two-man band. One cold Tuesday night in February 1912, A.J. and Charles Hoffman played for a surprise party in honor of Mae's’ family friends Mr. and Mrs. Ed Raether. Though it was a Tuesday, they played until midnight when the guests had a sumptuous lunch before going home. No doubt all in attendance were in the barn or in their usual place of work at the regular time the next morning! Morning came well before 7 AM!

Two days before the Raether gathering there was a leap year party at the home of Charlie and Edith Toppe who lived fairly close to the Raethers. It was another surprise party, but this time in honor of Charlie and A.J.. Why? Neither had a birthday. In an evening spent playing cards and dancing, A.J. furnished the music at his own surprise party. Throughout the year he worked a job by day and played many evenings until 5 days before Christmas when he left for Long Lake 5 days to spend the winter in a lumber camp in the north woods. There was money to be made. Often Mae's’ guests included A.J.’s siblings in addition to her friends and cousins, though he was seldom there. A.J. furnished the music for so many parties and dances that one wonders how much Mae enjoyed the social events. It was just prior to their wedding when they began spending more time together.

The paper mentioned the high esteem in which Mae was held. It said nothing about A.J. Though he was a hard-working farmer, it almost seemed as if it was felt she was marrying beneath her station. When Mae got so sick a few days before her wedding, perhaps it was nerves and wondering if she should go forward. But, the daisies were picked and the cow was butchered. It was 1913 and to call off the wedding would have caused talk.

But, talk there was, though not with A.J. and Mae. There were no daisies, but the Christmas tree was up and the trees that brought the smiles also brought memories of another event that happened years earlier.

Just after Christmas the wife of a prominent businessman disappeared. In a day before telephones, it was not easy to find out who might have seen her. Her husband said she’d been complaining about pains in the head and her friends said she was acting strangely for some time. Some wondered if it was insanity and whether suicide was a possibility. Where was she? When there was no sign of her, a group of men formed a search party, combing groves of trees, along the river and the lake shore. But nothing. Then it was learned that her clothing and other items were gone from her home. Folks realized she was not dead but had left her husband, perhaps going to live with relatives in another area of the state or maybe even Michigan.

Why would she have left?  Everybody knew her husband was a good provider. They lived in comfortable circumstances in a well furnished home. She had a good name and lived in high society. What could have happened?

About two months later everybody knew. Boys playing in a school’s belfry found a bolt of sheeting and some other things. Somehow the boys knew the woman had sometime before burned such items and brought the articles to her husband’s attention. It was known that about $20 worth of goods taken from the house was found secreted in that belfry. By whom and why? As it turned out, the woman had a close association with one of the school teachers. Searching the teacher’s trunk, Officer P.M. Simon found silverware and other things including items of the woman’s clothing, some of which were expensive. It didn’t take long before everybody knew just how close the association was!

Not long after the paper contained a legal Notice of Attachment demanding payment for the found goods or the teacher’s property would be sold. What happened after that? Anybody knowing with certainty kept it to themselves. It was rumored the couple was together for awhile in Chicago but he eventually went west and she remained alone.

Field daisies, Christmas trees…..

Hotel Stebbins: 158 Years and Still Going Strong!

Rumors fueled by recent news items revolve around the possibility of a new multi-story hotel and conference center in Algoma. If talk is credible, the new facility would be in the heart of the early “hotel district,” now humorously referred to as Algoma’s financial district.  Not long after first settling, the area around 2^nd and Steele laid claim to a number of hotels, however there were several more within a few blocks.

From Kewaunee Enterprize, 1859

Early settlers frequently had traveling strangers stay the night with them until 1856, a mere five years after first settling, A.D. Eveland often had overnight guest and then he began advertising. Tiny Wolf River boasted Eveland's hotel on 4th Street near the river. Eveland was so successful that Mathias Simon built his Metropolitan House on the north side bluff overlooking the entrance to the river. Simon’s structure remains today as a private residence.  Then Mrs. Jane McDonald Loval/Lovell, opened the Union House, an early frame building constructed in 1857 by William Henry and Rufus Ames. Just south the southwest corner of 1st and Steele Streets, Mrs. Loval’s welcoming sign attracted

guests as they trudged up the hill from the harbor’s entrance. As a devout member of the Church of England, Mrs. Loval made good use of her Scotch-Irish brogue in maintaining order during the boisterous winter when the hamlet saw men, including sailors, come to town looking for employment in the big woods. Jane Loval’s husband Jack was one of those sailors.

Wolf River was growing and by 1858 had an astounding five hotels. Speculators David Youngs and George Steele - the men who platted the original town – needed a good hotel if they were going to promote the sales of their land. During the spring of 1857 Youngs and Steele, who was on one of his semi-annual trips from Chicago, offered Capt. Charles Fellows his choice of lots in their new plat if he'd build a hotel costing at least $1,000. Fellows chose the lot on the northwest corner of 2^nd and Steele where a portion of the original hotel remains. Fellows’ hotel was named the Tremont House, likely putting it in the same league as the elegant and famous Boston lodging with the same name.

Capt. Fellows’ Tremont House was a frame "skyscraper" with an attic. A.D. Eveland dug the cellar and furnished stone for the Tremont's foundation while James Keogh built the cellar walls. Other than the shingles made in the area, most building materials were brought from Racine aboard the Whirlwind, the master of which was Capt. Fellows. Racine carpenters Mr. Wood and Mr. Adams did the bulk of the work for three dollars a day plus board. It was work that lasted into the winter of 1857-1858. 

Mary Frances Fellows and her father John L.V. Yates oversaw the construction as Capt. Fellows was away conducting his shipping business much of the time. Freights were low and cargo hard to acquire. Fall-out from the Dred Scott decision plunged the country – especially the northern states - into hard economic times. Squire Yates assisted his daughter and son-in-law by moving into the unfinished hotel in the fall of 1857 and keeping boarders and travelers. But after the building was finished in the spring, lack of business reflected the poor economy. Mary Frances, served as matron of the Tremont House during and following the Civil War, however she spent each summer and fall with her family at Foscoro where her enterprising husband had purchased a sawmill and bridge pier.

Hotel business didn’t appeal to Fellows who hired managers that included some of Wolf River and Ahnapee’s most illustrious citizens, Seymour Palmer, E. Shaw and Capt. Bill McDonald. Capt. and Mrs. Fellows later built a home almost next door to the hotel, just south of the intersection of 2^nd and State Streets, the site of the bowling alley today. After Fellows sold the hotel, it was owned by a succession of the community’s residents, later becoming the Ahnapee House, Weilep’s and eventually the Hotel Stebbins, which remains today. It was said John Weilep was the man who turned the business into a money maker.

Today’s three-story brick and stone front section was constructed in 1905 by Frank Slaby who acquired the building in 1898. When Slaby built the new front, the original structure was moved back and to the north along 2^nd Street. Slaby renamed the business to honor State Senator DeWayne Stebbins who died a few years earlier. Over the years, the hotel has been the home of barbershops, a tailor shop, restaurants and a radio station. It is the oldest continuously operating business in Algoma and in all of Kewaunee County. If walls could talk, the remaining section would have plenty to say even though the building has been significantly refurbished and remodeled over its 158 years. The picture on the left appears to date to the Armistice in 1919. Part of the old section at right contrasts with Slaby's addition.

J.R. McDonald built his Kenosha House across Steele from the Tremont in 1858. It became the site of some of the village’s noteworthy entertainment in addition to holding a number of other ventures. Michael McDonald ran his auctioneering business from the Kenosha. He and William Van Doozer operated a mercantile, and J.R. and George Elliott conducted a law office there. The fledgling Ahnapee Record began publication on the second floor in 1873 and four years later Celestin Capelle and his father-in-law, Mr. Dagneau, opened a new store. A year later Maynard Parker purchased Dagneau’s interest to form a new partnership. Franz Schubich’s furniture store was in the building in 1881, followed by Haney Implement in 1887. Frank McDonald ran his photography business in the building until 1887 when he relocated to Kewaunee. McDonald’s existing photographs of Ahnapee are truly local treasures. Joseph Jakubovsky bought the building in 1888 only to have it destroyed by fire in July. McDonald’s building was always filled to capacity and if its walls could talk, it would certainly reflect politics and secrets, local and far beyond.

Advertised as being near the bridge, Meverden’s Sherman House was built across 2^nd Street from the Tremont just after the Civil War when Ahnapee was on the cusp of a boom. The business didn’t last long as the place burned down in 1870 after an attic stove pipe started a fire. By the time contractor Michael McDonald constructed the frame building, the area had seen the rise of brickyards and a few structures were veneered with the new brick. But, some of those buildings also saw destructive fires.

William Bastar's hostelry on the northeast corner of 4^th and Clark, was being called one of the finest hotels in the country in 1883. According to the paper, it was carpeted, well furnished and decorated, offered fine entertainment and the best quality culinary products. The Record said Bastar's accommodations were fine for both men and their horses. Bastar’s establishment sported a sample room in which salesmen could display and hawk their wares to city merchants, a saloon, pool tables and an upstairs gallery. The paper said the hall presented a "magnificent appearance" and was one of which Ahnapee could be proud.

The upstairs hall was converted into rooms for guests and it was not until just after 2000 that new owner Scott and Paula Talamadge “found” it as they were refurbishing the old building. With its curved ceiling, gas light medallions, bandstand on one end of the room and multiple windows, the paper’s glowing comments were easy to understand. One can only imagine the social events held there.

One can imagine something else. During the refurbishing Mr. Talamadge saw something he thought strange. From a perch above the small

bandstand balcony, he saw a number of boxes in about the center of the room, between the curved ceiling and the roof. It was an unusual place for storage. On closer examination he found tubing and other remnants that could have only come from Prohibition. It appeared that the tubing was accessed through the medallions (see left) surrounding the hanging light fixtures.

Bastar was born in Bohemia in 1840, coming to America with his family in 1856. A respected businessman, he was an active participant in community affairs, serving as a notary public, school board clerk and county treasurer. Bastar sold to Louis Kirchman although the hotel has had a number of owners and remains today as the Steelhead Saloon.

William Boedecker's Wisconsin House, located at the southeast corner of 4th and Steele, would later house Boedecker Bros. and Johnson’s drug stores, Koenig’s jewelry, Algoma Produce, Asa Birdsall’s real estate company, Groessl Pharmacy, Groessl-Nesemann Pharmacy, Dr. Komoroske's dental office, Rupp's floor coverings, H & R. Block and more. Joseph Knipfer seems to have been the first recorded person to build on the site in May 1860, however there is evidence to suggest it was the site of Christian Weidner/Wagner’s store before the site was platted.

Boedecker, a carpenter in Two Rivers, had been a hotel proprietor since his arrival in 1871 when he announced that he would take in strangers. His second hotel was erected in 1875 after an April 15th fire destroyed his frame building. Immediately after the fire, Boedecker hired Haag and Simon to construct a temporary building in which to keep his lucrative saloon business going. That the saloon was built in just two days, April 18 and 19, 1875, attests to its popularity. After the hotel was enclosed with brick in August, Leopold Meyer put on a tin roof. Also popular was the hotel’s fine food – from the kitchen overseen by Boedecker’s wife Margaret - and its horse drawn omnibus, which shuttled guests from the dock to the hotel. For awhile Martin Bretl was operating the hotel which was renamed the Hotel Algoma when the city adopted its new name, however it was called Hotel Martin when Frank McCoskey bought it in 1903. The building remains.

Cream City House in background

Charles Henneman's Cream City House, built in 1866 on the southwest corner of Third and Steele, was also destroyed by fire, one that started in a basement bake oven on April 19, 1887. The small, low-voiced, well-groomed Mr. Hennemann found fame with his sumptuous pies for which he charged one of Edward Decker's shinplasters, rather than the nickel the pies cost before the Civil War.

Henneman's marvelous accommodations and exceptional meals were noted in articles over the years. It was said he knew how to keep a hotel and his wife was known for the fine table she set.

It was also said Mr. Hennemann tried to increase his stature by marrying a large wife, an image conjuring up Jack Spratt and his wife. George Wing wrote about the summer day when a Steele Street butcher came flying out of his shop yelling with the exacting Mrs. Hannemann right behind him brandishing his meat cleaver. It seems the butcher had sold Mrs. Hennemann a pork chop that did not meet her standards.

In more recent memory is the old DeGuelle tavern and liquor store on the southeast corner of 1^st and Steele. Dating to the early 1860s when the building served as a small boarding house or hotel, the building was demolished in an upgrade of Algoma’s marina and harbor park. The original building was yellow brick that most likely came from Franz Swaty’s brickyard in what is now the Lake St. hill. Directly east of DeGuelle’s tavern was a little yellow brick home owned by Swaty’s daughter Julie. When Joe Villers bought the property in 1876, he hung a sign saying “Rosiere House.”

Telesfore Charles/Challe changed the hotel’s name to St. Charles House when he bought the place a few years later. The St. Charles House Hotel got very little mention in the local press, however its sale to Mr. Houart in January 1898 after eighteen years of business prompted the paper to take note.

It was not only the proprietors of Ahnapee's hotels who felt they were doing their best: the January 30, 1883, Kewaunee Times reported “that without a doubt Ahnapee had as good hotel accommodations as could be found in any city of its size in the entire state.”

Today’s hotels include the historic Stebbins, Algoma Beach Motel that had its start with Hans Chapek in the 1930s, Scenic Shores, Harbor Inn, River Hills and Barbie Ann Motel. If the Kewaunee Times were still in business, it would probably make the same comment. 

Sources: An-An-api-sebe: Where is the River? c. 2001;  Commercial History of Algoma, Wisconsin,  Vols. 1 & 2, c. 2006 and 2012; Algoma Record Herald, Here Comes the Mail, Post Offices of Kewaunee County c. 2010; Yours Truly, from Kewaunee County, c. 2013.

The Best Little Schoolhouse in Lincoln: Jt. District #4

Rural schools were something about which I knew little. Living in the city, I went to a city elementary school and only found out about the rural schools when Mom returned to teaching. As a married woman with young children, she had no intention of teaching, but the male teacher in a one room school had what was called a nervous breakdown and the school was closed for lack of a teacher. Knowing Mom was a teacher, the county superintendent asked her to fill in until a long term teacher could be found. Filling in continued for decades!

The first time I ever saw all 8 grades in one room was the first time that I had a day off and got to go to Mom’s school. It was filled with the nicest kids ever. Not because I was Teacher’s daughter; they were just nice kids. The school was beyond my expectations.  It had a stage on one side of the classroom and a whole side room for a library. That library also had a dipper and pail until the day sanitation came in the guise of a huge canister with a bubbler attached. Water pumped outdoors into a pail was brought in and poured into the canister. Most rural schools had outhouses, but this one was modern with basement pit toilets. The pit toilets didn’t flush, however they didn’t smell  nearly as bad as outhouses. The toilets were in the girls’ or the boys’ basements, which had poured walls and a concrete floor offering a place to play in inclement weather. With a separate room for a library and all those books, the pit toilets weren’t a bad trade off. And the stage? It was flanked by the girls’ cloakroom, with the girls’ basement underneath, and a storage area as big as the cloakroom. There was plenty of room for kids to keep themselves, props and scenery out of sight for the yearly Christmas play and any other production they did. Our family went to the Christmas programs and enjoyed it as much as anybody. The programs' end brought squealing with all the clapping as that’s when Santa showed up with bags of  peanuts, candy canes, oranges and pencils for all the kids, 8^th graders, 1^st graders and all in between. Mom bought huge bags of peanuts and it was my job at home to carefully measure the cups of peanuts into each bag. Carelessness was sure to cause a problem. Programs were always big social events at rural schools and the small buildings were packed. Proud parents crammed into those desks, sat on the recitation chairs or stood to watch those programs in a stifling schoolroom on a cold December evening.

Years later when I had my own classroom, I realized it was no small wonder that desks I thought were so cool in Mom's school didn’t seriously injure the occupants. The seats had the writing surface attached to the right elbow, ensuring a real problem for lefties. Under the seat was a storage drawer that could be pulled out by leaning over the left arm of the seat. With the drawer full of textbooks and all the weight going left, desks easily tipped over, bringing uproarious laughter, embarrassment and sometimes a whack on the head.

Mom eventually taught closer to home and was on a village faculty when I graduated from college. I’d done some of my student teaching in that school and knew the faculty and many of the families. When the principal offered me a job, I jumped at the opportunity. I didn’t even have to go through an application process.  It wasn’t going to be teaching one grade though. Jt. District #4 had joined the village system and Grades 6, 7 and 8 were transported. The other five grades remained in the former district school because the village building lacked space for another 30 kids. Teaching in that school - seven miles from home - was the best job I ever had.  Hardworking, cheerful kids surely got their personalities from their folks, most of whom were farmers, some of which also “worked out.” Teaching five grades was challenging, but surely some of the most fun I ever had in the classroom with kids I could never, ever forget.

My goal had been to major in history and English and minor in music, however it was financially advantageous to enter a nearby college so I could live at home and continue a part time job. When I transferred I was hooked on reading and phonics while being scoffed at by friends who went on to physics, chemistry and math. It was because of people like me that those physics and chemistry teachers had students who could read the text books! My kids learned a lot of U.S. history, I read Shakespeare written for children and they learned the patriotic songs of George M. Cohen along with Smoky the Bear and all the little ditties we made up to go with diphthongs, digraphs, plain old "short A" and more. It was the best of both worlds.

Each day was an adventure bringing story after story to the family dinner table. Mom told me to capture the moments in my plan book. She said there would be so many I’d forget, but I never did. Fifty years later I am still laughing.

The kids in the best little schoolhouse anywhere!

One boy’s favorite song was The Little Brown Church by the Plywood, known by others as The Little Brown Church in the Wildwood. Whoever heard of “the wildwood?” His dad and about one thousand others worked at the Plywood. One kid thought he was good at mountain climbing but not goezinta. Some would call it multiplying and dividing, as in 7 goes into 14 to equal 2. He and his brother were nature lovers who took joy in spiders and everything else. The joy he took in a close up look at a skunk kept him out of school for a few days. “Slow as molasses” described another kid who was really perfection personified. Working slowly and methodically, he never made an error on anything in the two years I knew him. He wanted to help with classroom tasks that he rarely finished, however everybody knew what he did because it was perfect. I have yet to meet another who never made a mistake in an assignmentn or anything else. A neat kid who never lorded it over anybody.

Social studies had the requisite community helpers’ curriculum but the hamlet’s only service providers were  the doctor, the cattle breeder and bar keeper. Another making an impact on their lives was the bulk tank gas delivery man. Curriculum called for pictures compiled into a stapled book. One child scribbled his 11 x 17” paper totally green with a red dot in the center, surely not an acceptable picture, so I asked about it. He told me it was the Cities Service man. Restraining myself was not easy. Then I asked about the red dot and  was told it was an embarrassed Cities Service man. I fled to the hall in a flash, just cracking up. The bulk man with his ruddy complexion  who always wore his green Cities Service regulation uniform was my boyfriend’s dad, but the kids didn’t know that. The little girls must have been trying to marry me off though. Periodically some man would stop with books or for some other reason. If a man drove up when the kids were outside, the girls were sure to run in to tell me there was a cute man outside and wouldn't I like to put on lipstick and comb my hair!

Most of the kids played baseball during any recess when there wasn’t snow. When I played,which was often, I was the catcher and the ref. After so much complaining about my calls, I painted 2^nd base orange. Winter brought ice to a small pond in a neighboring field. Somebody built a stile so it would be easy for the kids to get over and skate. That wouldn’t happen today. Neither would catching frogs in the creek in the ditch that ran along the schoolyard property. The boys wanted to fry frog legs. My city up-bringing didn’t include that, and they told me they’d take care of everything if I’d bring a pound of butter.  In today’s world intermediate boys – nor anybody else – would ever be allowed to catch frogs, clean them and freeze the legs in the school freezer until there were enough for the class. School had a hotplate and that’s how those delicious legs were fried. 

Weekly Reader was the big thing for current news.  Just after a telephone was installed in school, the issue had telephones in barns. A discussion question centered on the need for such phones as cows surely didn’t talk. When the consensus was that it might be necessary to call the breeder, it was another case of the teacher running into the hall, not being able to constrain herself.

Thursdays was baking day and my stomach was growling by 10 AM. After school, two moms always sent over the world’s best kolaches and other scrumptious baked goods. How families could be so trim eating all that good food might be a puzzle today, but everything made chemically-free from scratch with fresh ingredients is now pretty much unknown.

Each of those 30 kids was physically attractive. One of the taller, always-smiling boys slicked his hair with the popular hair tonic of the day and at 7 years old was known as the Two-Dab Man. He never changed and when he died a few years ago, the church was packed beyond capacity. From what I know, each those kids went on to excel in their fields whether it be in roofing, construction, farming, working with the handicapped and elderly, in social work, teaching, writing a Civil War history and parenting. As their families before, they gave to God and community. Ironically, in my city district, I worked with some of them whose own children were in school, and  then worked with others who had mine. We had fun with identical twins who couldn’t recognize themselves in pictures. Each year one comes to town for an appointment, and that means a few precious hours spent over breakfast while way back in time.

As rural schools began consolidating, the one room schools came to an end. Our attendance center closed and the kids were transported to the village. I had saved enough money and planned to pursue further education. Mom got some of my kids so for a couple of years, they had two teachers with the same name, but one named Miss and the other Mrs. I always loved teaching and in all the years, wherever I was, I had the best kids ever. But, I’ll never forget the first two years at Lincoln Jt. District #4. It was more fun than the proverbial barrel of monkeys. Besides that, we had indoor flush toilets,  a janitor and 30 kids who missed their calling in comedy!

International Clothesline Week

Just in case you missed it, this is International Clothesline Week. It celebrates a free and easy way to dry clothes naturally, right in our own backyards. Clothesline protocol however has mostly passed out of existence and that might be a good thing. A mere 50 years ago neighbors knew a lot about one another and judged each other by the way the wash was presented. More than likely there were women better known for their manner of hanging clothes than their inability to cook. Unless it was a church potluck with cooking on display, the wash was much more “out there.” Extra sheets and towels meant the family had overnight company - but who was it? - whereas diapers announced the new baby faster than the grapevine. If anybody spotted a black bra.....that news traveled even faster. What would a body think about the goings-on in that house!

Monday was wash day. Anybody who didn't know that was pretty dense. Washing any other day meant that it better be hung in the basement or around the dining room so nobody knew what else was going on in that house. If sheets and pajamas were out during the week, neighbors would know someone was sick and come with chicken soup or a covered dish. How on earth could something so embarrassing such as washing clothes on the wrong day be explained?

Everybody knew that the whites were washed first, and that meant the lines had to be wiped off before the sheets and towels were hung. A dark line imprinted across dried items pointed to a woman cutting corners, or perhaps the teen-aged daughter who was sloughing off. Work clothes and overalls came last when the water was well used and wouldn't bleed the darker colors. Any woman who hung the dark wash first could have heard that news if she had time to pick up the party line.

Algoma Record 4/28/1911

Clothes were always hung by color, never haphazardly. Sheets were always on the outer lines thus guarding the unmentionables, though it was hard to understand why Grandpa’s woolen long johns were visible. He wore those woolen things winter and summer. They kept him warm in winter and he said they soaked up sweat in summer and kept him cool. Kids who ran around in shorts and sun tops never believed it.  For some reason long johns weren’t as unmentionable as other underwear, but perhaps by the 1950s, it was only the old coots who knew much about the things often called "union suits."

It was enough to hang the wash. Period. Grandmas and moms had other ideas. After all, a job not done well wasn’t worth doing and there was order in washing clothes, just as the picture frames were dusted before the furniture which was dusted before the floors were swept or vacuumed. Shirts and blouses were hung from the bottom at the side seams.  Hanging each piece of clothing individually was visually distracting, and ours – and all the aunts – attached one article to the next for a unified look. That didn’t work for socks which were hung by the toes,  or for  pants that were hung from the cuffs after the inseam was matched to the outer seam. Three handkerchiefs were hung together from a corner. In some wash line economy, the handkerchiefs hung in the little spaces left at the end of each line.

Most often clothespins were held in a little cloth bags which could be attached to the lines where they were easy to get and easy to put away. Some kept the clothespins in the wash basket but that meant more bending while trying to find the pins in all those pieces of clothing. Those with spring-latch clothespins often left them right on the line where they got rained on and dirty. That certainly saved a little work, but it was best to take an extra few minutes than provide fodder for somebody’s  table discussion at dinner, which was at 12 noon when every good house wife knew enough to have that wash off the line and ready for Tuesday’s ironing. Dryers relieved more stress than today’s anti-anxiety drugs!

Protocols differed throughout the country and, of course, women had to make do with what they had. Our pioneer ancestors spread wet clothing on bushes or lines that were strung from tree to tree and then taken down when the wash was dry. Lines sagging with the weight of sheets and work clothes were held up with clothesline poles placed in the middle of each line. Today, neighborhood covenants often prohibit clotheslines and outdoor drying, or allow retractable lines only. In a society where "green" is "in" and solar power is big, clotheslines are not.

Who knows? In years to come, National Clothesline Week could be a real celebration!

Sources: The ad is from Algoma Record and the photos and memories are the blogger's own. It was a Party-Line mention by WDOR radio host Eddy Allen that made me wonder if International Clothesline Week was for real. A simple Google search told me that it was indeed. 

Kewaunee County and Limestone

A part of Brown County's park system, Fonferek Glen is just south of the City of DePere. Hiking the park provides one with insights to Wisconsin's Niagara Escarpment, a geological wonder that is part of a nearly 1,000 mile cliff from east central Wisconsin to Niagara Falls.

Not long ago every school kid knew what chalk was, however as smart boards and electronic media replace blackboards, chalk is the stuff for writing on the sidewalk, not a blackboard, or chalkboard. Chalk is limestone. Kids in science classes learn about sedimentary rock, and geography lessons include the chalk cliffs of England and other formations world-wide, including those in the regions of the Great Lakes and, specifically, Wisconsin’s most prominent geologic feature, the Niagara Escarpment.

Early settlers who knew little, if anything, about the Escarpment, found Wisconsin’s peninsula a limestone treasure. Eventually its quarries provided employment and income for both individuals with their own kilns and larger companies. Used as mortar in stone work, brick work and in plaster, the clamor for limestone increased with the early burgeoning Wisconsin population. Lime was and still is used to neutralize acidic soils. Before 1910 the Algoma Record carried articles and advertisements touting benefits gained in applying lime to soils used for wheat. Lime was vital in controlling outhouse odors and lime was good for manure too. A little slacked lime in compost or barnyard manure guaranteed decomposition of the matter over the winter, producing a first-rate fertilizer at very little expense.

Mortar, whitewash, cement and more can be found in ancient history. Colonists brought its uses to their new homes in America  where  limestone slabs were used in building walls or shaped to be used in such things as bridge abutments. Algoma City Council minutes and those from Kewaunee County Board indicate both groups were purchasing crushed stone for streets and roads by 1900. The county also bought lime for the Poor Farm. As time marched on, uses for lime mushroomed in ways the earlier peoples would have never dreamed. Its use in plastics, in sewer treatment operations, landscaping and much, much more came later, 

Nast, postmarked 1907

Kewaunee County's early days witnessed more lime kilns than are known today, as most were individually or family operated and only for a short time. Nast Bros. quarries and kilns at Footbridge was certainly the county’s largest and most well known. Nast’s business was on the site that is now Bruemmer County Park just outside Kewaunee. Though the kilns are long gone, the zoo area has more to view than just the animals, while walking the trails offers the mind’s eye what might have been.

Nast Bros. was formed in 1872, but in Marblehead, Wisconsin, not in Kewaunee County. Western Lime and Cement was incorporated in Wisconsin in 1886. In a merger announced in January 1921, Western purchased Nast Bros. and operated in Footbridge a short time before completely closing. Nast, the company that became so large, started on a very small scale, presumably with John Colbert in 1860 or ‘61. Seth Moore followed and his business is well-documented in the county's history, as is Nast’s. Not so well known is that William Bruemmer and Fred Besserdich also operated the stone quarry and lime kilns before the Nast Bros. took over. Western Lime and Cement became Western Lime and Stone and, following several mergers, it became one of Wisconsin’s largest lime firms. Footbridge had been operated as one of the company's subsidiaries. It is the smaller one-man and family operations that have faded into history. 

Advertising in the new Ahnapee Record in 1873, Charles Strutz and Fred Dammen promised to provide the residents of Ahnapee the highest quality fresh lime. In September that year the Record reported that A. Hall & Co. burned its first kiln in the company's new lime kilns on the South Branch (of the Ahnapee) about a mile up-river from its saw and grist mill. Nearly two years later, in mid-June 1875, Henry Gericke put up a lime kiln on the lake shore near Chris Braemer’s residence, today at approximately Arlington St. and Lakeview Dr. Joe Shestock announced his lime kiln near Kodan, about 3 ½ miles north of Ahnapee in the spring of 1883. It appears that August Schuette had purchased John Wheatley’s Montpelier land and was running a lime kiln there. Schuette sold in 1910 to August Borchardt who is believed to have been operating it into the 1930s. Matt Holub, Jr. put up a lime kiln at Gregor in early spring 1901. Henry Boulanger lived near Thiry Daems in Red River. Following his marriage to Clementine Delain in October 1901, he leased a neighboring farm where he operated a commercial lime kiln. Joe Musil’s kilns at Ryan were up and running by 1909 when he was purchasing wood from P.W. Cain. Before 1922 Joseph Bairel was advertising the white pulverized lime available at his Luxemburg lime works.

Lime kilns were dangerous places. In May 1883 E.T. Tillapaugh, the former owner of Cedardale Nursery about a mile west of Ahnapee, was nearly suffocated by the gasses from a kiln at Rockford, Illinois where he was working. After it appeared that the fumes rendered Tillapaugh lifeless, it took several physicians hours to restore him to consciousness, however Tillapaugh had no memory of the episode and couldn’t explain what happened. There were those who felt that since Tillapaugh’s son was “subject to fits”* when he was alive, it was possible such a thing caused Tillapaugh’s terrible accident.

Tillapaugh was lucky. A few years earlier, in 1892, the papers carried horrific articles about a man cremated in J. Mabe’s Menominee Falls lime kiln. Foreman Nick Marks was attending to business when he fell into a half-empty kiln. Workmen tried to save him but he was burned to death with the lime eating his remains. Marks had a wife and small child.

Intense heat used to burn the lime stone ensured that deadly carbonic acid gas was expelled by the burning lime. It wasn’t long after 1900 when papers carried articles about the fumes emitted from the burning, cautioning readers about allowing children and animals to lie down and sleep near a kiln. In May 1915, Nast employee Richard Shinnick was driving a wagon away from the kilns when a railroad car smashed into him as it was being switched from the main tracks to the lime kiln tracks. Though Shinnick fell between the wagon wheel and the train car, he miraculously escaped with his life. While the wagon box was crushed, had Shinnick not fallen as he did, he would have been crushed as well. Shinnick was awarded compensation from the company but it was called a private matter and does not appear to be recorded. Thomas Buffy was another who nearly lost his life in late 1916. Fog was dense – perhaps Buffy was too! He was on the tracks in the advance of the train coming from Casco Junction. The foreman repeatedly warned him to get off the tracks before co-workers finally pulled him off just in time. He reported an arm injury, no doubt from being yanked off the tracks. That arm injury probably saved his life.

Horace Jahnke, a Nast day laborer, brought suit against the company. Jahnke had been loading wood from a railroad car when he fell and was severely injured. Frank Rhadio had the same thing happen to him. Rhadio also brought suit. The cases were watched with interest as they were Kewaunee County’s first to be affected by the Compensation Act enacted on September 7, 1916.

Nast Bros. hired Italian laborers, and in November 1914 there was a rather humorous mix-up with about 15 Italians who had been employed to do sewer work in Kewaunee. As the story goes, the men were on the train and knew little of Kewaunee County. Their inability to speak English made things more difficult. When the train stopped at Clyde, the Italians felt they were in Kewaunee and tried to detrain. Somehow they were made to understand they had farther to go. The next time the train stopped, it was at Nast’s and seeing the line of houses – lime workers' homes – the men knew they were in Kewaunee and got off the train. After the train pulled out without them, they realized the error and had no option but going to Kewaunee on foot, eventually straggling into Kewaunee and finding it a far larger place than Footbridge!

Herman Nast, Sr. of Marblehead announced in November 1916 that he would be closing the lime works and would not be conducting his business there for some time. Western Lime and Cement bought the company a few years later, but as the quarry was being depleted and far less productive, it was not long before it closed for good. The site, however, still has much to offer. The county zoo, picnic area and trails add to the quality of life in Kewaunee County. Older generations remember when that quality included a stone beer garden, or bier garten, and the sounds of the county’s exceptional Bohemian and German polka bands playing in the bandstand on lazy summer Sunday afternoons.

Sources: Ahnapee Record, Algoma Record, Algoma Record Herald, An-An-api-sebe: Where is the River?, https://books.google.com/books, Rocks Products, Volume 24, 1/29/1924; J. Zeilter interview; postcard and photo from the blogger's collection, and painting courtesy NLJohnson Art.

Early Lumbering in Kewaunee County & Beyond

Marcel, Jr., his wife Josephine, accompanied by their younger children, came into Manitowoc County, Wisconsin in 1848, just before Statehood. The couple’s older children, including a married daughter, entered Wisconsin about the same time but weren’t traveling with their family. Within the same few years, other French Canadian families were immigrating to the Two Rivers area, many being fishing families and most related in some way.

At the time of Marcel’s immigration, Wolf River* was seeing numerous itinerant French Canadian fishermen. Though a few names were recorded, most have been lost to history. Interestingly, the LaFond family was one of the early fishing families to Two Rivers. Nearly 160 years later, commercial fisherman Andy LaFond’s departure from his moorings on the Ahnapee River in Algoma, marked the death of an entire industry in the city.

Marcel’s older children stayed in Two Rivers. The sons engaged in commercial fishing while Marcel and Mary and the younger boys, Joe and Peter, went to Mishicot. Peter was baptized as Pierre in French Canada, but as a real American then, his name was as well. A year before Marcel’s immigration, the family of Francoise and wife Mary left the regions of Quebec for Two Rivers where their last child was born in 1847.

Marcel and Francoise’s families lived near each other on the land that is now Fox Hills Resort in Mishicot, and on the same July 1858 day, Joe and Peter married Francoise’s daughters Mary and Rosalie. Nearly a year later Joe and Mary’s first child was born. Peter and Rosalie’s first followed by about 6 months. The newlywed couples lived near their parents and married siblings, all working relentlessly clearing land, trying to build farms and eke out survival. But then the unthinkable happened. It was 1860 and the election of Abraham Lincoln brought war.

Marcel had enough war to last him a lifetime. He was an 18 year old Canadian citizen when he served the British in the War of 1812. Even though he became a U.S. citizen 1852, the war was not his, and it was not his sons’ with their young wives and toddlers. Joe and Peter began dressing as women. Anyone seeing them from a distance would think the women had taken over men’s work while the men were on the killing fields, but it was not something that was peculiar just to them. When conscription gangs were known to be in the area, the men – and no doubt neighbors too – hid in the thick forests. Joe and Peter’s names do appear on the draft list in the Manitowoc paper, but they never served. Perhaps, because from all appearances the war was close to its end, there was no serious effort to find them. As it was, the children came regularly and had anybody given any thought to the babies, there might have been questions asked these staunch Catholic families.

Joe – Joseph, Sr. by then - and Mary had 13 children while living in Mishicot. In 1878 they moved to Lena where the last child was born a year later. Peter and Rose had at least 7 children, the last of whom was born in Lena in 1882. Marcel’s wife had died, and one would wonder why that family and entire branches of other French Canadian families left Manitowoc County for Oconto County. Years had been spent laboriously cutting down trees, pulling stumps out and breaking land that had never been touched by a plow. Something prompted those families to leave that which they worked so hard to have and go north. Part of the something was logging.

French-Swiss immigrant Clement Rosera (as the name eventually was spelled) is said to be the founder of today’s Lena, then Maple Valley, when he established a homestead in 1872. Sam Roy/Roi/Sam King came about the same time. A sawmill was quickly established and most of the French Canadians engaged in lumbering. Wisconsin’s logging heyday is pegged roughly between 1870 and 1920. By 1889 one-quarter of all non-farm men were employed in the state’s pineries. Oconto County, and all of northern Wisconsin, offered employment by the big lumber camps or in businesses serving the industry. Cut-over land wasn’t worth much to the logging companies which sold thousands of acres of pine stumps at very favorable prices.

Oconto Co. history says that when the railroad came in 1882, the timber around Lena was almost exhausted, however hotels, saloons and other businesses began springing up near the depot. As logging was fading in some places, the railroad meant previously inaccessible places could be logged. It also meant small towns lacking navigable waterways, such as Lena, desperately wanted the railroad to come through.

 Lena, 1910 postmark

Marcel’s son Joe and Joe’s wife Mary ran the Maple Valley Hotel. Their children worked there until they married and made new lives, however their son Denis joined them in business. Joe and Mary also employed a nephew, Ed King, to work as a stable hand. Hotels of the time had stables, as lodgings and care were as necessary for the horse as it was for its owner.

Joe and Mary’s hotel served the traveling public as well as servicing the loggers who came from the woods north of Lena on Saturday nights. There were a lot of them! Joe and Mary were among the Lena residents who kept their daughters under wraps on weekends when the shanty boys came to town to spend their pay. Many had shaves and took baths in barbershops and hotels before they began to whoop it up. Some didn’t bother with such hygiene. The more whooping it up they did, the less safe it was. Better the pretty young women were kept out of sight. It was said a Saturday night in a town serving loggers meant that the town was wide-open. Some were. More than a few Wisconsin and Upper Michigan communities had their start with the bordellos, saloons and gambling places. Payday meant loggers had money to spend on liquor, cards, and, perhaps, ladies of the evening. Local businessmen knew there was money to be made, nevertheless the smart ones exercised caution. Though facts are not clear, one of Mary’s cousins was an innocent bystander when he was killed by a logger with a gun. As in so many other situations, rumors tarnished the reputations of all loggers, most of whom were regarded with suspicion.

Marinette County had its own “race riot,” though it was not the same kind of thing as it was 100 years later. As it was described in the paper, three Pembine woodsmen alleged that the “Pollacks” started the trouble when they objected to a Frenchman’s actions. It seems the fellow was thawing out a piece of frozen meat on a stove. That meat was thawing for the man’s dog. Objecting to the odor of the thawing meat, the Pollacks threatened to brain the Frenchman. Whether the fellow was “brained” or not, a fight broke out and was said to have been “general.” Thirty-five Pollacks walked out of camp and went to Marinette. Three woodsmen were held in jail for causing great bodily harm.

While Denis was in business with his parents, his brother Joe, Jr. and wife Mary – yes, another Joe and Mary – bought a hotel in Stanley. With a dozen kids, they had a workforce. The boys did the stable work, tended bar and helped their mother cook. The girls were chamber maids and waited on the dining room. Except when the loggers were in town! By then the railroads were operating in northern Wisconsin and transporting logs via train enabled the logging camps to operate most of the year, not just the winter.

As logging faded in Wisconsin, the hotels along the railroad lines were frequented by the drummers, the traveling salesmen who sold everything from cigarettes, to clothing, to farm implements and more. Drummers often displayed their wares in a hotel’s sample room where local businessmen would check them out. By then logging had passed its heyday, men were getting drafted for what became World War 1 and Prohibition changed hotel taprooms, although maybe not the way one would think!

With the changes in clientele, Joe and Mary breathed a sigh of relief. That didn’t last long because while the loggers really didn’t care about family’s religious faith, there was an area KKK cell which burned a cross after it was known Joe and Mary's Catholic daughter was engaged to teach in an area one-room school.

Dikeman Mill

Kewaunee County lumbering started along the Kewaunee River as early as the mid-1830s, about the same time that Wisconsin became the Territory of Wisconsin. John Volk took over operations in the early 1840s. Volk was the county's first postmaster, as he was in Oconto Falls where he was lumbering after leaving Kewaunee County in the early 1850s. The Slaussons bought the land that Volk told everybody he owned. Until the Slaussons, nobody bothered to check and Volk was essentially forced out of Kewaunee County. Abraham Hall began operations in Wolf River in 1852, Scofield started in Red River and C.B. Fay was off and running in Casco and at Casco Pier. There were many others followed, including Grimmer and Duvall Co. and Stransky in Kewaunee, Dikeman in Coryville,* Bottkol in Lincoln, Beitling at Casco Pier, then called Langworthy, Heppler in Pierce and Tisch in Carlton. Montpelier had a number of lumbering operations, most notably Christman, Baldwin, Hardtke and Brand. Ten or 12 mills including Decker's and Lamb's between Scofield's at Red River and New Franken were lost in the horrific Peshtigo fire. 

When the first settlers arrived in (then) Wolf River, the trees were so thick that the settlers feared getting lost in the woods. In 1851 the thick forests along the (then) Wolf River held the river in its bed, keeping it wide and deep. Within 20 or 25 years, the trees were cut and cords of wood were stacked along the river bank almost as far as the eye could see. Without the trees to keep the river in check, it seeped into the surrounding countryside and baked in the hot sun to be what it is today. Twenty-five years after first settlement there was little logging around Ahnapee, however men found employment opportunities in the northwoods. Little is written about the men seeking such employment before 1900 but history has recorded such familiar names as Krueger, Kumm and Sibilsky among others. The Schuenemanns had a workforce of men cutting trees in the Upper Peninsula for their Christmas tree business, something the State of Michigan was glad to have. Schuenemanns offered employment in a waning business.

Area men John Fellows, Dave Machia and Ernest Miller found work at Cedar River in the early 1900s. Frank Kwapil was operating his own camp at Hardwood, Michigan at least during 1910. In late October 1919 Kwapil took charge of the Strutz-Kwapil camp in Cavour. Given the association with Ahnapee Veneer and Seating Co., it is possible Kwapil was overseeing lumber operations for the company. Sam Newman, the man who originated Algoma Plumbers Woodwork, had a lumber camp on Washington Island. When the schooner James Hall came from Washington Island with a cargo of cabbage in 1911, Newman sent an Algoma crew back to his lumber camp. Newman's interest in racing was reflected in a horse named Pinery Boy. The Jennerjohns – John H. and John F. – who were joined by Louis Jacobs, Ed Kramer and Ted Jones, found employment near Nadeau, Michigan in 1914, but due to lack of snow, the men were forced to return home. Herman Wickman was another in Michigan that year. Though the industry had declined, Alaska’s Bernie Bycoski still found employment in the northwoods in 1926.

The cedar of Kewaunee County meant cedar shingles and posts for the growing markets in Milwaukee and Chicago. Working by firelight in the 1850s' evenings, those clearing land during daylight could make hard money. Ahnapee harbor was filled with schooners awaiting loading of hardwood logs and ties, the shingles and posts. The cities of the country were built on not only Wisconsin’s northwoods, but on the forests of Michigan and Minnesota and those of other states before and after the Wisconsin's logging heyday. 100 years following the decline of the industry, the state still deals with its environmental aftermath.

Notes. Wolf River became Ahnapee in 1859 and Algoma in 1897. Coryville was short lived and is now the Town of West Kewaunee.

Sources: An-An-api-sebe: Where is the River? c. 2001; Ahnapee Record, Algoma Record and Oconto County Lumberman newspapers; Here Comes the Mail: Post Offices of Kewaunee County, c. 2010. The Lena Enterprise, The Wisconsin Frontier, Mark Wyman, c. 1998. paintings by NLJohnson ART, used with permission; postcards in the blogger's collection.