Working Away

One of the challenges for any small town like La Farge is to provide meaningful employment for the people that live there. In doing research on the village in the years after World War II, one finds that La Farge’s population swelled during those years. As folks returned to the village after serving in the military during the war, men in particular were faced with a limited number of jobs in the La Farge area. Many of those men had been married during the war and returned to La Farge to start their families in their hometown. Too many people chasing too few jobs meant many of these men would have to make a choice made by many before them. They would choose to work away at a job far from the Kickapoo Valley, while maintaining a home in the La Farge area. It would mean the men would travel to places like Kenosha, Madison, Janesville, and Rockford, Illinois to work at good paying jobs. It was an employment practice and procedure that went back to the very beginnings of this village located in the northern Kickapoo Valley. So, let’s look at what “working away” meant in those formative years.

The beginnings of settlement occurred in the northern part of the Kickapoo Valley around 1850. Two actions by the federal government facilitated the movement of settlers into the area around what would become La Farge. First, the United States Army, through several treaties, removed the last of the Native-American tribes from the area by the mid 1840’s. As the Winnebago tribe (now Ho-Chunk) left the Valley through a series of removals, the army insured a safe area for settlement in the region. With the federal surveying of the land in the Kickapoo Valley shortly after, an orderly process for purchasing land was also available for the settlers.

Cheap land and jobs was what drew settlers to the Valley in those early days. The jobs were in the vast stretches of white pines, which extended north up the Kickapoo River from present day La Farge. “The Pinery” drew the first people into the region as gangs of lumbermen were felling the pines even before the government surveys had been completed. As milling operations were established to saw up the pine trees into marketable lumber at Ontario, Oden, Rockton, Star (Seelyburg) and the Corners (La Farge), more men were required to make the enterprise function. Crews were needed to fell the trees and trim them up. In the winter, when the ground and river were frozen, the logs would be hauled to the mill sites. Soon bridge-building crews were spanning the river in key locations to provide better access to the lumber and routes to and from the mills. Men were also needed to work in the mills and then to raft the lumber down the Kickapoo. Many of these lumbermen settled in the Kickapoo Valley. Indeed, one of the first settlers at what would become Seelyburg was John Anderson, one of the original lumbermen in the Valley. Anderson, a Scot from Glasgow originally, retired from the hard life of the ax and settled on land overlooking the river in 1854. A few years later, Anderson sold some of his land to Dempster Seely, who started his vast Kickapoo lumber business at Anderson’s previous water site on the river.

Those that came to the northern Kickapoo Valley for land in those early days also worked in the lumber crews. Clearing land for a future farm was a fulltime job in itself, but little income was earned in those endeavors. Many of those early farmers in the region would supplement their income with work in lumber. In the winter months especially of those early years, “Seely’s Men” were any and all men who needed a job in the area. Working on the lumbering crews could pay up to fifty cents a day in those cold winter months. If you had a horse to help skid logs, your pay could increase to $1.50 per day, big money for those times. The work was hard and dangerous at times, as the story of “The Fatal Oak” can attest, but as long as there were trees to cut and saw into lumber, there were jobs to be had.

Of course, the trees and the forests of pine could not last forever. By the 1880’s the vast white pine forests of the Kickapoo Pinery were pretty much gone. When a fire destroyed Seely’s lumber mill during that time, he built the operation back bigger than ever, but with more of an emphasis on finishing hardwood lumber. Within another decade, much of the prime hardwood forests had been cut and the industry was on a decline. By the time that the railroad reached La Farge in 1897, much of the prime lumber in the region was gone. How ironic that the new transportation system which could haul the lumber to the markets of the Midwest arrived after most of the trees had already been cut.

By the end of the nineteenth century, many of the lumber companies based in La Farge were looking for a new source of trees. That source was available in northern Wisconsin. The Miner Brothers lumber company, located first in Clinton Township and then in La Farge, left for the north woods in 1898. A year later the Knutson and Johnson lumber mill would sell their La Farge operation to August Kriigle and move their business north to Forest County. When these lumber companies headed north, it meant that the jobs went in that direction, too. Decisions had to be made by many living in the La Farge area, those men who worked in lumber. Should we stay or should we go?

For some the answer to that question was to both stay in the Kickapoo Valley to live and to go away from the Valley for the job. They started a trend that endures to this day.

Looking back at old copies of the La Farge Enterprise newspaper, one can always find news from rural areas outside of the village. News reported by correspondents from Ottervale, Morning Star Ridge or Rockton were common in most editions of the local paper. What was happening to folks in those rural areas close to La Farge was an important function of a small town newspaper. However, if you looked at those old copies of the Enterprise from the first decade of the 20^th century, you might find reports from Mather, Warrens, Island Lake, Pine Island, Chili, Ladysmith, Lindsey, or Carter. These are not local places, but towns located to the north that are hours away from the Kickapoo Valley. The news from those places is in the La Farge paper because many men from the Kickapoo Valley went to northern Wisconsin to work in the lumber camps there. News from Chili or Island Lake was news about folks from La Farge working there or living there. Many of the men went north for the winter months, leaving in the fall after the crops had been harvested and returning in the spring when it was planting time. They were the first from the little village on the Kickapoo who were “working away”. But they would not be the last.

La Farge History - Part I

It has been a while since I've posted any update of my history-writing efforts on this blog. Since I have last talked to those of you who may frequent this post, some major decisions have been made and substantial progress moved on the book.

First of all, the book on the history of La Farge is still scheduled to come out in early December. I had wanted to have the book out by the 4th of July of this year, so I'm only six months late. I want to have it for sale at that time and to sell it at the Small Town Christmas in La Farge on Saturday, December 4. I would like to have a table at the Crafts Fair at the gymnasium that day and perhaps another book signing at the Kickapoo Valley Reserve early in that evening. More will be forthcoming on those events.

Secondly, the history is now definitely a two-parter. This first book - Part I - will cover the history of La Farge from its beginnings up through the early 1960's. I stop at that point in time because that is when the La Farge Dam Project is finally authorized by Congress. After that time, the dam project takes on a whole life of its own and is another book in itself. To do any justice to that story and how it affected the village, I need to put it another book. With the self-imposed deadline for getting a book out this year, I did not feel I could do the village and dam history from the 1960's and on any justice. So, Part II will be coming out later.

Lastly, I'm really getting some excellent help in finishing up the book. Carolyn has been helping with editing since summer. Chuck Hatfield is helping me with the self-publishing (We are calling ourselves Kickapoogians Press.) and has helped me with ISBN numbers and copyrights. He is currently in contact with printers, lining up quotes for that procedure. Paula Howard (nee Muller) has come aboard to help with final editing, which has really been a God-send for the project.

I am finishing up the research and writing on the last chapter, which I hope to have done by the next couple of weeks. Then Chuck and I will start putting the whole thing together to send off to the printers. Wish us luck!

4th of July

The 4th of July has passed for another year and once again La Farge celebrated Independence Day in good style. The celebration, which began on Friday night, July 2 and ran through the 4th was a fun time for lots of people. The only downer for the weekend was that the Hot-Air Balloon Rides, the Legends vs. Icons baseball game and the fireworks were washed away by the late rains on the 4th.

Some new events highlighted this year's celebration in the little Kickapoo River town. A leadoff event on Friday night was the Snap, Crackle & Pop 5K Run/Walk, which attracted over 50 participants. The route ran from the Lions Shelter next to the baseball park, up Seelyburg Road, across the Kickapoo River and on to the dam site on the Kickapoo Valley Reserve. Running off Old Highway 131, runners and walkers took the "Dam Loop" trail, passing the dam tower on the way and then headed back down Corps Road and into old Seelyburg before returning to La Farge.

Saturday saw several new events as well. The Antique Tractor Pull drew a surprising number of participants with 105 "hooks" in the four pulling classes. After the big tractors were finished, the kids had fun participating in the Peddle Pull. In the evening both the Bingo Bizarro and the Singing Bee were well enjoyed by all who attended.

I was involved with a local history display that we put up in the school gym. We had displays that featured Ray Calhoon's baseball uniform, artifacts and photographs from old Seelyburg, photos on former La Farge businesses and the Kickapoo Railroad (including some newly discovered photos of the Lawton railroad tunnel). Since Saturday was also the All-School Reunion at the school, there were also lots of old school photos as well as a continuous slide show of school photos and a video history of the school. We had lots of people go through the history display on both July 3, the day of the reunion and the next day on the 4th.

On the 4th, there was a legion game between LaCrescent and Westby, with both teams being coached by LHS graduates, Jamie Muller and John Hamilton. It looks like a legion tournament is in the works for next year at La Farge's 4th of July. I can't wait.

Memorial Day

On this Memorial Day, I'm going to list the soldiers from the La Farge area who lost their lives during World War II.

We are losing the WW II veterans at a startling rate now and La Farge is honoring their surviving WW II vets by having them as parade marshals at this year's 4th of July parade.

This listing of the men from the La Farge area lost in WW II is taken from the "Service Record - World War I and II - La Farge & Community" published in 1949 by the La Farge VFW Post. Harry Lounsbury was the commander of the post at that time. The book lists 291 men and women who were from La Farge, the surrounding community, or had connections to the village and served during World War II. Twelve are listed as "Gold Star Boys", those who made the ultimate sacrifice for their country. They are:

Lee Lawrence - April 6, 1943 - plane went down off coast of north Africa

Harold McElhose - May 23, 1943 - died during North Africa & Italian campaigns

Floyd Smith - March 22, 1944 - plane crashed in Northern Ireland

Asa Lawrence - September 10, 1944 - died in Italy

Russ Alderman - September 15, 1944 - died near Moselle River in France

Joe Strait - January 19, 1945 - died in Luzon, Philippines

Fay Alderman - April 10, 1945 - died at Okinawa in Pacific

Orville Hisel - May 9, 1945 - died in Luzon, Philippines

Graydon DeVern Gilman - September 3, 1945 - drowned in Arkansas

Van Brokaw - August 29, 1946 - plane crashed at Grenoble in Alps

Lysle Ewing - no date listed - no information

Vic Willie - no date listed - died in Pacific

Each Memorial Day, an honor roll of the deceased veterans is read at ceremonies held in La Farge. The names of these twelve men , La Farge's "Gold Star Boys" are included in that calling.

1930's - A Time of Transition

I have recently been working on a chapter in my history of La Farge project that tells the story of transition in the village during the 1930's. I used the great Kickapoo River flood of 1935 as a central event from which to spin off three themes which happened in the decade

The first of these themes was when the village and the rest of the Kickapoo Valley sought help from the federal government for their flooding problems. It was a time when a group of La Farge businessmen hopped in Harold Calloway's new Packard automobile and went to Washington D.C. to testify for a congressional hearing. Petitions were signed and gathered to be sent to Congress and the 1936 Water Bill contained money to begin a study of the Kickapoo Valley. A year later, the Army's Corps of Engineers were holding meetings in La Farge to learn more about the Kickapoo River flooding. By 1938, an intensive study on the Valley was underway to seek possible options to contain the floods. Flood control dams and levees were looked at for La Farge and other Kickapoo communities - help was on the way!

The second theme looked at the end of the Kickapoo Railroad. Abandonment of the line by the parent company was sought in 1937 and La Farge joined the other communities to fight to save their railroad. The fight lasted two years and the Valley lost. The last run of the Kickapoo Stumpdodger down the Valley was August 15, 1939. La Farge, which had been the northern terminal of the railway line, adjusted from the loss and sought better roads to facilitate their position as a trade center.

The third theme from the decade and one which actually endures to the present, was the construction of La Farge's new baseball field, Calhoon Park. It was begun as part of a WPA project in 1936. The village purchased a little over six acres to the west of the school for the new facility. Original plans called for a baseball field with grandstands and dugouts, a six-lane track and facilities for track & field meets, and a swimming pool. Eventually the baseball field was completed in time for the 1939 season with a covered grandstand, cement seating down both lines, and covered cement dugouts. There were spaces down both foul lines behind the cement seating for watching games while parked in your car. The new facility was named after Ray Calhoon, longtime player, manager and backer of baseball in La Farge.

Population Numbers

According to the numbers from the United States Census Bureau, the population of the village of La Farge peaked in 1940 at 921. From that point the village’s census population figures dropped steadily to a low point of 746 in 1980. That was a drop of 175 inhabitants and a decrease of 19% in that forty-year period.

Finding the population numbers for La Farge over the years of its existence has been an interesting part of the research on this little history project of the village. Finding the numbers is a relatively easy process. The actual records of the various census findings are online at various sites up through the 1950 census. Wisconsin’s Blue Book usually lists current census records for the years they are published and most of those volumes are also online.

The saying goes that “The numbers don’t lie”, but as we are finding out with the 2010 census currently under way, census numbers are often far from accurate. When learning that the La Farge Post Office had to return boxes of census forms with inaccurate addresses recently, I think I’ll take the accuracy of the 1910 census over the one currently under way.

In that census from one hundred years ago, you can clearly read the tallies at each household recorded by the census taker, Ray Calhoon. One can imagine him walking the streets of the village and penciling in the names of the head of household, usually the father of the family, his wife and children (arranged in order by age from oldest to youngest), and others who lived in the house (often relatives such as grandparents or cousins). There were no addresses on the 1910 census forms as most people picked up their mail at the post office located on south State Street in the Millard building. One page of Calhoon’s postal tally followed along that street south of Main Street in 1910 and recorded the village’s population house by house. When he arrived at the last house near the bridge over Bear Creek on the south end of town, he crossed the street and started back up the other side. Street by street, he counted noses in the little river town, coming up with a total of 654, which was an increase of 34% over the 1900 population of the village which was 488.

The 1910 tally might have actually startled some residents of La Farge as being too low. In 1905 a state census had shown La Farge’s population was 827. That was an increase of 339 over the 1900 federal figures, or an astounding rise of nearly 70%! These population numbers were reflecting the tremendous growth of the village in its first decade of existence. In newspaper articles of that time, the village was often said to have a population exceeding one thousand. Although the village’s census populations don’t show that figure, if one were to figure in those living in the Town of Stark, that century mark was easily achieved.

The Town of Stark had a population of 1,033 as reported by the 1890 federal census. By 1900, the township’s census number had dropped to 907, but if you include La Farge’s 1900 census number of 488 (La Farge was incorporated in 1899 and separated from the Town of Stark at that time), then the total living in what had been the township was 1,395. By 1910 that combined La Farge/Stark population number had increased to 1,467 people, and ten years later in 1920 it hit a high of 1,925 people. During that decade between the 1910 and 1920 census, the population of the village of La Farge had increased by over 20% while that of the surrounding township had risen 40%.

If, in fact, “The numbers don’t lie”; what caused the phenomenal growth in the little river town and the township which surrounded it? First, we need to remember that by 1920, American farmers, through advanced agricultural methods and technology and with the devastation in Europe caused by the First World War, were feeding much of the world. The grains, livestock, and dairy products of the Kickapoo Valley farms were part of this process and farming in the La Farge area was probably at its peak. (Tobacco was also being grown as a cash crop by many La Farge area farms by this time, also.) The village was strategically located as the northern hub of an efficient transportation system, the Valley’s railroad line and was providing all of the area’s farms with efficient markets for their products and a retail business district to provide for their needs. Coupling the farm markets and the retail operations with a still strong lumber industry in the village, La Farge was a bustling community.

By 1930, the Great Depression was at its worst and its affects on farm prices had been felt years before the stock market crash of 1929. The census for 1930 showed the combined populations of the village (756, down 4%) and the township (993, down 144 people from a decade earlier) at 1,749, down 9% from the previous census. The population numbers would continue a steady decline from 1930 on, especially in the township. Between 1920 and 1960, the Town of Stark saw its population decrease by 650 people (from 1,137 down to 487), a drop of 57% in forty years. Numerous changes in farming over those years, from modern machinery allowing for fewer people to farm more acres to various government set-aside programs, meant fewer people on La Farge area farms.

The village grew during the 1930’s and the 1940 census population of 921 was the highest ever. With the outbreak of World War II, La Farge, like every village in America, underwent tremendous change. Many have said that the population of the village was at its highest right after the conclusion of the war and was probably over one thousand at some point. With the many men and women who had been in the military service and war related jobs returning to La Farge, the village faced a housing crisis. Government-issue trailers were brought in and a temporary housing camp was set up in the field that today is the school’s parking lot. The actual 1950 census showed La Farge with a population of 905.

With the loss of the surrounding farming community’s population, the village’s population also started a steady decline between 1950 and 1970. Losing nearly a fifth of its population in those two decades, La Farge finally stabilized near 750 people by 1970 and has stayed close to that number ever since.

The Town of Stark hit its nadir in population in 1990, bottoming out at 259. The township had by then lost nearly a fifth of its farms to the federal government through the La Farge Dam Project. The acquisition of those properties in the township and the subsequent loss of population as the families left their farms occurred from 1968 through the early 1970’s.

In the last census, the population of Stark was up ninety people, and increase of nearly 35% from ten years earlier. The village’s 2000 census saw a modest 3% climb from twenty years earlier.

Some of those houses along south State Street where Ray Calhoon stopped in 1910 to count people for the census have recently been torn down. They were the victims of the great Kickapoo River flood of 2008. Razed and hauled away to the landfill, those residences are a memory now of another time. The numbers don’t lie.

Show Time at The Mars!

When I was a kid growing up in La Farge, one of my great sources of entertainment was attending the movies at the Mars Theatre. Located on the corner of Main Street across from the bank (now the Field House Bar), the Mars really was another planet for a young lad existing in those pre-television days of the early1950’s. Movies at the Mars brought that whole wonderful world beyond the hills that bracket the Kickapoo Valley to the folks who resided in the little river town. For a boy or girl of that era, the images that flashed on the silver screen of the Mars Theatre transported us to other times and other places.

I usually went to the movies on Saturday night and the matinee on Sunday afternoon. It cost twenty cents for a kid to go to a movie back then. I would usually get forty cents from my parents for each trip down two blocks on Main Street to the Mars. That would leave me twenty cents for a Coke (in a cup from a dispensing machine) that cost a dime and a bag of freshly popped popcorn for the same. Or I could skip the Coke and go for a box of buttered popcorn for twenty cents. Sometimes I would limit my discretionary spending on Saturday night to only ten cents on regular popcorn, then use the extra dime on Sunday for a Coke AND buttered popcorn on Sunday. What a treat that was!

Saturday nights were my favorites as that was the big night for all the businesses in town. My folks ran a grocery store on the east end of Main Street (Byrd Kennedy’s store for those that go that far back; today the Episcope office) so getting a five-year old out of their hair for the evening was certainly worth the forty cents. All of the kids in town and country alike would be in town as their parents did the family shopping and visiting on Saturday night. But no grown-up duties for the kids, who headed to the Mars for a double feature packed with action and laughs.

Saturday night scheduling of films at the Mars generally included a double feature with an action flick, usually a shoot-em-up western that would be paired with a comedy aimed at the younger set. Funny movies featuring the likes of “The Bowery Boys”, “Francis, The Talking Mule”, or “Ma & Pa Kettle” were favorites. Leo Gorcey and Huntz Hall were always in some kind of trouble in those Bowery Boys schemes, and Francis the mule seemed to make Donald O’Connor’s life a mess every time. Can’t you still hear Pa Kettle slowly saying “Now Ma” and she would shout back with that raspy voice of hers nearly knocking him over as he slouched in his chair? The westerns were loaded with action, lots of six-shooters blazing, horses galloping, and the stagecoach headed for the cliff. Randolph Scott was often the star and you couldn’t go wrong by him. John Wayne would come riding in some nights as did Gene Autry, but my favorite was Roy Rogers. It wasn’t just Roy with that winning smile though, as his movies always featured an assortment of co-stars and sidekicks. Wife Dale Evans was usually around to sing a duet or two, and George “Gabby” Hayes was always good for lots of laughs. Jingles (Andy Devine) might help in a shoot-out, firing off his six-shooters like he was throwing darts (did he ever hit anybody with that technique?). Then there were the animal stars as well: Champion, the Golden Palomino and Buttermilk led the horses for the heroes, and Bullet, The Wonder Dog was always doing, well, wonders. The “Sons of the Pioneers” would probably be over in the bunkhouse singing “Tumblin’ Tumbleweeds”. Action, music, amazing animals, comedy, good singing – how could you beat it?

Now you might think that those two movies would be enough for that evening’s entertainment, but there was usually more. A cartoon would certainly follow the “Coming Attractions” at the start of the evening. Tom & Jerry were classics from that era, loaded with colossal cartoon violence, but nobody was permanently hurt and laughs were plentiful. If there was only one show on a Saturday night, then a “Three Stooges” short was usually included with the main feature. Now, we’re talking about mayhem and violence aplenty with Moe, Larry, and Shemp performing their shenanigans, but the laughter was always uproarious, long, and howling for us kids.

In to the theatre our army of kids would march at six-thirty or seven, and out we would race after ten, another Saturday night at the Mars Theatre (Best in Sound for Miles Around). The country kids would race to their folks’ car and head for home. I would run back up Main Street to Steinmetz Grocery, still busy with the last of the evening shoppers. I would regale my Mom with the fantastic things seen on the Silver Screen at the Mars Theatre. Then with eyes drooping with sleepiness, I would troop upstairs to bed, where I would dream of amazing adventures with Bullet and Champion by my side.