The Chippewa Flowage WI415
In 1921, the Federal Power Commission granted a license to the Wisconsin and Minnesota Power and Light Company for a dam construction on the Chippewa River. The dam was completed in 1923, and provided hydroelectric power and flood control to the area, creating a 15,300 acre reservoir with 233 miles of shoreline. Known as the Chippewa Flowage, this watery area with about two hundred islands has become one of Wisconsin's largest inland lakes. Homeland to the Lac Courte Oreilles Band of the Chippewa Indians, the Band never approved of the creation of the Chippewa Flowage and lost their "Post" village, burial grounds and wild rice beds to the newly created lake. The power company relocated the people to a new village named "New Post" along the shores of the lake. Today, this area of spectacular natural scenery attracts not only many nature lovers, but thousands of anglers to the abundant fishing waters.

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Beef Slough WI230

The Beef Slough was a sluggish branch of the Chippewa River that provided and excellent storage pond for the logs floated downstream by numerous logging companies. Here loggers were employed to arrange the mixed-up logs into orderly rafts to be towed by steamboats to sawmills down the Mississippi.

The Chippewa Falls and Eau Claire sawmills felt threatened when the Beef Slough Manufacturing, Booming, Log Driving and Transportation Company was organized near here in 1867. Camp No. 1 built offices, a railroad depot, post office, church and dormitories to house 600 men during the rafting season.

The competition between the Eau Claire and Beef Slough interests developed into a brief dispute in 1868, sometimes calles the "Beef Slough War." The most important result of the "war" was the earrival on the scene of Frederick Weyerhaeuser, whose Mississippi Logging Company brought skilled management and seemingly unlimited capital into the picture and changed the logging operations on the chippewa from locally-operated activities into a major interstate industry.

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Brule-St. Croix Portage WI120
The Brule and St. Croix rivers provide the natural water highway between Lake Superior and the Upper Mississippi. Daniel Greysolon, Sieur du Lhut, in 1680 was the first white man to use this passage. Traveling from Prairie du Chien in 1766, Jonathan Carver was advised by his Chippewa guide not to ascend the Mississippi and St. Croix rivers because he lacked enough gifts for the numerous and unfriendly Sioux along that route. Carver's party then detoured up the Chippewa River to Lac Courte Oreilles, portaged to the Namekagon, traveled down stream to the St. Croix and up that river to the passage north of St. Croix Lake. The two-mile portage between the St. Croix and Brule was used by another exploration party led by Henry Schoolcraft August 6, 1832. One of Schoolcraft's companions recorded that the Brule was a brook of clear, cold water "filled with brook trout." The Brule still is one of the best trout streams in the United States.

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Chippewa River and Menomonie Railway WI90
"Crooked, Rough and Muddy" During the middle 1870's, when the great logging era of northern Wisconsin was in its infancy, the Mississippi River Logging Company attempted to float pine logs down the Soft Maple and Potato creeks to the Chippewa River but the streams were too shallow and crooked. To solve the problem the first logging railroad in Wisconsin was constructed in 1875-76 from Potato Lake to the Big Bend of the Chippewa River with a later extension northward. The town road which can be seen to the immediate west of this site follows that railroad grade. Sleds pulled by horses carried the locomotive, cars, and tracks overland from Chippewa Falls. In July 1884, this railroad and a subsequent line constructed through the Blue Hills were formally organized as the Chippewa River and Menomonie Railway Company.

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Great Divide WI54
You are now on the Great Divide which separates the two principal drainage areas of Wisconsin. Water falling to the north of the point finds its way into Lake Superior, then down through the Great Lakes and the St. Lawrence River 2,000 miles into the Atlantic Ocean. Water which falls to the south of here runs down the Chippewa River into the "Father of Waters," and after 1,600 miles reaches the Gulf of Mexico. The elevation here is approximately 950 feet above Lake Superior and 1,550 feet above sea level.

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Namekagon - Court Oreilles Portage WI50
Still visible here is the southeast terminus of the 2 1/2 mile portage that linked the St. Croix and Chippewa River system. Indians, explorers, missionaries and fur-traders all used this "carrying place" to move their birch bark canoes back and forth between the two great water routes connecting Lake Superior and the Mississippi. In 1784 Michel Cadotte established a fur-trading post at the northwest end of the portage to control the trade at this pivotal point. From such interior locations as Lac Court Oreilles the Chippewa Indians carried over here on their trips to the south and west to gather rice and berries and on their war excursions against the Sioux.

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John Deitz 'Battle of Cameron Dam' WI316
In 1904, John F. Deitz and his family purchased a farmstead on the Thornapple River about 2 miles south of here. Deitz soon discovered that Cameron Dam-one of many logging dams on this important tributary of the Chippewa River-lay on his property. He thereupon claimed that the Chippewa Lumber and Boom Co., a Weyerhaeuser affiliate, owed him a toll for logs driven downriver. For four years he refused to permit logs to be sluiced down the Thornapple, defending "his" dam at gunpoint and successfully resisting attempts to arrest him. At least one deputy and two of Deitz's children were wounded in confrontations. In becoming an outlaw, Deitz also became a folk hero with a nationwide following. In October 1910, a large sheriffs posse surrounded his house. In the ensuing gun battle, Oscar Harp, a deputy, was killed. John Deitz surrendered, stood trial for murder, and was sentenced to life imprisonment. He served 10 years, but public pressure eventually convinced Gov. John J. Blaine to pardon him in May 1921. Deitz died in 1924. Cameron Dam has long since disappeared.

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Namekagon River WI162
Here on the Great South Bend of the Namekagon was a natural camp-site, home of a band of Chippewa Indians and long used by explorers, missionaries, and fur-traders traveling the Namekagon route between the St. Croix and Chippewa rivers. In 1767 Jonathan Carver passed this way, downstream on his way from Prairie du Chien to Lake Superior via the Namekagon, St. Croix and Brule rivers. Henry Schoolcraft passed here in 1831 en route from Lake Superior to the St. Croix. During the 1870's, ox teams hauled logging supplies on the tote road from Stillwater to Veazie Settlement, located two miles up river where the great Veazie Dam impounded water for log drives down the Namekagon to Stillwater.

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The Cobban Bridge WI278
The Cobban Bridge, constructed in 1908 by the Modern Steel Structural Company of Waukesha, is a two-span Pennsylvania overhead truss type bridge and is the oldest of its kind in Wisconsin. Originally it crossed the Chippewa River just upstream from its junction with the Yellow River. The bridge was dismantled during the construction of the Wissota Dam in 1916, and through the efforts of Oscar Anderson, a Cobban store owner, the bridge was acquired to be placed on land donated by S.c.F. Cobban. During the winters of 1916 and 1917, the disassembled bridge was hauled here by horse and sled, with the movers receiving one dollar per ton for the fifteen mile trip. Footings were placed by the LG. Arnold Company and reconstruction was done by Cromby and Thailacker of Milwaukee in 1918-19. The ferry that had provided a crossing to Cobban was discontinued, replaced by the Cobban Bridge, which soon was nicknamed the "Little Wagon Bridge." See Chippewa County Tourism

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Cornell Pulpwood Stacker WI429
In 1912, after a permanent dam was built across the Chippewa River near this location, the Cornell Wood Products Company, a large paper milling operation, begun production here. The company manufactured paper products, cardboard and wallboard. The original complex consisted of a log pond, slasher building, stacker, stacker pit building, sluice locker/tool building, office and garage. Although the operations ceased here in 1972 the 175 foot tall Cornell Pulpwood Stacker remains as an impressive reminder of the great logging industry that dominates this part of Wisconsin. The structure was designed by the Joor Engineering Company of England, manufactured by the Minneapolis Tool and Machinery Company and assembled here. Counter weights were used to erect the stacker. The Pulpwood Stacker moved large quantities of pulpwood logs into massive woodpiles. An important technological innovation, the Pulpwood Stacker is the only known example of this type of papermill machinery remaining in the United States, The Cornell Pulpwood Stacker was listed in the National Register of Historic Places in 1993.

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