Marathon County, Wisconsin - Chapter 4, 1913

Chapter 4

The Wisconsin Valky - First and Natural Higlm'ay - JJ'atcr Pozvers Developed - Drainage: Wisconsin River Improvement and Water Storage Reservoirs - Annual Precipitation - Physical Geography - Soil of Marathon County and Elevations - Minerals, Climate and Health.

The Wisconsin Valley

A history of Marathon county without a description of this, the greatest river in the state, this first and natural highway to the Wisconsin pinery, of which IMarathon county was the most important part, would be like the play of Hamlet with Hamlet left out. The pioneers came up the Wisconsin river; over its turbulent waters they poled up their supplies ; from its banks and the banks of its tributaries they cut the pine which was sawed and floated down the Mississippi and built up the cities and farms of the western states ; on its bosom over the falls and rapids they brought the products to market. To navigate the river and bring down its thousands of millions feet of logs and the fleets of lumber of enough value to pay the national debt, required bra^-e and nervy men who feared no danger. Year after year the river exacted its tributes in drowned men in driving logs as well as running lumber. The early pinery required men of brains as well as brawn and muscles; it did not hold out the hope of sudden riches which animated the gold seekers of California in 1849, but it promised independence after years of hard labor; and that was what animated the sturdy pinery pioneers.

Lumber prices were low ; to keep down costs only trees close to the banks were cut; crotch hauling with ox teams was then in vogue, and in order to get timber close to the banks. lumbermen invaded the tributaries, and as early as 1856, logs were cut on Eagle river, about one hundred miles above Wausau, and driven to Big Bull Falls, and even to Grand Rapids.

The demand for foodstuffs invited farming, but it took years before the attempt was made, there being a belief that neither the soil nor climate was favorable. For many years Galena was the base of supplies, from where flour and pork and blankets were brought up in log canoes as far as Big Bull Falls, and from here still higher up. Later on, supplies could be taken to

Fort Winnebago and Plover from the prairies of Wisconsin, by ox teams, and brought to that place, which was made the county seat of Portage county in the spring election of 1844, a solid vote of 28 given for that place in the election precinct in Little Bull being the deciding factor. That led to the formation of Columbia county by detaching the southern tiers on February 3rd, 1846.

In spite of the difficulties of getting provisions, and the still greater difficulty of bringing the timber and lumber to market, the number of men engaged in this business gradually increased, enough to justify the creation of a new county, and by act of the state legislature, Marathon county was established out of Portage county.

The Wisconsin river, because of its length, its great drainage area, and its central location is preeminently the main river of the state. Its extreme source is Lake View desert, of about eight square miles on the state boundary line between Wisconsin and Michigan, and about 1,650 feet above sea level. The general course of the river is south for three hundred miles, then near Portage City it makes a turn to the west, emptying in the Mississippi at Prairie du Chien. Its drainage basin is 12,280 square miles, a little less than one-fourth of the state.

Its chief tributaries from its source to the south boundary of this county are, on the left bank: the Eagle river, emptying at Eagle River (city) ; the Pelican river, joining immediately below Rhinelander; the Prairie river, which joins the Wisconsin in the city of Merrill, and the Pine river, emptying four miles below Merrill ; in Marathon county : the Trappe and Eau Clair rivers. On the west bank of the Wisconsin are, beginning in the north : the Tomahawk, the Somo, Spirit, Newwood and Copper rivers, and in Marathon county, the Rib river and the Big Eau Plain. In addition to these are many smaller ones and numerous creeks, all of them navigable in the sense that logs could be floated out. On the banks of all these rivers and creeks there was the splendid white pine, which attracted the eye of the pioneer. But the pine is now cut ; only a small portion is still left in the hands of small owners, farmers, who save it jealously for their own use.

Nevertheless the importance of the Wisconsin river will be even much greater in the future than it ever was in the past, because of the immense water powers that are and can be developed for manufacturing purposes.

It has a fall of 634 feet in the one hundred and fifty miles from Rhinelander to Necoosa, and an average fall of 4.233 feet per mile which gives splendid opportunities for the development of water powers, thereby offsetting the want of coal in this state. It is not too much to say, that the

The water power of the Fox river is already used to its fullest extent. The paper industry is coming to the Wisconsin, because the wood supply for the manufacture is better here than on the Fox, and more power can be developed on this river. Railroads parallel the course of the river for hundreds of miles, or touch on the most important points.

There are now eight dams across the Wisconsin river in Lincoln and Oneida counties which are used for manufacturing purposes, and more will be put in, in the near future.

As early as 1878, Hon Thad C Pound, of Chippewa, then member of congress, conceived the idea of storing the spring freshets and the rainfall which supply the Wisconsin, the Chippewa and St. Croix rivers in Wisconsin, as well as the Mississippi in Minnesota, by constructing dams at proper stations, thereby creating reservoirs with a view of regulating the flow of water in those streams.

A beginning of surveys was made while he was in congress, but after his retirement from congress in 1882 was not prosecuted with vigor, and the project slept for some time, until taken up by the mill owners on the Wisconsin for their own benefit, assisted later on somewhat by the state.

As the logging on streams has practically disappeared, or log driving has given way to railroad transportation, the water powers of the rivers can now be permanently developed.

The United States engineers have surveyed thirty-two large reservoirs in Wisconsin, and have constructed five such reser\'oirs in Minnesota.

The total storage capacity of the proposed reservoirs to regulate the flow of the Wisconsin river is 19,557,000,000 cubic feet, which would overflow an area of 25,832 acres.

It is proposed to fill the reservoirs during the spring freshets and then allow the waters to escape at times of low water. The United States engineers estimated that these reservoirs would maintain a flow of three thousand second feet for three months of the year. Such a flow would nearly double the present low water flow of the river and its resulting water power. Incidentally, the use of such resenoirs will to a large extent serve to reduce the dangers of high floods, both to dams and overflowed lands. It would, in fact, tend to restore the regulation of the river to that which it possessed before deforestation and cultivation began to transform a great and primeval forest region into cleared and well cultivated fields.

The Wisconsin Valley Improvement Company is authorized to construct and maintain dams and resen-oirs, and has begun the work. It has in operation now reservoirs with a capacity of two billion cubic feet planed by the United States engineers, but it is only the beginning of a very important improvement.

Physical Geography

The rocks underlying Marathon county, indeed the whole of the Wisconsin valley nqrthward, belong to the Archean area. The county is an elevated highland, gradually rising from about 1,250 feet above sea level on the south boundary to about 1,400 feet on the north line, and from there the land is still slowly rising to the north to about 1,650 feet to the headwaters of the Wisconsin, or to the watershed between the rivers flowing south and the waters flowing into Lake Superior. The area of crystalline rocks underlying all of Marathon county, is covered on the surface with old glacial clay several feet in thickness, which makes an excellent soil for agricultural products and is distinguished for lasting productiveness. Its capacity for holding water prevents loss of crops even in more than moderate draughts, while on the other hand the undulating character of the surface drains all surplus water from the lands. ' In some small portions, mainly east of the Wisconsin river and in the Eau Claire valley a sandy loam prevails, which is the best soil for potato and corp culture, but the clay soil largely predominates. All of Marathon county was originally covered with magnificent forest, interspersed with wild meadows along the bottomlands of the rivers and creeks. On the banks of the rivers stood the majestic white pine, and receding one mne or more from the banks, hardwood predominated, such as maple, birch, ehn, ash, oak. bassvvood, and butternut, hberally interspersed with pine and hemlock. This forest now has largely given away to over six thousand five hundred farms, hewed out of the forest, highly cultivated, with modern frame and brick, even concrete houses, fine large barns, stables and silos. It is not too much to say, that the farm buildings in Marathon county compare favorably with most in the United States in size, comfort and practical construction. Numerous creeks and brooks traverse the land, and fresh and good water is in abundance on every farm.

The whole of Marathon county drains into the Wisconsin river, except a small strip on the extreme east, in range lo, where the waters flow east, emptying in the Little Wolfe and ultimately reach the gulf of St. Lawrence through the Great Lakes. On the west shore of the Wisconsin river, about three miles from the city of Wausau southerly, rises the Rib Hill, a bold isolated crest, said to be the highest point in the state, having an elevation of 1.263 feet above Lake Michigan, and a little more to the south by east are the Mosinee Hills, reaching an elevation of 880 feet, or 280 feet above the river which flows at the foot of both hills.

Rib Hill is a hard, brittle whitish quartz, often colorless. The sloi>es of the Mosinee Hills are covered with loose masses of quartzite. Several quarries are worked on Rib Hill for quartz, which is milled in the quartz mills and the sand paper factory at Wausau. and the product of these mills has become an important industry.

Splendid granite quarries from five to ten miles north from Wausau on the banks of the Wisconsin river are opened which furnish the rough material for the two large granite works situated in the city of Wausau and at Heights, where splendid monumental work is made, which is shipped as far as California.

The once popular notion that the land was worthless after the timber had been removed has long passed away to a well earned general confidence in its general agricultural fertility. This is evidenced by the rapidity with which these lands have been settled upon by farmers in the last thirty years and the rapid appreciation in their market value. Advance in science makes use even of the old Norway pine stumps which are left on cut over lands, which stumps and roots are sold and used for the turpentine which is extracted therefrom by the W'ausau turpentine factory.

Iron Ore

Borings in different parts of the county have shown the existence of iron ore but too lean to warrant mining operations ; but the similarity of the rock formation in this part of Wisconsin and the iron range in the north is evidence that paying ore in large quantities may yet exist, waiting only exposure by the lucky finder.

The following is a table showing the a\erage precipitation for the years from 1896 to 191 1 for which there are accurate measurements taken for the upper river, from Wausau upwards, which show that the average is a little higher than in the southern part of the state, the lowest being 18.67 inches in 1910, which was the driest season ever known in this valley and the only one in forty years.

And Represextative Citizens 57 Climate, Temperature And Health

The forty-fifth degree N. latitude nearly evenly divides Marathon county. The higliest temperature in the last ten years, according to government reports, was 99 degrees on one day in 1910, and t\^ice 98 degrees; during the corresponding period the lowest was 35 below zero. The nights, even during the hottest season, are invariably cool and pleasant. In the summer months, western and southwesterly winds prevail, and northern and northwestern winds predominate in the winter. A change to easterly or northeasterly winds usually indicates rain or snow fall.

Marathon county, in fact, all of central and northern Wisconsin seem to be out of the cyclone belt, and hurricanes are of rare occurrence. The rolling character of the land together with the fact that a large if not the largest part is still covered with forests may account for the rarity of devastating storms. There have been storms at long intervals which felled much timber, sometimes unroofed houses and barns, but the only storm which was accompanied with the loss of human life occurred on the i8th day of May, 1898. The hurricane entered Marathon county about one and one-half mile north of the village of Colby sweeping nearly due east, little north, and demolished houses and barns, and uprooted much timber in its track. The house of August Hanke, a farmer living on the range line road between ranges five and six township 29, was struck, in the destruction of which building Mr. August Hanke and his wife and their son Frederick were instantly killed, and another son, Otto, 21 years old, was seriously injured. One mile further to the east, another son of August Hanke, while in the barn which was also struck and destro3'ed, lost his life from the same cause, while his wife who was in the house which was unroofed by the storm, escaped without injury.

Marathon county is one of the healthiest counties in the healthy state of Wisconsin ; malarial sicknesses are unknown ; the death rate for the years 1907 and 1908, which are the last compilations made by the state board of health, based upon official returns show the death rate to be 10.2 for 1907 and II for 1908, per 1,000 inhabitants. When it is considered that Marathon county is not only a farming community, but has within its borders over 100 miles of railroads, with many mills and factories in which are working thousands of men with the unavoidable accidents occurring under existing industrial conditions, it is not too much to say that Marathon county air and soil are as conducive to longevity as any part of the United States.