WATER OVER THE DAM - PT. IV

The great Kickapoo River Flood of 1978 was the culmination of a very wet spring season that continued into June.  That month, weekend storms seemed to keep the river at or near flood stage every weekend, thwarting the attempts of tourists to canoe on the river.  At the end of the month the tipping point was reached. Here is how I described that flood in volume II of my history of La Farge (page 214).

            On the evening of Friday, June 30^th, a series of heavy thunderstorms swept through the Kickapoo Valley.  During the evening, the National Weather Service issued a flood alert for the Kickapoo River and surrounding streams.  The Vernon County Sheriff’s Department mobilized efforts to move everyone away from flooding streams.  The La Farge Fire Department was called out during the night to look for canoeists who were camped along the river south of Rockton.  Later, the power went off in the village and firemen helped people with emergency power for sump pumps to keep water out of basements.

            By the morning of July 1, reports from communities upriver from La Farge warned of high floodwaters on the way.  Norwalk, Wilton and Ontario were all deluged with floodwaters and all of it was headed fro La Farge and other communities downstream.  North of Rockton, the waters of the flooding Kickapoo were almost over the 10-foot high railings of Bridge #10 that spanned the river. By late morning on Saturday, July 1, the flooding Kickapoo began to spill into La Farge.  Employees and volunteer work crews worked at Nuzum’s, Jeffer’s Truck Sales, and the cheese factory to get merchandise to higher ground. Volunteers and members of the fire department began to move furniture and other belongings out of the houses south of Main Street.  A caravan of volunteers in trucks and boats moved people out of their houses on Mill, Pearl, Gold, Silver and Snow Streets.  All of the trucks of the fire department as well as the ambulance were moved away from the firehouse on south Silver Street to higher ground.  Some of the trucks were kept at C&S Motors and a couple others were eventually driven over to the Major farm on Otter Creek, so the department could respond on the west side of the river.

            By mid-afternoon the waters of the Kickapoo had advanced up Main Street to crest between the post office and the Co-op Gas Station.  All events of the opening day of the 4^thof July Celebration were cancelled, but many people still came to La Farge for the events – many unaware of the devastating flood.  Others, however, cam to see the floodwaters and by late afternoon the village was jammed with people.  Sandwiches that had been made for the celebration were donated to feed the many volunteers, firemen and policemen helping with the flood.  Red Cross officials came to the village by nightfall and they arranged for meals to be served at Kennedy’s Restaurant for people displaced by the floodwaters.  Sleeping bags were placed in the school gymnasium and people with no place to stay could reside there until the floodwaters abated.  Others stayed in the KP Hall overnight as they waited to return to their flooded homes.

            The waters started to recede late in the day on July 1^st, but then an intense storm pummeled the La Farge area in the evening.  The storm had spawned several tornadoes in the Viroqua area and La Farge received nearly two-inches of rain.  The storm caused more severe flooding on Bear Creek, Otter Creek, and Weister Creek and caused the Kickapoo to again rise to former high levels during the night.  From Friday evening June 30^ththrough Sunday morning, July 2^nd, 6.15 inches of rain was measured in La Farge.

            By the morning of Sunday, July 2^ndthe waters of the Kickapoo at La Farge had begun its recession down Main Street and back towards the river’s banks.  The floodwaters had crested at 14.92 feet, the greatest water level ever recorded at the gauging station located on the bridge west of Nuzum’s.  12,900 cubic feet of water per second was rushing through the village at the peak of the crest, another apex never recorded before.  (Many of the older generation compared the great Flood of 1978 to that of the one in 1935, but the gauging station at La Farge was not in operation at that time of the Flood of 1935, so an official comparison was not available.)

            It is interesting to note that the gauging station at La Farge was installed because of the flood of 1935.  When the Corps of Engineers did their preliminary flood control studies of the Kickapoo Watershed beginning in 1938, one of their initial recommendations was for gauging stations to be placed along the river to measure its flow.  The stations were installed at La Farge and Gays Mills soon after that initial Corps study. Let’s now return to my account in volume II of that 1978 flood at La Farge.

            In La Farge, the houses that had floodwater in them (Some for the first time ever) included Gerald Anderson, Stanley Potter, Elmer Storer, Catherine Norris, Eva Clements, John Sokolik, Bob Sokolik, Ron Gabrielson (renting the JaDoul house), Reynold Waddell, Jim Campton, Gib Stevens, Ethel Burt, Maxine Kennedy, Bob Erickson, Lucille Yarolimek, Vera Campton, Bob Jacobson, and Leslie Gillett.

            Business places in La Farge that were inundated with the floodwaters included the La Farge Cheese Factory, Nuzum’s, Gary’s Texaco Station, Caucutt-Olson Plumbing, La Farge Epitaph newspaper, Jeffer’s Truck Sales, Kickapoo Antiques, and Nelson’s Garage.  Also suffering damage from the flood were the Town of Stark hall and shed, the La Farge jail, and the new village hall and firehouse.

            The school’s bus garage, located on Main Street in the old Fulmer’s Garage building suffered heavy damage.

            Floodwaters kept area roads and highways closed for days.  Water covered the old portion of Highway 131 at Seelyburg for nearly two days and caused major damage to the road.  Highway 131 south of La Farge was closed for two days and almost one hundred yards of the highway were washed out below the new bridge at Lawton’s.  In addition the sewer plant at Seelyburg was inoperable for more than 24 hours at the height of the flood and raw sewage was dumped directly into the river’s waters. Many people boiled village water for drinking during the flood, but a DNR check on the village’s water supply on July 5^thindicated there was no contamination.

            Governor Martin Schreiber had declared much of southwestern Wisconsin, including the Kickapoo Valley, a disaster area because of the flooding.  (President Carter soon followed with his own disaster declaration, freeing up federal funds for flood relief.)  The move by Governor Schreiber allowed for state and federal assistance to reach those affected by the floods more quickly. Within a week of the flood, representatives from HUD and the Governor’s office were in La Farge to assess the damages. A list compiled by Village President Ted Erickson indicated that 38 residences, 23 businesses and several municipal facilities in La Farge had damages from the flood.  An initial estimate total of $200,000 in damages to La Farge residences, businesses, and streets was compiled.  That total did not include any of the damages to farm operations within the village.

            It is important to remember that a nearly completed flood control dam lay north of La Farge during that epic Kickapoo River Flood of 1978.  Originally scheduled to be completed two years before the flood, construction on the unfinished dam had been delayed for nearly four years.  It is interesting to notice how the Corps of Engineers assessed that 1978 flood on the Kickapoo River.  Again, I will return to volume II, page 219.

            Later, the Corps of Engineers came up with very different numbers for the impact of a completed dam on the flood.  Corps estimates on the total damages from the flood to Vernon, Richland and Crawford Counties was $20-million.  An additional $7-million in damages occurred in Monroe County, but those damages would not have been affected by a dam at La Farge.  However, the Corps estimated that with a completed dam at La Farge and the accompanying levee systems at Soldiers Grove and Gays Mills, 80% of the flood damages to Kickapoo towns would have been avoided.  With only the dam in place and with no downstream levees, the Corps still predicted a decrease of 63% in flood damages. 

            Wow, 80% less damages with a completed dam at La Farge!  It blows one’s mind to think that those kinds of numbers still created no impetus for the politicians to finish the dam project. As Bob Faw said on his TV news story about the La Farge dam project that was shown on the “CBS Evening News” on October 13, 1978, “An unfinished dam stops no flood waters”. 

Water Over The Dam - Part III

La Farge, as a community located along the Kickapoo River, has a long history of recovering from floods. As we wait to see how the village reacts to the greatest Kickapoo River flood ever in 2018, perhaps a look back at some of the other post-flood times is in order.

            The June 1899 Kickapoo River flood was the first great flood to be felt by the communities in the valley.  There had been other floods before that, but nothing like the destruction caused in that year.  At the mill in Rockton, the 1899 flood of the Kickapoo River was measured as over a foot higher than any previous flood.  The flood was devastating to the downriver town of Seelyburg as the river cut a new channel right through the middle of the community. Every house and store in the hamlet was damaged or destroyed.  Many of the people who lived in the little community along the Kickapoo moved away from Seelyburg to higher ground.  Several of the Seelyburg businesses including the Millard General Store and the Brown Photography Studio moved south to La Farge to reestablish their businesses. The exodus from Seelyburg continued after the flood as the Methodist congregation moved from Chapel Hill on the southern end of Seelyburg to a new church in La Farge in 1902.

            Interestingly, only one house in La Farge suffered damages from the 1899 flood.  A month after the flood, the village was incorporated and the new municipality including flood-ravaged Seelyburg on the north end, was established.  La Farge had damages to the railroad that had come to the town only a year earlier.  Most of the railroad’s track bed in the village was washed away and the railroad bridge south of town was washed askew and had to be straightened.  Of course, in the summer of 1899, the new village had not yet begun its expansion towards the river.  By 1907, when the next great river flood hit, the village had expanded to the west and south from the original “Corners”.  Many houses and places of business had been built south of La Farge’s bustling Main Street and would be in the way of the flood.

            The July 1907 Kickapoo River flood devastated La Farge and the other communities along its path.  In La Farge, the crest of the floodwaters reached nearly three blocks east from the river.  According to an article about the flood in the La Farge Enterprise newspaper, the floodwaters reached the base of the hill where the Central Hotel stood (Today, the post office is located where that hotel once was.  That serves as a good comparison of that 1907 flood to the recent 2018 flood.)  Major damages were suffered at many of the lumbering businesses along Mill Street, including the Arm & Pin Factory, Nuzum & Hunter Lumber, Hammer Brothers Lumber & Excelsior Mill and several other lumber mills located along the street.  Further north at Seelyburg, the La Farge Milling Company & Electric Company also suffered heavy damages.  

            The railroad depot and freight warehouse (next to Nuzum’s today) also were heavily damaged in La Farge.  At Seelyburg, the railroad’s “Wye” turnaround was washed out as well as the spur line to the mill there.  South of the depot in La Farge, most of the railroad’s spur line to the lumbering businesses was washed away or damaged in some way.  It was weeks before railroad service was restored to the community. 

             Many people living in houses south of La Farge’s Main Street had to be rescued by boats during the night when the floodwaters rose dangerously in town. Amazingly, nobody was hurt or killed during the numerous rescues in La Farge during that 1907 flood.  During the height of that flood, water was measured at five-feet deep in some houses in La Farge.

            For Seelyburg, the 1907 Kickapoo River Flood virtually marked the end of the little riverside hamlet.  After the flood, only one residence and one business remained on the once bustling main street of the mill town as everyone else moved away from the river, continuing the exodus to the higher ground to the south in the village. 

When the big floods come, the Kickapoo washes away more than ever comes back.

            After the 1907 flood, some people living in La Farge moved from their flooded houses to higher ground.  A few businesses that had been hit hard by the flood did not choose to stay in La Farge.  Some of the lumbering businesses located along Mill Street would close within a short time.  Some of that was due to the damages suffered from the flood, but another reason was the lack of available wood to use in the lumber and excelsior mills.

            It would be nearly three decades before another massive flood would hit the Kickapoo Valley.  In August 1935 the greatest Kickapoo River flood that had ever been seen devastated the valley.  The floodwaters rose rapidly in La Farge during the evening of August 5^thand people once again were rescued from their houses during that terrible night. The floodwaters rose so rapidly that some people had to be rescued by boats from the second story windows of their houses.  The La Farge telephone operator stayed up all night calling homes in the village and beyond towards Tunnelville to warn people to get out of their homes if they lived near the river.  At its height that night, the Kickapoo River floodwaters rose two feet in one hour in La Farge.  People displaced by the flood were temporarily housed in the KP Hall, the Odd Fellows Hall and the Masonic Temple.  The Red Cross was in town the next day and over the next week served nearly 300 meals to those displaced by the flood.

            The aftermath of the Flood of 1935 was a massive cleanup.  Disinfectant by the gallons was used to clean up the flood’s stinking residue.  The village’s health officer ordered everybody to boil any water used for drinking for fifteen minutes to avoid the ill effects of typhoid fever and other bowel infections.  Waste and garbage from the flood was burned immediately or buried. Dead animal carcasses, and there were many of them in the village, were removed in haste.

            The Red Cross brought in two-dozen large tents to La Farge for people to live in while their houses were drying out.  People in the village shared their garden vegetables with their neighbors who had lost their gardens to the floodwaters.

            Damages to businesses in the village were massive. Nuzum’s, the cheese factory, both gas stations on the corners of Main and Mill Streets, the lumber mill and pickle station on south Mill Street and the power plant at Seelyburg all had heavy damages from the floodwaters.  

            Every aspect of the railroad received heavy flood damage as the tracks from south of La Farge all the way to Seelyburg were heavily damaged.  The railroad’s depot, freight warehouse, coal shed, icehouse, engine house and nearby cheese warehouse were all heavily damaged.  The railroad bridge south of town had to be repaired again.  A freight train had stood next to the depot in La Farge during the flood and the high water mark was three feet up on the wooden boxcars.  It was nearly three weeks before the trains were able to run to La Farge once again after the flood.

            Residential damage in La Farge from the Kickapoo River Flood of 1935 was immense.  Many people’s woodsheds and out buildings were burned instead of repaired, too far gone to be fixed up.  Most of the damaged houses in the village were eventually cleaned up and repaired. Some of the houses were elevated to avoid future floods.  Many of the former occupants moved back in, but several houses were dismantled due to the excessive damages from the flood.  By September, several small single story houses had been built along north Mill Street (across from the present Calhoon Park) to help provide temporary housing for those displaced by the flood.

            After the Kickapoo River Flood of 1935, the people of La Farge and other Kickapoo Valley towns began to seek some type of relief from the river’s floods.  Led by La Farge Village President Arch Davidson, a delegation went to Washington D.C. to plead with Congress for some type of flood control help.  Thus, the story of the dam project at La Farge began. But that is another story for another time.

Water Over The Dam - Part II

The great Kickapoo River flood of 2018 began on the evening of Monday, August 27^th, when torrential rains inundated an area from Coon Valley to Hillsboro.  Rainfall totals for that evening exceeded a foot in the Cashton, Ontario and Wilton areas.  In La Farge over five inches fell.  During that first night, the northern Kickapoo Valley communities were hit with record setting flood heights.  Most of the downtown Ontario business district was under 5 to 10 feet of water before daybreak.

            By 4 am on Tuesday, August 28^th, word had been received in La Farge of the record setting water that was approaching from upriver.  An army of workers and volunteers began to move what could be saved from the businesses along west Main Street nearest the river.  By daylight the river was out of its banks, crossing the old Highway 131 at Seelyburg and plowing its way toward the village with alarming speed and power. By mid-morning, the Kickapoo River stretched from the bridge west of Nuzum’s all the way to the gas pumps at the Zzip Stop.  And the water kept rising.

            That afternoon over five inches of rain fell in less than three hours in the La Farge area.  The downpour set off a massive flood on area creeks and streams. As the rising waters of Bear and Otter Creeks came careening into La Farge that afternoon, it encountered the already record flood heights of the swollen Kickapoo and had nowhere to go. The water kept rising and by nightfall, the flood crest had breached the drive-thru of the post office – a never before seen height.  Water from a backed up Bear Creek was running west down Snow Street and into the river near the motel.  On the other end of the village, the waters of Bear Creek nearly reached the parking lot of the new EMT Building.

            Rescuing people from their houses was a top priority after the afternoon deluge.  DNR wardens brought a boat to the village and went door to door rescuing people and their pets from their flooded houses and getting them to high ground.  (Check out the rescue video posted on the WKBT – Channel 8 in LaCrosse website of those DNR wardens rescuing people in La Farge that day.  It is mesmerizing to watch – the definition of heroism in many respects.)  

            It took nearly all of Wednesday, August 29^thfor the flood waters to leave Main Street in La Farge.  Highway 131 was closed in both directions from the village. To the north, the road had washouts at Bridges 10, 9, 7 and three different locations at Bridge 2 on the northern end of Ferris Flat.  To the south, the river’s floodwaters covered the highway below Tunnelville at Lawton’s and would eventually wash out part of the road there.  Highway 82 through La Farge finally opened for traffic on that evening.

            The flood’s height for La Farge measured at the official measuring station at the bridge next to Nuzum’s was 19.42 feet.  That height eclipsed the previous high water mark in La Farge (set by the 2008 flood) by nearly three and a half feet! By the way, that measuring station was always operating during the flood even though the station did quit sending out information via satellite.  When Lyle Dorscheid, the local gauge reader and the National Weather Service crew checked the gauging station after the floodwater finally went down, they verified that it had always been recording the river’s depth.  What the station could not record was the torrents of water entering the river via Otter and Bear Creeks south of the gauge.

            The power was out in La Farge for most of three days as the village’s generating station on south Silver Street was overcome with the high floodwaters.  The electric power ceased to be at noon on that Tuesday and did not return until mid-afternoon on Thursday, August 30^th.  Down river, the Kickapoo inundated Viola, Readstown, Soldiers Grove, Gays Mills and Steuben as its waters raced to join the Wisconsin River.  Almost every village set high water marks, just as La Farge had, with some areas noting water levels nearly five feet higher than any ever recorded previously.

            The record floodwater levels meant lots of damages to several businesses in La Farge.  They included Nuzum’s, the Organic Valley retail store in the old cheese factory, the La Farge Truck Center and Car Wash, Don Potter Realty, the Zzip Stop, Ewetopia, the Premier Co-op, The La Farge Dental Clinic and the La Farge Motel. Water even seeped into the north end of the new clinic on north Mill Street that had been constructed at an elevation level three feet above the previous highest flood.

            In addition, twenty-one La Farge residences had floodwater damage.  All of the houses on Snow Street, eleven in all, suffered extensive flood damage. Many of those houses had been elevated since previous floods, but still had water damage due to the record flood crest. Six houses on south State Street, several that had never had floodwater previously, were flooded this time.  Some of the houses can be repaired and made livable again, but many cannot be fixed.

            By Friday, August 31^st, the water had finally receded from Plum Run Road (old Hwy 131) at Seelyburg.  Massive clean up continued in the village.  The Zzip Stop was selling gas by that day after having the gas pumps cleaned and inspected.  Dumpsters were everywhere in the floodway of the village, stretching the length of Snow Street and beyond.  The water had been so high in the motel that all of the rooms had to be gutted.  Dumpsters piled high with flood debris stood beside the motel, Zzip Stop, Ewetopia and other Main Street businesses.  Rental houses on Main Street were damaged too badly to allow the tenants to return.

            The sidewalk outside of the Kickapoo Haven served as a meal site while the power was out during the beginning of the cleanup. Meals were served at noon and in the early evening every day through that Friday, August 31^st.   Volunteers, flood victims and those who needed a meal were fed with food donated and made by the Rockton Bar, the La Farge Food Pantry, both La Farge restaurants – Brosi’s and Phil & Deb’s, Bergum’s Grocery, and the Zzip Stop.  The La Farge Fire Department personnel was on call for the entire week helping with rescues, pumping out basements and doing what ever needed to be done to help the people of the community.

            Flood relief supplies were available at both churches in La Farge and the United Methodist Church was soon filled with clothes, food, and other necessities for those that had been flooded out.  The La Farge UM church is scheduled to be open as a flood relief center until the end of the first week of October.   The La Farge Food Pantry, under the leadership of Pastor Mark Phillips, was providing housing and money for those displaced by the flood.  A week after the last floodwaters had subsided, Pastor Mark was still busy finding places for people to live and providing relief in many other ways. Several families displaced by the flood moved into campers parked in the La Farge Village Park.

            By the weekend, the weather had settled down and the river was back in its banks.  Then early Sunday morning, September 2^nd, it started raining again.  It rained again on Sunday and several times on Monday, Labor Day.  Another nearly six inches of rain fell in three days and the Kickapoo rose rapidly again. By Tuesday, September 4^th, the floodwaters of the Kickapoo River had covered old Hwy 131 at Seelyburg again.  By that evening the river’s water was over Hwy 82 at Nuzum’s and over Mill Street again near the new clinic.  Most of the floodwater had receded by the next day, September 6^th, but Plum Run Road at Seelyburg remained under water for another day.  South Mill Street, south Silver Street and Pearl Street on the far southern end of the village were closed for nearly two weeks straight due to high water.

            So where does La Farge go after such a catastrophic flood?  How many people and businesses will leave?  What lays ahead for this Kickapoo River town?  What will be the reaction to this historic flood?

Water Over The Dam - Part I

Where do we begin to describe the great flood of 2018?

            There are iconic scenes that will stick with us, recorded forever (hopefully) in today’s technology by anyone and everyone with a phone in their pocket or purse.  

            There is the video of the Red Angus bull standing in the middle of the bridge in Coon Valley with that “I’m here now and it’s a lot better than where I was before and nobody is moving me” look in its eyes. (What ever happened to that magnificent animal?  That question seems to be floating around a week after the waters subsided.)

            Then there is the photo of the highway sign in Ontario that alerts viewers that Highway 131 going to La Farge is a right turn. When the photo was first posted online, some people did not see the picnic table covered with flood trash sitting on top of the sign – indicating the record setting level of water in Ontario. A week after that record setting floodwater, Hwy 131 remains closed between there and Rockton as several bridge areas of the highway received significant damage from the floodwaters. Maybe that photo was trying to say that it would be no picnic trying to travel the road south to La Farge.

            For Viola, perhaps the enduring memory will be that waterline on the brick walls of the Iron Horse Saloon building on the village’s main Commerical Street.  The water line, with the water soaked red bricks below delineates the heights of the Kickapoo’s record crest in that town.  An after effect of the great flood for Viola is another cancelled “Horse & Colt Show” – the second time in three years.  (The 2016 Horse & Colt Show also had to be cancelled because of flooding – which was the first time in nearly 80 years of having to cancel the annual fall festival.)  That celebration is a homecoming for many and will be sorely missed.

            In La Farge, perhaps the scene captured of the yellow storage building located next to Nuzum’s floating in the middle of Highway 82 between the lumberyard and Organic Valley’s cheese factory building is the one to remember.  As the record setting floodwaters receded the building was moved into a spot in front of the car wash.  That building dates back to the railroad days in La Farge (The last train left town in 1939.) when railroad cars could be unloaded of their cargo into the storage building.  Now the concrete foundation piers where the shed sat are a historic reminder of the old railroad days in the Kickapoo Valley.

            The great Kickapoo River flood of 1935 was the beginning of the end (or perhaps the end of the end) for the Kickapoo railroad line. Despite efforts by village leaders in La Farge and other Kickapoo Valley communities to get some flood control measures through federal programs, the railroad was soon a thing of the past. That flood of 1935 was the standard for measuring flood events until the great flood of 1978, which was surpassed by the great flood of 2008, nearly topped by the great flood of 2017, and now has been eclipsed by the Great Kickapoo River Flood of 2018. 

            

When the big floods come, the Kickapoo washes away more than ever comes back.

            That old saying from over a century ago about flooding in the Kickapoo Valley was included in the prelude to Volume I of my La Farge history.  Already rumors are circulating about businesses in Ontario, Viola and Readstown that will not reopen because of the great flood of 2018.  People who lived in flood-ravaged homes along the river in towns from Wilton to Wauzeka don’t want to return to their former residences. How many people who lived in La Farge in 2008 and were affected by the flood left the village?  What will it be like this year?  Some people cannot return to their homes because the damage is so great.  Everyone is beaten down by the terrible floodwaters.  Morale is low for many.  This is the third straight year for bad flooding on the Kickapoo.  When will it ever stop?

            The recent 2016-18 flooding on the Kickapoo is eerily similar to the flooding of a decade past.  In 2007, 2008 and 2010, the Kickapoo Valley experienced bad flood events with the flooding of June 2018 being an all-time record setter until the most recent flood.  At the time, people of the Valley were wondering what was going on.  Was this climate change at its worst?

            At one of the Driftless Dialogue talks held at the Kickapoo Valley Reserve several years ago, a speaker from UW-Madison (we think it was Stanley Temple) discussed the causes and effects of the flooding in the Kickapoo Valley between 2007 and 2010.  The main thing that we took away from the talk was that the Kickapoo Valley could expect more of these flood events because of the changes occurring in weather patterns caused by climate change.  The unique and hilly topography of the Kickapoo Valley also was a factor in the intensity of the flooding.  At the time, I wasn’t sure if this theory about continued flood events in the Kickapoo Valley would prevail, but perhaps it is playing out right in front of us once again. 

            We will have to have more on this flooding on the Kickapoo next time.

The Great Kickapoo River Flood of 1978 - Part 1

The Kickapoo River flood of June 30 – July 2, 1978 was the greatest ever recorded at La Farge up to that time.  The high water mark happened on Saturday, July 1 as the depth of the Kickapoo reached 14.92 feet, nearly three feet over the river’s flood stage of 12 feet.  At its height, the flood poured 12,900 cubic feet of water per second through La Farge – another all-time record.  The 6.15 inches of rain that fell in torrents beginning Friday evening, June 30^th and continuing through Sunday morning was the final impetus to unleash the havoc of the Kickapoo’s greatest flood.  Meteorological and political events leading up to the great flood framed the significance of the damage to the Kickapoo Valley in a special way.

            As was usual for that time, the record setting Kickapoo River Flood of 1978 once again splashed La Farge and the failed fiasco of the federal dam project back onto the national scene, culminating with the appearance of several local citizens on an October airing of the CBS Evening News.

            Most of the great floods of the Kickapoo Valley watershed are often a culmination of a series of weather patterns and the Flood of 1978 was no exception.  A wet autumn in 1977 had culminated in flash flooding along several La Farge area streams at the end of October.  With Otter Creek, Bear Creek, Elk Run and Camp Creek all flooding that fall, the Kickapoo River was soon out of its banks from La Farge and down river.

            Heavy snows in late November 1977 had been the beginning of a winter that featured heavy snowfall totals that continued for several months.  A big snowstorm in early January 1978 dumped over a foot of snow in some parts of the Kickapoo Valley.  Snow totals were above average for February and by March the heavy ice accumulation on the Kickapoo River at La Farge had barely started to melt.  The National Weather Service (NWS) predicted floods for the Kickapoo Valley from the melting of the snowpack later in March.  Although the river was out of its banks on several occasions, the spring flooding of the Kickapoo was moderated by an even snowmelt and less than normal rainfall.

            A week of rains in late April brought the river out of its banks for several days and filled all of the sloughs, swamps and other wetlands along the river.  In June, it seemed that there were major rainstorms every weekend and the river was usually out of its banks.  Weekend canoeing on the Kickapoo was a washout for most of the month.  For the two weeks before the big flood at the end of June, the Kickapoo River remained bank full or higher.  With nowhere for any excess water to go, the massive storms of June-July generated rainfall totals to trigger the greatest flood in the history of the river.

            The great flood arrived just as the community of La Farge was set to commence a four-day celebration of America’s Independence Day.  The 4^th of July Celebration, sponsored by the La Farge Lions Club, was to offer a variety of events and activities for all ages.  In an effort to draw some of the 4^th of July crowds back to the Village Park, where they had traditionally been held, the Lions Club rented a large tent to cover the Village Park Bowery.  (At the time, there was no permanent shelter over the bowery that consisted of a large pad of cement for dancing.)  The Lions Club had scheduled several dances and a fashion show to be held under the big tent during the celebration.

            On Friday evening, June 30^th, many people were at the 4^th of July grounds setting things up for the celebration.  A thunderstorm with heavy rain went through early in the evening and another a few hours later.  I had helped set up the big tent in the park earlier in the afternoon and had been instructed by the installation crew to drop the side poles to let water drain off the canopy if there was heavy rain.  When another heavy rain hit La Farge before midnight, I made my third trip to the Village Park to drain the water from the tent.

            Another heavy rainstorm hit the Kickapoo Valley after 2 a.m. and I was back to the park once again.  We were living in the Burt Apartments next to the motel in that summer of 1978 and when I returned home I noticed a group assembled at the nearby firehouse.  The La Farge Fire Dept. was assembling crews to search for canoeists who were camping along the river south of Rockton.  The NWS had already issued a flood alert for the Kickapoo Valley and the Vernon County Sheriff’s Department was moving everyone away from soon-to-be flooding streams and rivers.  I stumbled home to try to get some sleep before another storm came through.

            Early the next morning (Saturday, July 1^st) a knocking at the door woke us from our short night’s slumber.  Fellow Lions Club member Brent Waddell had just driven in from Fairview Ridge and said that he had never seen the water on Otter Creek so high.  Brent was one of the Lions’ members in charge of the tractor and 4-wheel drive pull to be held later that day.  The pulling eliminator for the event was to be rented from a business in Norwalk and Brent wasn’t sure if the pull could be held with the looming flood threat.  When he called the Norwalk business about the eliminator, he found that Norwalk had suffered a terrible flash flood overnight and the eliminator had been washed away along with several other vehicles kept on the property.  The pulling event was definitely off for that day.

            We decided to drive north to see how high the water was at Rockton.  As we were crossing the Jug Creek Bridge, we saw Ole Gabrielson walking towards the highway from the river.  Ole had walked down to look at the river at Bridge 12 and saw the floodwaters form a cap on the river before rushing over the banks.  He was soaked nearly from head to toe and he told us that the waters on the Kickapoo River had come over the bank so fast that they overtook him as he scrambled to higher ground.  Behind him, we could see the mouth of Jug Creek rapidly filling up with floodwater.

            When we continued on upriver and crossed the new Highway 131 Bridge at Rockton, we could see nothing but water below us.  We stopped into the Rockton Bar and asked owner Dean Hamilton how bad the flooding was.  Dean told us to drive up the river and look at the bridge above Rockton.  As we descended the hill towards the bridge we were amazed at what we saw.  The bridge (Bridge #10 today) had railings on both sides that reached nearly ten feet above the roadbed.  On that morning less that a foot of the railings remained above the swollen river’s waters – nearly eight feet of water was flowing above the bridge!  Shaken, Brent and I hurried back toward La Farge.

            When we returned to La Farge, we saw that Andrew’s flat was rapidly filling with water next to the river.  We stopped at Nuzum’s and helped with the efforts there to move merchandise and material to higher spots in the building to avoid approaching flood waters.  Items were carried upstairs in the Nuzum’s shed and after an hour or so; most of the work was done.  The floodwater was just beginning to cross Highway 82 between Nuzum’s and the river, so Brent and I headed up Main Street to help at other businesses.  When we arrived at Jeffers Truck Sales, it dawned on us that my apartment was in the path of the flood and quickly drove there.  Carolyn was in full flood-mode and had moved the vehicles to higher ground as the front yard was filling up with water.  She came out the front door with our little Chihuahua, Tinker, in her arms.  Carolyn’s parents came from Viola to help, but soon had to head over the hills and back downriver as the flood moved downstream to their hometown.  They took little Tinker with them and the friendly little dog got to hang out in Viola for a couple days with other flood refugees from that river town.

As we were beginning to put things up, Dean and Rudy Hamilton arrived with pickups and a crew of helpers, offering to move our things to higher ground.  They had already secured several garages and sheds in town where the material could be kept, so the process began immediately to move everything out of the apartment and truck it off for storage.  When our apartment was done, we started on the apartment next door.  Then it was over to Burt’s house, Maxine Kennedy’s, Earl Geddes’ place and on down Snow Street. 

            Other trucks and then boats helped in the moving of items, to the upstairs in some houses and off to the storage garages in others.  When we got to Harry Lounsbury’s house, some concerns arose as nobody had seen Harry anywhere that morning.  Dode Erlandson and I warily entered the house to check on him, but Harry was away from his home, safe out of the flood’s way.

            The floodwaters continued up Main Street all the rest of that day, until finally stopping between the La Farge Co-op gas station and the old post office building.  The water started to recede a little later in the afternoon, but another torrential thunderstorm came through in the early evening.  That storm caused even worse flooding on Bear Creek, and the floodwaters in La Farge stayed at near record levels through most of the night.  (Ironically, the floodwaters never did enter our apartment, although reaching right to the doorsill on a couple of occasions.)

Seelyburg Gals

(This blog entry is dedicated to the memory of Patsy Venner.  This story is about a girl, Alice Smith, who lived in Seelyburg over a century ago.  Patsy (Lawton) might have been the last of the Seelyburg gals and she loved stories of that place.  She was brought home to her final resting place on August 1.  She is buried in the Star Cemetery, looking down on old Seelyburg, a town originally platted by Chauncey Lawton in the 1860’s, a place where Patsy grew up and where her family continues to live to this day.)

            Alice Smith was working at a hotel in Fond du Lac.  The year was 1902, the same year that she had finished her schooling through the eighth grade.  Being one of nine children in her family, she was expected to help with the family’s expenses.  So she boarded the train in Campbellsport, where her family lived, and rode it to the city of Fond du Lac to seek employment. 

The hotel was located near the Northwestern Railroad roundhouse and many of the railroad yard workers stayed at the hotel.  Alice helped serve meals, cooked in the kitchen and washed dishes for the meals served at the hotel.  Her workdays began at 4:30 a.m. and weren’t over until the supper dishes were all cleaned, usually after eight in the evening.  Alice worked seven days a week and was paid $3.50 for her labors plus room and board at the hotel.  She was 14 years old.

Because she was such a hard worker, Alice was offered another $1.50 per week in wages to help with the laundry.  The five-dollar weekly wages seemed like a fortune to her, but also meant longer days of work to get the meals and laundry done.  Sometimes, her brother Claude, who worked in the railroad yards part time, would help her to finish up the long workdays.

In the winter months, when Alice’s father had no work as a stone mason and bricklayer, she would send half of her weekly wages home to him to help out there.  One day she received a letter from her father.  It read like this, “Alice, I want you to come home, and if you don’t, I’ll be coming after you.”  In her own words, Alice went on to say, “I didn’t know why he wanted me to come home but I knew I better go.  When I got home, I learned my sister, Marie, who was living in La Farge, was going to have a baby.  She wanted me to help her.  I went.”  The year was 1903.

So, Alice Smith made her way across the state (probably by train) to the little Kickapoo River town of La Farge, where she helped her sister when she had a baby.  We don’t really know much about that time when Alice helped out in her sister’s house, but we can assume that it went well.  La Farge was a bustling little town during that time with lots of comings & goings.  Alice walked the busy Main Street and soon caught the eye of an admirer. 

Or was it the other way around?  Perhaps Alice can tell it best, “ While I was in La Farge, I met the man who was to be my husband.  He was a handsome chap who caught my eye, and since I had to work, I thought I might as well be working for myself.  I found out this theory didn’t work out.  After little persuasion, we got aboard the little narrow gauge railroad passenger train that made its way across the hills and valleys to Wauzeka, across the Mississippi by ferry and on to McGregor, Iowa, where we were married.  I was now Mrs. Orson Dyer.  The year, 1905.”  Alice was 17 years old.

Alice’s husband worked for Charles Seely, who owned the Seely Lumber Mill at that time.  Despite losing a hand in a hunting accident several years before, Orson still helped out the Seely’s with farming and jobs at the mill.  The newlyweds settled into a house in Seelyburg, probably renting one of the homes owned by the Seely family. 

Soon after they were married, Alice’s husband put in a successful bid on a mail route between La Farge and Ontario.  Since the train brought the mail as far north as La Farge, Orson’s mail duties included taking the mail north to Ontario and delivering mail to people along the way.  The route was thirty miles long and the pay was $50 per month.  Orson kept three horses to pull his mail rig, “the closed-in box-like body mounted on a wooden-wheeled chassis”.  Alice described the mail route, “In those days, many of the patrons did a lot of buying from mail order houses.  Sears Roebuck & Company sold a nearly full line of groceries and a lot of people bought canned goods, as well as big boxes of canned fruits.  Many times Orson left the post office with a rig full of cases and mail.”

Eventually, Alice and Orson bought their little house in Seelyburg and started to raise a family.  Soon baby Thelma joined the family followed by another girl, Flora.  In July of 1907, their home was inundated with the floodwaters of the Kickapoo River.  That flood was the greatest that the people of the Valley had ever seen and the damage was so great in Seelyburg that the old lumber town never really recovered.  Alice tells about that flood this way, “One year a tremendous flood came roaring down the Kickapoo River, destroying everything in its path.  Water raised in our little home to the firebox in the kitchen range, doing so much damage we had to abandon the home.”

The 1907 flood was made even worse at Seelyburg because of a new dam on the river that had been constructed a few years before.  That larger dam structure, located further downriver from Seely’s original dam, had been built to provide more head for the waterpower used to run the electric plant.  Thus, the larger dam and a containment levee built on the southern bank of the river backed the floodwaters up even more causing record levels in the homes of Seelyburg.  The damage was so remarkable that the dray and livery services in La Farge ran excursions up to Seelyburg for several days, carrying wagonloads of people to see the catastrophe wrought on the old river town.

Alice and her family moved to La Farge after the great flood, as did many other former residents of Seelyburg.  Orson ran the mail route for four years, and then had to rebid the route with the postal service.  “When Orson put in his bid for the next four years, another fellow underbid him by a single penny.  Orson was out of a job.”

Hard times followed for Alice and her family, which by 1910 had grown again with the births of twins, Mildred and Flora.  (Alice had been a twin herself, but did not grow up with her twin sister, Olive.  Shortly after the births of Alice and her twin in 1888, Olive went to live with an older sister in Black River Falls.)  Orson eventually had to sell the house in La Farge and they moved the family into an old log cabin on land owned by his stepfather, located outside of the village.  Orson tried to get lumbering work again, “but the vast, timbered forests had disappeared.  The heyday of Vernon County logging camps was at end.”  Times were difficult for Alice and her family. 

“When things looked most bleak, it seemed the Lord stepped in to help change our lives and provide the necessities, for a time at least.  Two of Orson’s cousins had returned for a Vernon County visit from the Livingston mines located in southwestern Wisconsin.  Men were needed there and the pay was good.  When it came time for them to return to their mining jobs, Orson went with them to begin a new life for himself and the rest of us.”

Alice and her family soon followed to Grant County.  Alice’s time in Seelyburg and the Kickapoo Valley was over.

I want to thank Amos Mast for helping with providing information for this story.  A while back, Amos lent me his copy of the magazine, “Good Old Days” (January, 1981 issue), which contained an article written by Daniel M. Evans titled “Little Links Make Long Chains”.  Evans was the son-in-law of Alice Dyer, who was ninety years old when he interviewed for the article about her life.  The quotes by Alice Dyer used in this story of her time in Seelyburg are from that article by Evans.