Sauk County, Wisconsin - Chapter 12: Water Ways and Land Ways, 1918

Early Improvements on the Baraboo - The Maxwell Water Power - The Middle Water Power - The Upper Power - The Reedsburg Water Power - The Great Modern Power Near Prairie du Sac- Measured His Strength Against the Old Wisconsin - Steps in the Great Construction - Units of a Great System - Passing of the Old Stage Lines - Taverns and Stages - No Respecters of Old Age - Madison to Baraboo Line - James Cowles and His Route - The Old Matt Ferry - Incidents Along the Way^Jim Always "Got There" - .Tames Curry, Last of the Old Stage Drivers- Leading State Lines - Cazenovia, Ironton and La Valle Stage Taken Off - Noted Stage Horses and Drivers - Farewell to the Old Stage Coach - An Auto Stage LiNtf - Present Sauk County Stages - The Good Roads Movement - The Railroads in Sauk County - The St. Paul Reaches Spring Green - Proposed Chicago, St. Paul & Fond du Lac - Negotiations with the Chicago & North Western - The La Crosse & Milwaukee and Newport - Other Abortive Attempts - Baraboo Valleyites "Getting Set" - The Chicago & North Western Built Through the Valley.

The history of the development of Sauk County, dependent upon its waterways and its landways, is the universal American story of a return to the viewpoint of the pioneer, transformed by the all-pervading influence of new and broader conditions. He saw the manifold advantages of being near a running stream, which could furnish him with both transportation and the power necessary to operate the sawmills and the gristmills to accommodate the oncoming settlers. As he commenced to raise his crops, and his cattle and hogs increased beyond his own necessities and those of his immediate neighbors, he also began to cut his way through the surrounding woods, and improve the neighboring roads so that different communities could be brought into communication and co-operation. Then came a time when stream and the railroads overshadowed the powers of the waterways and the advantages to be derived from passable and well-constructed highways over the land. The country, as a whole, became careless as- to the fine, practical usefulness of the streams and the common roads which had played such a great part in bringing comforts and prosperity.

A notable reaction has occurred within the past twenty years. With the development of electricity the wonderful powers of hydraulics have continually grown upon the minds of scientists and engineers, and, although the growth of the railway systems and appliances has been as remarkable as anything in the domain of hydraulics, vehicles of laud transportation, such as automobiles, have also been so perfected that there has come an insistent demand for the best of roads, built not of iron and steel, but of gravel and concrete. The result of the modern good roads movement has been to bring the agricultural communities of the country and of the county into close social, business and political co-operation. The details of these developments are to bo brought out in this chapter.

The improvement of the interior streams of Sauk County necessarily preceded that of the Wisconsin River, as it involved the lesser expense and labor; the improvement of the Wisconsin was reserved for a later, more wealthy and more scientific generation of capitalists and engineers. Note has already been made of the commencement of a little dam, in the winter' of 1839-40, by Wood & Rowan, a short distance above the site of the factory subsequently erected by the Baraboo Manufacturing Company. Draper & Post were the mechanics who built the mill, the former having an interest in it. In 1843 Captain Levi Moore bought out Rowan, and other changes were made in the management even before a flood washed out a portion of the dam and wrecked the sawmill completely. It is said that the first drive of logs which came from the Baraboo pinery were cut and brought to the river by Archibald Barker and James Christie. Their boom broke away and the logs in going over the dam caused the first breach in it, which probably led to the final break. A man was drowned on the raft at the time and the incident naturally caused some excitement.

In the fall of 1844 Messrs. Wood & Moore resolved to put in a newdam further up stream, at the head of the bend, and to carry the water across in a race. In the following winter the race was laid out and dug and in the summer of 1845 the new sawmill was completed. J. Clement bought out Wood soon after the mill was completed, and Moore & Clement operated it for about two years. Subsequently the enterprise developed into the widely known Island Woolen Mill, more particularly noted in the history of Baraboo.

North Western Railway were constructed more than thirty years later. The circumstances attending the location of this power are thus given in one of the Canfield papers: "In the summer of 1839 James Alban, the first white settler on Sauk Prairie, while on a visit to Eben Peck at Madison (whose was the first white family there) related that while he was one day reconnoitering the bluffs bordering Sauk Prairie upon the north he came in sight of a most remarkable looking lake ensconsed most majestically among the wild rocks and precipices, and that through its opening he saw what seemed like a fertile valley beyond. He said he intended, in a short time, an exploration of the Valley of the Baraboo. Peck at onee proposed to go with him, and to go immediately, which was agreed to, and they started the next day and went as far as Alban 's, and thence to the Baraboo River, intersecting it at a point near where the lower dam now stands. Crossing the river they found two Indian villages. The Indians were indisposed and told them to 'pucherchee. ' Peck selected the ox-bow, or great bend of the river, as his claim, and marked it, but they were obliged to start on their way home that night, for another chief had been sent for, who now came and with a quivering chin told them 'Krunkshun. ' They recrossed the river but stayed that night on Peck's claim. Returning to Madison, Peck gave a glowing description of the Baraboo and his claim. In the fall Eben Peck and Rosaline, his wife, and Luther, his brother, made a visit to his claim upon the Baraboo River. They crossed the Baraboo on horseback, Mrs. Peck riding a man's saddle borrowed of John Hoover on Sauk Prairie. In riding towards Portage City upon what is now called Peck's Prairie, they met, to their great surprise, "Wallace Rowan and Abraham Wood, who were on their way to look at the Baraboo River. Wood and Rowan at that time made a claim on the Upper Ox-bow.

In about a month after this last expedition of the Pecks, Chester Matson and James Van Slykc visited the Baraboo Rapids in search of a mill power, attempted to jump Peck's claim and had progressed to some extent in building a tree dam when Peck served papers upon them. The suit went in Peck's favor, and as the floods of the next spring carried away all the improvements, and Peek moved his family on his claim to hold it down, the lower mill site became a dead letter for several years.

There were no capital and scarcely any provisions in the settlement. Each family operated its own coffee mill, pounded its own hominy, and had no use for a power plant. When the land came into the market in 1846, however, Van Slyke obtained the money from James A. Maxwell, of Walworth County, to enter a half interest in the old mill site. With his father and others, Mr. Maxwell also obtained control of an adjacent forty acres necessary to cover the entire power, and superintended the building of a sawmill. They moved to Baraboo in the spring of 1848 and, in association with some Milwaukee people, erected a $10,000 flour mill. -

The mill interests were afterward divided, and other establishments developed, but in view of Mr. Maxwell's leadership in the early establishment of the water power, it long retained his name.

What is known as the Middle Water Power was claimed and surveyed by George W. Brown, of Whitewater, in June, 1844. In July he was joined by his brother, William Brown, and by December the dam was completed and a sawmill in operation, on the south side of the river. The next Season he built a gristmill on the other shore, the first industry of that kind of any size on the Baraboo. He was killed by a falling timber while making an addition to it in the following season. The first sale of any portion of this water power was to Orlano Pratt and Lewis and Josiah Hayes - 200 inches of water and a strip of land - in the year 1846. By fall they had erected shops for turning lathes, a shingle machine, chair factory machinery, etc., and for about two years, as long as the firm lasted, the industries at the Middle Power were quite alive. In 1847-49 Philarmon Pratt, Daniel Scherraerhorn (his father-in-law) and the Seaburn brothers erected and operated various factories at that point, which continued for years to be an industrial center. But the Upper and the Lower powers drew from its strength finally, and the property gradually decreased in advantages and manufacturing value. Finally, in the spring of 1907, the property was bid in under sheriff's sale by Grotophorst, Evans & Thomas, in behalf of the First National Bank of Baraboo. for $5,000. The property comprised the dam under the high bridge, the race north of the river, the building site formerly occupied by the old Hoyt mill (burned July 5, 1902), and a claim for property on the south bank of the river.

A claim was made to the water power at the head of Ihe Rapids in the summer of 1843, and in the following winter timber cut for the first sawmill at the Upper Power. . The firm which developed the original improvement was that composed of the Willard brothers (Edward and George) and Don Carlos Barry. The frame of the mill was raised about the last of September, 1844, and commenced sawing in about six weeks. Barry soon sold out, although the first season's business is said to have been good, the supply of raw material having been obtained from Peck's Pinery. In the following year the Baraboo Pinery was drawn upon, and there was soon quite a settlement around the mills. For many years Messrs. John Metealf, Nathan Paddock and Martin Waterman, with Captain Levi Moore, were perhaps the most influential personal forces nt work in the development of the manufacturing interests at the Upper Water Power.

The improvement of the water power of the Baraboo River at Reedsburg was of a later day than that at Baraboo, and also of less magnitude David C. Reed, the founder of the village, commenced the dam at that point in the summer of 1847, and in the following year a sawmill was completed and a gristmill commenced. The latter was, however, delayed for some time, as Mr. Reed 's ambitions had outrun his capital, and several years afterward the Mackey brothers, of New York, came into the field, bought pine lands further up the river, and erected several mills, both saw and grist, and made the water power at Reedsburg and the place itself of consequence.

In the meantime, and up to very recent years, the Wisconsin River, in its relations to Sauk County, had simply been used as a frontier watenvay for the sending of lumber rafts toward the manufacturing districts of the Pox and Wisconsin valleys, or to carry pleasure seekers back and forth ; but, as to harnessing it for purposes of utility, nothing was done until about twelve years ago. All residents of Sauk County, and many without its boundaries, will know that special reference is made to the development of the great water power near the Village of Prairie du Sac.

The history of this work which is of so much benefit to Sauk County, and a far broader scope of territory, was thoroughly and graphically given in "The Multitude" for August, 1914, by Henry Walter Young. Its salient points are reproduced, as follows: "Untold centuries ago Nature laid out in the state of Wisconsin a vast hydro-electric scheme, awaiting the engineers of the twentieth century who were to utilize it in place of the coal which she had not seen fit to provide. Por the ages this power has been poured forth unutilized, carries us back very far in the world's history, to the beginning of things - the days of 'Chaos and Old Night.'

"Geologists tell us that what are now the wide central plains of Wisconsin were once mountains which pierced the sky, the first land to appear on the American continent. Worn down by erosion and beaten back by the waves of a limitless ocean, after centuries of centuries they became the prey of the great glacier of the north. The glacier planed off what remained of the mountains in the northern part of the state into a vast, flat tableland, one thousand to nineteen hundred feet in elevation. Proceeding farther south the glacier plowed the beginning of river beds, depositing debris in hills and bluffs far into the south center part of the state, to the beginning of the great 'driftless area.'

"Up in the high tableland are hundreds of lakes in a wooded country. From this large reservoir radiate large and rapid rivers to the south and west, which flow in grooved valleys suitable for damming.

"The state of Wisconsin owes its prosperity in no small degree to these river systems. At tirst they were used to transport its timber wealth to the market, and later they were the direct cause of the development of the paper mill and other industries of the state. This power places "Wisconsin seventeenth among the states in its water power resources. The development at present represents about two hundred and twenty-five thousand horsepower. Professor L. C. Smith of the University of Wisconsin, who has done much valuable work in the investigation of the water powers, places the undeveloped resources of the state at three hundred and fifty thousand horsepower (1908).

hundred and eighty square miles. Its upper and swifter stretches have already been utilized to a great extent for power purposes, but in the lower reaches, where it broadens out, the throttling process was reserved for these days of larger undertakings and more experienced engineering. When it is realized that these developments are improvements in practically a four-dollar-per-ton coal state, and that recent engineering has brought the efficiency of turbines up to eighty-six per cent the future economical efficiency of these plans is well established.

"Just above the village of Prairie du Sac the largest power development on the Wisconsin river, is at this time practically completed. Its ultimate capacity will be twenty-five thousand horsepower. Much of this power will be sold in the city of Milwaukee, over a hundred miles away. Now that the river has been subdued and its waters are pouring through the concrete structure of the power house, even the experienced can have little conception of the difficulties which had to be overcome in confining a river a third of a mile wide, flowing over a bed of shifting sand to which there seemed to be no bottom.

4 ' Outside of the Mississippi development at Keokuk, Iowa, the development at Prairie du Sac is the largest in the Middle West and is also one of the most interesting from an engineering standpoint. Three and one-half years of unyielding effort were required for its construction, and an expenditure of approximately two million dollars on the plant alone, aside from the flowage rights. The Wisconsin is not a 'flashy' river; that is, its bed is more or less winding and obstructed by shoals and bars. For this reason it is less apt to be first overfed and then starved in its water supply than some whose watersheds are more steeply converging. It is among the big rivers in a country of big rivers, grim and powerful.

"The Wisconsin River Power Company was formed to carry out the Prairie du Sac development. The site chosen was about a mile above the village, where the river contracts somewhat, passing out from behind a high headland on the west bank. Borings in, the river bed showed nothing but sand and gravel strata for a depth of over sixty feet. A mile from the east bank stands Black Hawk bluff, composed of rock suitable for concrete work. At its foot are gravel hills. Altogether these offered an unlimited supply of materials for the construction of the great monolith which was to span the river.

"Plans for the structure were drawn up by Mead and Seastoue, consulting hydraulic engineers of Madison, Wisconsin, and the engineering work was under their guidance and supervision. But the actual work in this, as in similar undertakings, was done by contract. Just as these are contractors who build bridges and office buildings and dig tunnels, so these are men who devote their efforts to the closing up of rivers.

"In a Chicago office building overlooking Lake Michigan you will find the man who has measured his strength against the 'Old Wisconsin' - and won. His name is James 0. Hey worth. This is not the first river he has tackled, for dams of his building are to be found elsewhere in Wisconsin, across the raging streams in Washington and in the industrially awakened South. Hut in this case he had a real fight on his hands. One is not disappointed by finding in him lack of those proverbial characteristics of the fighter - the square jaw overshadowed by the stiffly bristling mustache, and backed up by some two hundred pounds of what appears to be real river man. Commenting one day upon the physical aspects of the problem which was before him, he remarked: 'It isn't the engineering features of the thing which give us the trouble. They are plauued by engineers who know how the work should go in. Given a certain river to dam, with a eertain bottom and known flow of water, the way of going about it is well understood. But it is the getting of the thing accomplished that is the nerve-wracking part. So many tons of concrete must be laid across the river - down so deep. If you could dump it all in at once the matter would be simple. Jiut we have got to start at the two banks and work toward the center of the stream. As the false work progresses the river narrows and deepens and the water gets swifter. It roots and digs and tears. In a night, perhaps, high water comes. Out goes a cofferdam, a section of piling - everything you have been able to accomplish in weeks or months, maybe. And then it all has to be done over again. The disheartening repetition of it gets on the nerves of the men. At such times the personality of the men counts for a lot. Those boys have to hammer and pound and work to hold every inch they have been able to wrest from the river; sometimes for forty-eight horn's without a wink of sleep.

was in February, 1911. that the work on the dam site was begun. First a spur of railroad had to be built to bring in materials and machinery. A temporary offire building and sleeping and caling quarters for the men were then erected, and an eleetrie power plant. Electric power is necessary these days to carry on most efficiently great constructive operations and it is significant that in order to build this hydro-electric plant the first thing to be erected was a small electric power plant driven by steam engines. This temporary plant is of three hundred horsepower and has been running ever since. Its energy supplies light on both sides of the river, operates great centrifugal pumps and drives the ears which haul the materials for concrete from the distant blnff. Viewed from the heights above, the work as it stands today consists of five elements. At the west bank stands the power house three hundred and thirty feet wide; next to it a log and ice chute thirty-eight feet wide; then a lock thirty-five feet wide, and finally, on the lowland of the eastern bank, an abutment and embankment one thousand seven hundred feet long.

"It might be said that aside from the embankment, the foundations of the various sections, clear across the river, were built in a series of steel boxes, technically known as cofferdams. Steel interlocking piles were used in this work, which looked like great I-beams with edges tongued and grooved, to fit one into another. The power house cofferdam and section of the main dam on the west side were attempted first. In building the former, the sections of steel sheet were driven down one after another to a depth of thirty to fifty feet on the upstream side and slightly less on the downstream side, and arranged to form a rectangular box reaching far down into the river bed.

"The water was then pumped from this cofferdam with great pumps going day and night. When it was clear, an excavation was made, twenty-one feet below low water, and piles were driven all over the bottom, seemingly a forest of them. When sawed off level on the tops they formed the bed upon which was laid thousands of cubic yards of concrete and rock. All together this made the foundation of the power house. Upon it was laid the massive concrete work for the gateways, draught tubes, etc., and, above all, the lofty brick building.

"This same method of cofferdam construction was employed on the other sections of the work - progressing from each bank toward the middle of the stream. A total of over eleven thousand piles- were driven in the bottom of the river.

"But this hasty summary of the methods of construction gives no idea of the difficulties actually encountered. In October, 1912, less than a year after construction had begun, the water commenced to rise. It went on up until it attained a stage six inches above the highest stage ever recorded. This was the first disheartening blow. The sheet piling for the power house was in place and part of the foundation piles driven. The river being considerably narrowed thereby, the depth and velocity of the water around the east end of the cofferdam became enormous. All the trestle work and two hundred linear feet of steel piling went out, the steel sections of the latter being twisted and bent like reeds. Then the water subsided. However, there was Imt a short respite in which to view the damage. The water rose again, undermining the southeast end of the cofferdam, which promptly slid off into fifty-eight feet of water. Then gorge ice began to ruu, adding to the damage, until the river finally choked up and froze over entirely, settling down to a normal stage. In succeeding years other floods occurred, but not as disastrous as the first. In one period of twelve months there were but eighty-five working days. Ice was a constant menace in the spring months. In the spring of 1913 it went out with a rise of water five or six feet above normal. Before it broke, for a mile above the dam, great bergs and blocks rose high above the water. This all let go within the space of five minutes, taking with it clusters of protective piling, together with a trestle of forty-foot I-beams and a sand pump on a barge. These were all deposited on the bottom of the river some distance down.

"As many as three hundred and ninety men have been employed at one time upon the work. They were largely foreigners - those who did the purely manual labor of excavating, laying the concrete and handling materials. There were men from Italy, Russia, Servia and Poland. For the most part they lived in their own camp, on the east side of the river. They bought their own foodstuffs, constituted themselves into little groups or messes, with one man in each group hired to do the cooking and the camp work. In this way they were able to live with the characteristic economy of their class - not more than thirty-five or forty cents a day for board and lodging. On the other side of the river were the more pretentious quarters of the American element, with frame bunk houses, large dining rooms and screened doors and windows. Over there they paid four dollars and a half a week for board and room, and if a man desired the luxury of sheets he paid extra for the privilege.

"To the visitor, nothing, perhaps, was of more fascinating interest than to watch the little cars on the miniature railway as they shuttled back and forth over the line. They passed and repassed each other at the turn-outs, putting on brakes, stopping and starting - all without a sign of human agency, for there were no men upon them. This was an example of the Woodford system of electric haulage, used before in other classes of work, but here seen for the first time in the construction of a dam. A total of four and one-half miles of track was laid from the quarry on the bluff and the gravel pits and on across the trestle work to the yards on the west Ride. The cars were electrically operated by current taken from a third rail. The motors on the cars were started and stopped and reversed and brakes were applied by a system of electrical 'remote' control. Four men in little towers had complete control of the system, through switching mechanism therein. For months these cars trundled back and forth, bringing rock from the bluff and sand and gravel from the pits to an immense storage pile at the concrete mixing plant. After it was mixed the concrete was transported by other ears out over the trestle and dumped in its final resting place.

"In the small space of five years last past, hydro-electric development methods have been greatly perfected. The efficiency of such plants has in that time been raised fifteen per cent. The difference in the mean low water flow and the flood flow of a river had never been given its due consideration until within the last few years. The lack of sufficient spillways and adequate machinery to operate, properly and quickly, flood outlets has heretofore endangered water power developments. This important provision is now being taken care of, so that, as at the Prairie du Sac plant, where the mean low water flow of the river is five thousand feet per second, and the high flood flow has reached seventy-six thousand second feet, this big difference is adequately taken care of by the installation of forty-one gates, fourteen feet high and twenty feet wide, placed upon the top of the spillway section of the dam. This permits of control, for the best interest of the power, all stages of floods from small to large.

"Today (November, 1914), the work stands practically completed. It has taken a year longer than was at first estimated - all on account of a scries of conditions in the river flow almost unparalleled in the history of the white man. Above the dam lies beautiful Lake Swenson* - named after Magnus Swenson, president of the power company. Through the power house are rushing the waters which will soon be turning the great hydraulic turbines of three thousand horsepower each, which will drive the electric generators. Four of these units are now being installed and are to be delivering current by the first of December. Transformers will step the pressure up to sixty thousand volts for transmission over a duplicate, three-phase line carried on steel towers. This line runs up the river to the city of Portage, some twenty-five miles. Here it unites with another similar line from the Kilbouru plant, situated just below the famous Dells of the Wisconsin. The combined transmission line then runs east and north from Portage to a point near Milwaukee, where junction is made with the system of the Milwaukee Electric Railway and Light Company, which will be a large user of the power."

In 1915-16 a transmission line was built from Prairie du Sac to Madison and in 1917 another line was extended from the dam to Baraboo and on to Portage. This auxilliary line to Portage partly supplies Baraboo and provides against loss of power in case one of the lines should be damaged. Many farmers are provided with power.

sippi River; was an important sector in the system of great Indian trails which networked this region of Interior America, so hefore the coming of the railroads, the stage lines which passed through its territory were widely known as necessary links in these chains of primitive travel, especially between Milwaukee and Chicago, Prairie du Chien and the lead fields of Southwestern "Wisconsin and Northwestern Illinois.

The railroads gradually displaced the old stage lines, although there was a bitter fight for several years, and for some time after the steamcars commenced to run on their fixed rails the old-timers preferred the slower accommodations of what became quite luxurious vehicles of travel. Several of the shorter lines, entirely within the limits of Sauk County, refused to permanently expire until they had tried the reviving effects of automobile equipment and in a few places, where the old-time mail routes were still in the hands of drivers, and the rural mail deliveries had not penetrated the territory, complete annihilation was deferred, at least.

The taverns of the early days in Sauk County somewhat corresponded to the railway stations of the later period. Where they were and the names of their proprietors, with other related information, has been well told by J. H. A. Lacher, of Waukesha, in the 1914 Proceedings of the Wisconsin Historical Society. "Sauk County," he says, "was tavern territory until a late date, for the Chicago & Northwestern Railway did not cross it till 1872. The American House, at Baraboo, was conducted by J. Q. Adams in 1855, P. Van Wendell in 1856, and W. C. Warner in 1859 ; the Baraboo House, by Lyman Clark in 1855-56, and Hiram T. Mason in 1857. The Western Hotel, at the northeast corner of the public square, built and formerly managed by Col. E. Summer, was kept by W. Wallace in 1856-58; the Exchange House by Volncy Moore in 1857-59. At Rcedsburg the Mansion House, built in 1855 by Dr. Mackey, was conducted from 1856 to 1859 by J. and A. Smith, who also owned the stage line to Baraboo. The Alba House, built in 1856 by Alba B. Smith, was bought in 1857 by Reuben Creen, who also had the stage line to Kilbourn. At the Baxter House, Prairie du Sac, D. K. Baxter in 1857, and for years thereafter, maintained the good name established by Steinmetz & Fife. O. Elmer ran the Chicago Inn at Delton, and J. Q. Adams, previously of Baraboo, the Dell Creek House at Newport."

W. W. Warner of Madison, a resident of Baraboo in his youth, sends the following: "W. C. Warner, my father, kept the American House in Baraboo in 1859. While I am not sure, it is my recollection, that I mentioned this fact in my reminiscences of Baraboo days some time ago and which was indulgently published by you in the News. I think

I did not give the date, however, in fact I was not quite certain as to that. In '59 I was just nine years of age and naturally had a vivid recollection of important events at about that time when they make such a lasting impress on one's memory. The writer of the excellent article in the 'Proceedings' might have mentioned a large hotel that was conducted by some one whose name I cannot recall on the south side of the river, not far from the old Red Bridge which was comfortably covered, by the way, and a good loitering place for boys. This hotel stood on the present site of the brewery at the northwest corner of Walnut and Lynn streets. There was still another hotel which very many of the older residents of Baraboo will still remember as the Wisconsin House, or Tobler's Hotel, and which surely as far back as '56 was conducted by the Frenchman particularly known as French Pete. If memory serves me correctly, Mr. Tobler succeeded to the business after the death of the Frenchman. Still later, I believe, one Mueller, a German, conducted the hotel. There was also along in the fifties and late sixties, for that matter, a well patronized hotel, or tavern, at Lyons. Right well I remember that it had a very considerable run of business before the advent of the railroad at Baraboo. The word 'hotel,' at least at the present time, refers to something quite unlike its veteran predecessor, the tavern, which good old English word was quite good enough and expressive enough for the taverns or inns in the villages and smaller cities and along the various country highways of relatively ancient days in the United States, and for centuries, of course, in England ; or rather let me correct myself by adding that 'inn' is the more correct English word, as all know from frequent allusion to the populartarrying places mentioned by Shakespeare, e. g., the Tabard Inn. The word inn has its exact counterpart in the German 'Hof or 'Gasthof,' Hof meaning literally courtyard or enclosure, and goes back naturally to the time when travelers, whether horseback or by animal-drawn vehicle, literally corralled their animals and conveyances in the 'hof.'

"Of course, tavern comes from the French, taverene, and from the older Latin word, taberna, which means a hut, booth or tavern. The Latin word, taberna, a word or sign which probably referred to the enscigne, or ensign, or board containing the sign of a boar's head, perhaps, or something else calculated to stimulate the gastronomic imagination of the passer-by.

' ' But I am straying far away from my subject. I thought it might in some small degree interest you to have your attention drawn to this item from fifty-six years ago in the history of beautiful and interesting Baraboo."

boys at the county seat decided to have some sport at the expense of those faithful old friends of their forefathers, the Concord stage coaches. W. W. Warner, who was one of the cut-ups, tells the story: "This was," I should say, "about 1868-69. Who, among the boys who participated in that famous escapade, may ever forget! Be it known, there were some fifteen or twenty antique, superannuated Concord stage coaches which had been one after another placed, so to speak, in drydock and out of commission, having outlived their further transportational usefulness, and thus they were housed in a rambling series of sheds, just back of the present city hull. We young chaps, the day after a Fourth of July celebration, conceived the idea of decorating Oak Street with the dilapidated vehicles. Some of the chariots, I remember, bore euphonious names - such as Argosy, Prairie Queen, Western Monarch, etc. Those who remember the one-time resplendent coaches, gorgeous beyond the dreams of a Ringling-circus creation, will recall that they were integers connecting Baraboo with relatively near-by points of the outside world, such as Madison, Mazomanie, Portage, Kilbourn City, etc., as the St. Paul Road was pushed further northwestward on the La Crosse Division, or westward on the Mississippi River Division. Of still more ancient history, Janesville was a point of departure, and I remember right well taking passage thence by coach with my parents en route from Pennsylvania; as also, on another occasion, from Portage, and yet later on from Kilbourn. Distinctly I recall the beautiful flowerstrewn, virgin prairie, extending almost from Janesville to Madison.

4 'But to return to those Concord stage coaches! It was long after midnight when we scamps, as expeditiously and as quietly as possible, hauled forth a score of the nondescript vehicles from their moorings, to the Western Hotel street corner, and thence made an imposing string of them, reaching almost to the present postoffice site and a fine spectacle they presented early next morning! Not many of the citizens of Baraboo were aware that such antideluvian chariots were in existence, much less that they were right here in Baraboo. The general astonishment, therefore, may well be imagined. What opportunities were lost in their destruction, shortly after this, their last public appearance, for securing matchless museum antiques! But soon trouble - our trouble - began. Somehow the city officials and many of the older and more staid, lawabiding citizens, did not take kindly to such deviltry, and public resentment was quite general, while diligent efforts were at once put forth to apprehend the several juvenile malefactors involved in the disgraceful escapade."

man was glad to write about it, several years ago, as is evidenced by the following communication, originally published in the Baraboo News: "Old men, like the writer, are much inclined to live in the past and find in retrospection fully as much pleasure as in the events going on around them every day, but of which they do not feel that they are a part - that younger men have crowded them out and taken their places, and they are mere spectators - 'not in it,' as the saying goes. This feeling among men and women who have reached the age of four-score is, I think, pretty general. It is more pronounced in my case, perhaps, by the physical infirmity that shuts me out so completely from familiar intercourse with the men I see about me daily, and with whom I would be glad to sit on the benches in the park and talk over old times and events, as I judge they often do.

"From all this you will readily understand that I was glad when I received your letter inviting me to write what I know of the old stage line between Madison and Baraboo away back in the '60s, and of which the late James Cowles was the proprietor. It was my pleasure to ride with him many times between Madison and Baraboo before and during war times, and I knew his ways and customs, perhaps, as well as any man who was not in his employ or a regular passenger over his route.

"You ask what, sort of a stage he drove and I reply that if you take the present Kilbourn stage and paint it red, put a pair of bay horses, or perhaps occasionally a sorrel, before it, and you have as good an illustration of his rig as I could give you. Mr. Cowles' route, however, was a much rougher one than I judge the Kilbourn one to be and three or four times as long, and the vehicle he drove suffered correspondingly from the roughness of the roads. Mr. Cowles was a careful driver, however, and it is not surprising that his stage lived so long and served its purpose so well.

"Mr. Cowles' route led him first, going south to Merrimack where his mail was first changed at the postoffice and where he crossed the river thence to Okee, and then to Lodi, where he usually arrived a little before twelve o'clock, fed his horses and took dinner. He had to put up with considerable fault-finding from the proprietors of both hotels, the Mills House and the Northwestern, both of whom occasionally accused him of running in the interest of the other house. He professed the strictest neutrality and I believe he was perfectly honest in that, as in all other matters. His first stop after dinner was at Harvey postoffice at what was then called Hundred Mile Grove and may be today for aught I know; but Dane postoffice has taken the place of Harvey. Next came Lester postoffice, about three-quarters of a mile from where Waunakee now is. This latter place was then an extensive wheat field. Then came the Wcstport postoffice near the catfish bridge. The postmaster, a Mr. Hinrichs, I have seen recently - within a year or two - in Lodi, where he visits a brother occasionally. Madison came next, where his route ended and was usually reached about seven o'clock, in time for a late supper, after a drive of about twelve hours.

"The price paid for his ride was $2.50, cheap enough for twelve hours' ride, though we can go now in the cars for less than half that sum, but the ride is only ahout one hour, so you can see Mr. Cowlcs' passengers had the best of it. You mentioned the ferry in your letter and wished to know how we crossed the river and how long it took us.

Well, that was one of the interesting incidents of the trip and it was pleasant on a pleasant day to watch the proceedings. The ferry was known as Matt 's Ferry. Even though it had passed its prime and seen its day of greatest usefulness, but it was far more serviceable and better managed than it has been since the railroad came. The stage was drawn onto the boat, a large, stout stick thrust through both, the hind wheels to prevent any forward or backward movements of the wheels and so keep it safely on the boat. The rope connecting the boat with the cable was then wound up until it was taut at the bow, and let out at the stern, thus placing the boat at a sharp angle with the current, the glancing of which along the side constituted the propelling power that moved the boat. The time it took to cross depended on the strength of the current. When the river was very low the current was weak and the forward motion was slow, but at a good stape of the water it seldom required more than twenty minutes. I remember ou one occasion I crossed with Mr. L'owlet when the water was as high as he had ever known it, when the blot-ks on the ropes reached the end of the water, and we had to cut loose from the cable and resort to poles for propulsion. This performance lengthened out the time of passage. The trip was quick while connected with the cable, but the poling made it a long passage.

"As to the passengers, Mr. Cowles was not often burdened with more than he could comfortably carry, though he was sometimes. He had a faculty of talking pleasantly and entertainingly with them, which served to relieve the tedium. I remember one trip from Baraboo to Madison, when, as we got within a mile or so of Merrimack, we overtook Mr. Walter P. Flanders going along the same way on foot, and Mr. C. asked him to get in and ride, which he promptly did. A gentleman passenger immediately engaged him in conversation, and among other questions was:

" 'No, we can't,' said Mr. Flanders. 'Not but that it will grow well enough, but as soon as it gets to be good for anything some d - d thief will come along and steal it all.'

"Mr. Flanders at one time owned pretty much all the country about Merrimack and had a large dairying farm there, and although his home was in Milwaukee he was at Merrimack a large part of the time, and was a very prominent man there.

"Mr. Cowles did some express business, carrying packages between (he capital city and Baraboo, and I do not believe another instance can be found where a carrier was blessed with such implicit confidence on the part of the people he served as was Mr. C. Money was freely entrusted to him to buy goods in Madison and bring to any home on the route, and I never heard any complaint made of any misuse of the money placed in his hands. I was with him one day coming to Baraboo, and when we had got about one mile out of Madison a buggy was driven up beside the stage and a voice called out :

"He stopped and Simeon Mills, the Madison banker and capitalist, handed Mr. C. a package, saying: 'There is $1,000 in that package. 1 want you to carry it to Baraboo and give it to Mr. Thomas.'

" 'Well,' said Mr. C, 'I will do it this time, but I do not want you to follow me out of town again in this way to give me money to carry. Everybody who saw you coming after me knew well enough what you wanted of me, and it might lead to my being followed, murdered and robbed for the money I was supposed to have in my possession.'

"And now to bring the matter to an end, I will say Mr. C. belonged to the 'get there' family. It mattered little what the weather or the roads might be, it was known that the stage would be along about the usual time, or possibly an hour or two late if mud or snow made the going very bad. So confident were the people along the roads that 'Jim' would be along soon after, if not on time, that they frequently waited for him to break the roads for them. Sometimes, perhaps, they would help him in digging through a snow drift, or help him mend a bad piece of road. I do not know whether he forfeited anything by a failure to get to Madison or Baraboo on time or not, but his dogged determination to get through would let no ordinary obstacle prevent his doing so. If it was not a physical impossibility, he would get. there and be ready for the return trip next morning.

"Mr. C. was a kindhearted, genial and companionable man, always ready to do a good turn for a neighbor. It was my privilege to get into his stage at any time and ride either way, and if not convenient to pay at the time, to pay later when I could.

" 'A merciful man is merciful to his beast,' the good Book tells us, and Mr. Cowles was always careful to see that his horses had all that was coming to them to aid them in their arduous work of forty miles a day.

"I do not know why he stopped his stage line. Probably his contract for carrying the mails expired, or some other man underbid him and got the job, or he may have wearied of it and thrown it up of his own free will. While he had the job he did it well, and I do believe Uncle Samuel never had a more faithful servant than James Cowles."

The only living driver of long ago is James Curry, residing on Fourteenth Street, Baraboo, who works on a big farm of three acres in the city limits and enjoys it. Although he has seen eighty years, he enjoys good health and is the kind who still thinks the old days were just as good, if not better, than the present - he has forgotten the thorns.

Before taking the comparison of the road conditions let us hear from Mr. Curry and determine whether the present conditions are better or worse than the old. Mr. Curry arrived in Baraboo in 1849; in 1860 hired out as a stage driver, and after two years made a bid on the stage route and was successful in getting the job of carrying the mail between Baraboo and Kilbourn for $300. He did a large express and passenger business and often used the second team, which was driven by Mrs. Curry, who, according to Mr. Curry, was as competent a driver as he. They had only one son, and "Little Jim," as he was known to them during his early life, frequently accompanied her on these trips, but he had a habit of going to sleep on the way home. Mr. Curry stayed with this job for eleven years - until the North Western arrived at Baraboo in 1871, which cut down the express business.

In speaking of the express business, Mr. Curry says that one night he brought from Kilbourn a package of $40,000 to be used for paying off the employees on the North Western construction. He received $20 for this express, the price being fifty cents per $1,000. He never carried a gun, but one night when he had a package of $12,000 two strangers rode with him and during all the way they conversed in whispers and thq driver felt that every minute they would make an attack and get the money. He says the stage made the best time that night it ever did.

Another interesting event of this venerable stage driver's experience was brought to the mind of the writer when the new stage rounded the corner on Eighth Avenue to pass through, or adjacent to Oschner's Grove, which was a forest on either side of the road when Mr. Curry was the stage driver. As he was going out one morning the officers and everyone else were looking for Pat Wildrick, who had been in jail for the murder of Gates at Portage. It appears that Wildrick had broken out early that morning, and as the stage was passing along that road or street Mr. Curry espied Wildrick hiding in the woods. He called to one of the others and both went to make the capture. Mr. Curry was well acquainted with Wildrick, and when the sheriff started for the jail with the prisoner, Wildrick called to the stage driver and said, "Young man, I'll see you later." Pat was in the habit of keeping his word about such things and the "young man" was not pleased when the prisoner was again at liberty. However, he was soon arrested for jumping his bond and was placed in jail in Portage, where his career was soon ended by a mob.

Mr. Curry states that when he got into the stage business just before the war the two great state proprietors of the middle West were Frink & Walker, who controlled Illinois from Chicago, and Moore & Davis, who had a monopoly of the Wisconsin lines. The headquarters of the latter were in Milwaukee, where Mr. Moore lived; Davis resided in Baraboo. Stanley & Bacon was also a strong stage firm who worked from Lodi. In the days when Mr. Curry was in his prime as a stage driver and proprietor, Moore & Davis had a big barn where the City nail now stands, and frequently had forty or fifty horses in it to supply their stages. After Mr. Moore died, the firm of Moore & Davis was succeeded by Emory, Houghton & Buell, who retained control of most of the stage lines in this part of the state until the North Western invaded the territory with such effect.

With the completion of the new Cazenovia & Sauk City Railroad, ami the awarding to the company of the Government contracts at the beginning of 1911, an institution passed from existence which had been a vital element of the community for forty years - the Cazenovia, Ironton and La Valle Stage. The route of seven miles was established in 1871, soon after the North Western Railroad was extended from Madison to Sparta, and became the connecting link between the great outside world and the lonely inland farms and villages. Those were pioneer days in the little valley and Indians often came from their tepees along the river to watch the wagon that passed so often. Those, too, were reconstruction days after the great war, and echoes of the conflict were often heard. Those, too, were furnace days at Ironton and the grim "Iron King," John P. Smith, rode over his thousands of acres by day and watched his white-hot molten pour into the earthen bed prepared for it, by night.

From the first the stage was an important factor in the life of the people. Its comings and goings were events of the quiet days. It brought missives to and from loved ones and newspapers, rare and precious in the early years, were eagerly awaited. Like the tides of the ocean, the stage came and went, giving and taking, in the ebb and flow.

How faithful it was - sometimes late, but unfailing! Through torrid" heat or fiercest blizzard, through blinding dust or frowning rains, the old stage persevered. The first to plow through bottomless mud holes or high piled snow drifts or to ford treacherous high water - fearless and undaunted. Then, too, there were days of wonderful beauty when the road was all too short, when the birds sang and flowers bloomed ; hazy Indian summer days, and sharp bright frosty mornings when the icicles hung from the trees, a glittering mass.

And what a motley throng through all the years passed "over the line!" Returned soldiers, in early times, told many a thrilling tale of prison and starvation, forced night marches and the slaughter of fellow men. Young and old, rich and poor, of many races and creeds, and conditions of life, "knights of the grip" galore - good fellows and good travelers, with a good cigar and story for the driver. Sons and daughters of the old homes, coming or going, on business or pleasure bent. Often merry crowds whiled away the trip with song and jest. Strangers at the beginning of the ride were friends at its close and many romances began within the curtained recesses of the old stage.

No one ever mistook the stage horses. They seemed to acquire a certain indefinable air of importance and many good teams gave their best years to the service. A pair that always swung proudly around the corners was the Hanzlik grays. Everyone remembers the one that couldu 't get used to the trains. Though driven daily to the station for years she would rear and plunge at each approach of her dreaded enemy.

Neither shall we forget the drivers - they are a long list through all the years. Alonzo Scott was among the first. Alf. Banks and John Fitzgerald, Jr., Charles St. John and Daniel Wright, were old favorites. Martin Ilanzlik owned and drove the route for twelve years. His courtesy and ready wit could always be relied upon and his circle of friends was indeed a wide one. Petie Duren was a popular driver, and during his term passengers' of the fair sex usually occupied the front seat of the vehicle. Big, genial John Leimkuehler was the last (but not the least) owner, and "Jolly Jim" Kitson held the reins on the last trip of the old stage over the familiar road.

Farewell to the old system! The iron horse has superseded it and we would not wish it otherwise. The march of progress, even when delayed, is ruthless, and all in its path must succumb. But we need not be forgetful of the friend that served us so long and faithfully - the standby of less prosperous days, the forerunner of, we trust, a greater prosperity. The coming generation will scoff at it, but time will veil the many imperfections and shortcomings and leave us only pleasant memories of the old stage coach.

Since August, 1915, the line between Baraboo and Kilbourn has been equipped with a couple of "autos" - an International truck car ana a powerful Buick coach. Probably no road in the county has been more thoroughly improved, and there is no route along which more improvements are pending. Writing in the year mentioned, a local newspaper man has this to say regarding the line mentioned: "In all probability the greatest improvements or changes is the road between Baraboo and Kilbourn, and the method of travel. Those who knew the road five years ago can have an appreciation of the changed conditions. There were several sand hills that kept the autoists guessing and frequently they had to cut brush and place in the road to keep their cars from being 1 buried alive. ' ' ' Now they can go over those hills at twentyfive to fifty miles an hour. With present methods of road building and the auto-way, the two places, which were two and a half hours apart, have been brought to a distance of one hour apart with the new stage. But when it comes to comfort and an enjoyable ride, there is no comparison. The price then was $1.25, and today it is $1.00. The change for the better is more than that. The time is less than half, while the money consideration is twenty per cent less.

There is a feature in this present staging business that lias not been so well overcome, however. It is the winter weather. The hot weather and rain storms do not interfere now as they used to, but the cold weather and drifts are more difficult, and it looks now as if the only solution is the flying machine - but tbat must be left to a few years of development.

In mentioning the weather we are reminded of the "Cold New Year s Day" in 1864. It was thirty -seven degrees below and James Curry, the stage driver, was an hour or so late that morning. He had but one passenger and his sleigh tipped over several times on Webster's Prairie. The passenger, although bundled in blankets, nearly froze, while Mr. Curry, without overshoes, did not suffer. There were six stage routes out of Kilboum at that time and several drivers eame in with frown hands and feet." It is such times that try the metal of the stage drivers, or anyone else.

This was the first trip the writer ever made on a stage, and it was Mr. Hulbert's last trip as stage driver. In many respects he enjoyed the work. We speak advisedly in saying "work," for stage driving is not pleasure - it just looks like it to the visitor who takes a trip. In taking the mail the driver visits all the boxes along the line within two or three miles of the Village of Delton. One is reminded of the street ears the way the big car is so frequently stopped and started. In some places the houses are about a block apart. Then when one makes two round trips to Kilboum, delivering the half-dozen or more passengers to the right places, besides collecting the express packages and parcels, he is a busy man.

There are two lines from Reedsburg. The White Mound stage, via Loganville, is owned by J. R. Donahue, Reedsburg. The Sandusky stage, via Lime Ridge, is also owned by Mr. Donahue.

After the railroad between La Valle and Cazenovia was opened, the stage was abandoned, as previously narrated in this volume. On December I, 1915, the line was again opened, the service of the railroad not being satisfactory 1o the residents of Ironton and Cazenovia. The line is owned by Jesse Frye, who usually drives. His substitutes are Harry McNamer and Clinton Bernamon.

and, in consideration of that fact, the progress made is certainly a cause for pride. The central and southern townships have generally taken the lead in the pushing of these improvements, and, among the citizens of the county who have been working along these lines with energy and faith none have shown greater zeal and effectiveness than the highway commissioner now serving, John Gunnison. The report of that official for 1916 shows what was done throughout the county in the way of road building for that period, and in a general way is a gauge of the relative prominence of the different localities in the work under consideration. It shows the localities where the improvements have been carried on, the nature of the improvements, the dimensions of the roads, the amounts available for the work, the expenditures for that year and the balance carried over to 1917.

The first stone road in the county was built about thirty years ago near the center of section 11 in the Town of Freedom, about a mile south of the Village of North Freedom. The land was very soft and the hauling of hundreds of cords of wood over the road made it practically impassable. The road was built with volunteer labor on the part of the citizens roundabout and the stones placed there have been covered by crushed rock during recent years.

The towns of Baraboo and Sumptcr were the pioneers in road construction under modern methods. The first road built in the Town of Baraboo was near St. Michael's Cemetery northwest of the city. This was without county aid. The first stone road in Sumpter was on the bluff in the north part of the town.

At the annual meeting of the Town of Baraboo on April 7, 1903, William Toole introduced a resolution providing that the town road leading into Baraboo receiving the largest donations be paved, providing arrangements could be made with the City of Baraboo to connect the paved portion of the city streets with the town road. The road leading toward Reedsburg through Lyons received the most subscriptions and was paved with crush rock from a quarry west of the city and near the highway. The resolution introduced by Mr. Toole presupposed the granting of county aid as provided by an act of the Legislature in 1901. In 1904 the county voted the Town of Baraboo $964.28 county aid.

November 17, 1905, the road and bridge committee of the Sauk County Board of Supervisors recommended that the petitions of the Town of Sumpter for $700 and the Town of Baraboo for $1,000 county aid to build roads of crushed rock be granted as requested. H. E. Stone was the supervisor from the Town of Sumpter and Henry A. Hill was the supervisor from the Town of Baraboo. The resolution was adopted.

of Baraboo for $1,000, Sumpter for $715 and Greenfield for $1,000 county aid to build macadam roads be granted. Adopted. Tbe supervisors from the three towns respectively were II. A. Hill, II. E. Stone and W. C. Pruyu.

The State Legislature of 1907 having adopted a law relative to the establishment of a county highway system, Supervisor J. T. Donaghey of North Freedom presented the following resolution at the meeting of the county board on November 20, 1907 : Resolved, That the chair- Mian of the county board appoint a committee of seven members, to report at the next session of the board, a system of prospective county highways and present with their report an outline map for considera- tion of the members of the board. The following composed the committee: H. E. Stone. Sumpter; E. M. Davies, Village of Spring Green; William Ilalberslclk'ii. Reedsburg; R. B. Griggs, City of Baraboo; H. E. Pettit, 1 ronton; Theodore Steele. Delton ; and J. T. Donaghey, Village of North Freedom.

June 11, 1908, the report of the committee was presented by J. T. Donaghey, the secretary, and a resolution demanding a better system of highways was submitted and adopted. A map accompanied the report. The salary of the highway commissioner was fixed at $1,000 for a term of three years. J. T. Donaghey was elected the first highway commissioner.

Xhults were appointed as a committee on county highways. The towns of Baraboo, Bear Creek, Delton, Fairfield, Freedom, Merrimack, Sumpter, Troy, and Winfield asked for county aid amounting to $7,532.35 which was granted. The total amount appropriated by the county in 1909 was $24,732.35.

November 17, 1910, J. T. Donaghey tendered his resignation as highway commissioner and on November 21 Q. F. Post was elected to succeed him at the same salary, $1,000 per year. Seventeen towns petitioned for county aid, the total amounting to $18,958.09 and $6,000 was appropriated for machinery and repairs. The highway commit-

In 1911 the highway committee was composed of G. Scharnke, James Gregory and R. F. Mercer. G. F. Post was re-elected commissioner. The sum of $23,991.39 was voted as aid to the towns and $16,570 was appropriated for machinery and repairs.

In 1912 the highway committee was composed of G. Scharnke, James Ciregory and R. F. Mercer, with G. F. Post as commissioner. The following was voted : to the towns. $38,690.91 ; machinery and repairs, $28,250; Delton bonds, $1,600.

In 1914 the same commissioner served and the following composed the committee: James Gregory, R. F. Mercer and R. B. Griggs, the latter being appointed after the death of G. Scharnke. The towns were granted $31,601.08; machinery and repairs, $14,500; Delton bonds, $1,600.

In 1915 R. F. Mercer, William Halberaleben and R. B. Griggs composed the committee with the same commissioner. The towns were voted $34,725.32; repairs, machinery and gravel pit, $52,500; Delton bonds, $1,600. Hugh Sarahan was named the bookkeeper in January. G. F. Post resigned February 22, 1916, and John Gunnison was selected and took the office March 20, 1916. He has since filled the position.

On November 14, 1916, R. B. Griggs, R. F. Mercer and William Halbersleben were selected as the highway committee and are still serving. The largest appropriation in the history of road building in the county was made this year:

The work during 1917 was somewhat retarded on account of the war but plans are being made to prosecute the work as rapidly as possible. During 1918 the county will receive about $30,000 Federal aid and the trunk line system adopted by the state will bo an added element in road planning and work.

It happened that the railroad which, as a whole, has done the least to develop the resources of the county is the one which first entered its territory and also aroused one of its communities to a high pitch of expectancy, only to dash all such hopes to fragments. Newport, in the extreme northeastern corner, is no more, and the Chicago, Milwaukee

& St, Paul line counties its activities and privileges to Spring Green, in the southwestern corner of the county. Although the Chicago & North Western Railway came in fifteen years later, it made up for lost time by passing through the leading centers of population and the rich agricultural sections of the Baraboo Valley, which, from the first had been . the prime aim of the leading citizens of the county, in the promotion of all the railway schemes which they hoped to be of benefit to them and the future.

The Village of Spring Green is a creature of the old Milwaukee & Prairie du Chien Railroad, afterward the Prairie du Chien Division of the Chicago, Milwaukee & St. Paul Road. The first cabins erected on its site were the shanties of railroad laborers, and these were afterward occupied by Messrs. Thomas D. Jones and Holmes, the first permanent residents of the place. On the 3d of August, 1856, the first train to run over the road to the terminus passed through the site of the future village, then covered with trees, brush, weeds and grass. The next day the bridge was tested and found safe, the engine went over it and the Milwaukee & Prairie du Chien line was pronounced open to the public of this part of Wisconsin.

In the meantime the site of Spring Green had been entered from the government, and passed into the hands of A. C. Daley, B. F. Edgerton and A. G. Darwin, who, in the spring of 1857, platted the Village of Spring Green. A hotel and several stores were erected and early in the summer of the year it became so evident that a settlement of considerable size was bound to be born at that point that the railroad company erected a little depot there and its trains commenced to make regular stops.

Several years before Spring Green thus obtained raliroad connections through the Milwaukee & Prairie du Chien Railroad, leading citizens of the county had obtained a charter for the building of the Fort Winnebago (Portage City), Baraboo Valley & St. Paul Railroad. Several Chicago promoters had projected a line from that city to Janesville. thence through Madison and the Baraboo Valley to St. Paul, with a branch, via Fond du Lac, to the Lake Superior region. Charters had been obtained under the names of the Rock River Valley Union and the Chicago, St. Paul & Fond du Lac Railroad companies, and considerable track was even laid between Chicago and Janesville in the early '50s. But the people of Sauk County were afraid that the section of this grand trunk line from Madison to St. Paul would be put through- on a route too far south to be of benefit to them ; hence the incorporation of the Fort Winnebago, Baraboo Valley and St. Paul Railroad, as an intermediate section of the proposed system. But the defeat of the IhihI grant bill designed to bolster up the enterprise and furnish funds for its prosecution compelled the project to take a rest. P. A. Bassett and Col. James Maxwell, of Baraboo, went to Washington, at different times, in the interest of the bill, but the opposition of the promoters of the La Crosse & Milwaukee Road (now the La Crosse Division of the Chicago, Milwaukee & St. Paul Railroad) was too strong for them and the chief leaders in the Chicago, St. Paul & Fond du Lac enterprise.

But the leading citizens of the Baraboo Valley did not despair of secijring a railroad, and Mr. Bassett was delegated to open negotiations with the Chicago & North Western Company, through its president, William B. Ogden, of the first named city. As spokesman of the largest industrial and business interests of the valley, Mr. Bassett promised that Sauk County would raise $450,000 in support of a line following that, route; he also was authorized to pledge an additional $150,000 from the people of Madison. Mr. Ogden promised that the Baraboo Valley route should be surveyed in the following spring and work commenced on the grading as soon as possible; but the panic of 1857 nullified all such promises and put a temporary quietus on the railroad plans and hopes of the citizens of the Baraboo Valley. For lack of adequate means, the enterprise known as the Milwaukee & Western and, later, as the Milwaukee, Watertown, Beaver Dam & Baraboo Valley Railroad, fell by the wayside, and the weeds of neglect sprung up and choked it. Judge S. L. Rose was at the head of that project, made a tour through the Baraboo Valley, and secured pledges of $100,000 from the different towns along the route.

Then came the campaign in Sauk County engineered by Byron Kilbourn, the great railway promoter of Milwaukee, to push the interests of the La Crosse & Milwaukee Railroad. Any farmer who did not mortgage his place was considered lacking in enterprise and good business judgment; for the stock of the railroad was considered the most solid and profitable investment on the market. Next came the staggering announcement to the confiding farmers and the expectant people of Sauk County, particularly of the Baraboo Valley, that the company had decided neither to cross the Wisconsin River at Newport (which had been projected and platted on that understanding) nor to carry it through the Baraboo Valley. Finally the La Crosse & Milwaukee Corn-

Many of the citizens of Newport were stockholders in the road, but made the best of the situation which was dark in the extreme. Their next step was to endeavor to secure a depot on the line of the road opposite their village, and in December, 1858, the railroad board of directors granted a memorial signed by the prominent business men of Newport, Baraboo, Rcedsburg, Delton and the surrounding country, allowing Newport to erect a depot on the east side of the river at her own expense! All that the railroad was required to do was to stop its trains at that point. By February, 1859, a handsome depot had been completed at that locality, and Newport was considered resurrected. But the revival of the place was temporary, for the La Crosse & Milwaukee was soon pushed up the east side of the river and the development of Kilboura City killed Newport.

The management of the I/a Crosse & Milwaukee Railroad placated those who had mortgaged their farms and homesteads with the understanding that the line was to convenience them and develop their properties, by assigning to them the state land-grant. As the lands were sold, the proceeds were distributed pro rata among the mortgagors, and gradually repayments were made to quite a large extent.

The facts concerning subsequent movements to secure railroad connections for the Baraboo Valley people are meager. In the midst of the disturbing times of the Civil war the Chicago & North Western made the preliminary survey of a route through the valley, as a portion of the projected line from Madison to La Crosse. That was in the fall of 1862. About a year afterward the Baraboo Valley Railroad Association was formed, with P. A. Basset t as president. The North Western made another survey through the valley, and then all pretense of such activities was dropped until the last year of the war, when the end of that troublous period was in sight. In January, 1865, the Portage City & Baraboo Valley Railroad was incorporated, and several months later it was reorganized under the patronage of the Chicago, Milwaukee & St. Paul Railroad Company. But the actual survey got no further than Pine Island, above Portage, where it stopped.

as the athletes now say when a man is about to run a race, "getting set." In October, 1869, Col. S. V. R. Ableman and J. C. Lusk, through articles in the county press and persistent personal efforts in other directions, revived the movement of a valley road as part of some general through route. On the 19th of that month the Colonel headed a meeting largely attended by regularly appointed delegates, authorized to speak for the various sections of the county. He was named as the chairman of an executive committee, which was to apply for a charter for a road, the construction of which should be open to the large railroad company of solid standing offering the best inducements.

On July 1, 1870, therefore, the Baraboo Air Line Railroad Company was organized with the following officers : President, T. Thomas ; vice president, J. Mackey; secretary, T. D. Lang; treasurer, R. M. Strong; directors, S. V. R. Ableman, J. F. Smith, Moses Young, S. P. Barney and Jonas Narracong. Both the Michigan Central and the North Western made offers to build the line, and they were obliged to apply to the Baraboo Air Line- Company, as the local corporation held a charter for a route through the "lake gap." Within two weeks after organization, the Baraboo Air Line Company had reached a basis of agreement with the Chicago & North Western Railway, which resulted in the actual construction of the road in the following year.

The Chicago & North Western Road was completed to Baraboo on Friday, September 8, 1871, and on Tuesday, the 12th, a grand celebration took place, "such a one," says a local publication, "as was never before held in these classic precincts. There were music, speaking, cannon-firing and great rejoicing generally. It is estimated that 10,000 people were present. One of the remarkable features of the occasion was the great arch erected over the track. On either side of the track a circle of hop poles had been formed. Through the spaces between the poles, hop vines were wreathed until the poles were entirely clad with green. On the top of the columns rested a broad arch, surrounded by a large keystone, upon which were piled immense golden pumpkins, strings of red-cheeked apples, sheaves of wheat and stalks of corn. In the center stood a flagstaff, from which floated a banner. The iron-horse reached Reedsburg on New Year's day, 1872, but on account of the unfavorable season for outdoor celebrations, the celebration of the event was postponed."

practical stimulus occasioned by the provision of an outlet for its agricultural and industrial wealth, and a convenient means of communication between its scattered communities.

But the Chicago & North Western Railway is not the last of the good things which have been provided for the people of the valley and of Sauk County, important and desirable as it is.