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”. 

ABSTRACTS & DEEDS

Lots 1,2,3 & 10,11,12; Block 4; Bailey’s Plat; Village of La Farge

            It is a piece of land in the Kickapoo Valley.

            It has a story to tell.

            The deed for the piece of land denotes ownership.  With the deed in hand and the piece of land registered at the land office, ownership is secured.

            The abstract of the piece of land narrates the story of the ownership of the land; it tells who has owned it over the years.  The question of who sold it to whom is answered on the narration of the land that is the abstract.

            Ownership for the piece of land could be determined only after the lands of the Kickapoo Valley were surveyed and marked into grids and squares.  That was done in 1846 by a crew of government surveyors who dragged their measuring chains rod by rod up the Valley in January of that year.  Wisconsin became a state two years later and land offices were established so that deeds for pieces of land could be entered.

            In 1853, Thomas DeJean came to this part of the Valley and probably walked on this piece of land.  He went to the nearest land office, located in Mineral Point, and laid claim to his land in the Kickapoo Valley.  For a few dollars paid down, DeJean had legal claim to his Kickapoo Valley land, but not this particular piece of land whose story we tell.   He returned two years later to the Kickapoo Valley and with his son, Anson, they began to claim a homestead from the wilderness.

            It was Anson who first made a legal claim on this piece of land, as he purchased it from the United States government in 1856.  President Franklin Pierce authorized the purchase transaction for this piece of land and the deed was entered at the land office in Mineral Point.  Anson’s piece of land laid to the west of his father’s.  Together, the DeJeans, father and adopted son, owned all the lands where Otter Creek and Bear Creek flow into the Kickapoo.  They owned the land south of the trail that ran from east to west through this part of the Valley and Anson’s lands lay on both sides of the Kickapoo River and on west along Otter Creek.

            Anson and Thomas DeJean built a sawmill and then a gristmill and bought more land for their lumbering pursuits.  In 1882, Anson DeJean sold this piece of land of whose story we tell to John Bailey. 

            The Baileys were farmers and soon had milking cows on the land and bought milk from their neighbors and made cheese on their farm for others to buy.  “Ma” Bailey ran a general store from a room next to where they made cheese.  Money was scarce then, so Ma Bailey operated a bank of sorts out of her apron for neighbors and friends to conduct business in the place that became known as DeJean’s Corners.

            In 1896, when word came that a railroad was coming to this place that was now known as La Farge, John Bailey was the first to officially plat his lands for sale.  He divided his lands and lots were sold to people anxious to own land in the railroad boomtown.

            In 1901, two brothers, John and Fred Thayer, purchased this piece of land of whose story we tell.  The Thayer brothers were businessmen and soon built a general store facing the busy Main Street of the boomtown.  Since lumbering was fueling the boom in La Farge, the Thayer brothers also became lumber retailers and built a large shed attached to the south end of their store to house those operations.  The lumber business became so lucrative and demanding of their time, that the Thayer brothers soon dropped the general store line of goods.  With their lumber business located within a few hundred yards of the railroad line and the various processing mills in La Farge, the Thayer brothers business flourished.  John Thayer eventually left the business partnership with his brother.  In 1904, Fred Thayer sold his lumber business on this piece of land to his son-in-law, Levi Millison, who had been working in the lumber business for some time.

            Floodwaters from the Kickapoo covered this piece of land in 1907.  Water ran through Levi Millison’s buildings and in that year he sold the land and business back to Fred Thayer.  By that time, Levi was heavily involved in speculations on lands in the West.  After selling the La Farge lumber business back to his father-in-law, Levi left the Kickapoo Valley and moved his family west to Montana.  The Thayer Lumber Company continued on this piece of land for another two decades. 

            Fred Thayer passed away in December 1927.  His son, Emory, ran the business on this piece of land until 1929 when the family sold out to Nuzum’s Lumber, their main lumber retail competitor in La Farge.  Emory Thayer was made the manager of Nuzum’s La Farge operation soon after.  The old Thayer Lumber buildings became additional storage space for Nuzum’s products.  Lots 10, 11, & 12, which fronted onto Snow Street, were used for outside storage of products. 

Floodwaters from the Kickapoo again covered this piece of land in 1935.  This land remained a part of the Nuzum’s retail lumber operation for more than two more decades.  Eventually, Nuzum’s Lumber no longer needed the piece of land for their business.

            Lester Fulmer bought Lots 1 and 2 and the buildings located on that piece of land from Nuzum’s in 1952.  Fulmer, who was active in a variety of businesses in La Farge, used the office of the old lumber store briefly, but then sold the buildings and the two lots to the Town of Stark in 1953.  The township used the old lumber office for a town hall and the shed to store its road maintenance equipment.  In 1954, Stark bought lot 3 of this piece of land from Ralph Nuzum and purchased lots 10-12 from him in 1958 to reunite the parcels, as they had been most of the time since being platted.  The township stored sand and gravel on the lots until 1986, when they moved much of their road maintenance operation to the Corps of Engineers maintenance building at the dam site north of La Farge.  The Town of Stark continued to use the old office for a town hall and the shed for recycling and storage of the township’s road grader.  With the lots empty, the township began renting the space to the nearby truck center for vehicle parking.

            Kickapoo floodwaters again swept through the buildings on this piece of land in June 2008.  The town hall building was condemned after the flood’s damages and the township began looking for other land options for their building needs.               

It is shown on the plat maps as Lots 1,2,3 & 10,11,12 of Block 4 of Bailey’s Plat in the Village of La Farge.  Three lots fronting Main Street; three lots on Snow Street; divided by a platted alley running east and west in the middle of the piece of land.  It is owned by the Town of Stark, but will soon be sold to Earl Nelson for use with his truck center business.  His name will be placed on the deed and his name added to the narrative of the abstract for this piece of land, as its story continues to be told. 

Dam Land Acquisition Problems

When the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers rolled out a revised plan in 1967 for a flood control dam on the Kickapoo River to be located north of La Farge, many felt that the project would bring some sort of prosperity to the region. The revised plan, which expanded the size and scope of an earlier 1962 proposal, called for the construction of a much larger dam on the river. The larger dam would create a 1,800-acre lake between La Farge and Ontario, designed to draw tourists and outdoor recreation enthusiasts to the area. Thirteen recreation areas would surround the lake to offer the visitors to Lake La Farge camping, fishing, boating and other recreational opportunities.

In a public information meeting held at La Farge in 1968, the representatives of the Corps of Engineers explained the process for the construction of the dam and the creation of the lake and recreation areas. The process to be used for acquisition of the nearly 9,000 acres of land needed for the dam and lake project was also explained at the meeting, held at the new gymnasium of the local school. At the November 19^th public meeting, representatives from the Corps of Engineers land acquisition office in Rock Island, Illinois were introduced. People at the meeting who had questions about the land acquisition process were referred to a Corps pamphlet, which had been mailed earlier to land owners that would be affected by the project.

The Corps representatives present in La Farge that night assured the local people in attendance that the land acquisition would take place in an orderly fashion starting at the dam site and progressing up the Valley. All of the land for the project would be purchased by 1972, which was also the date for the completion of the dam and the beginning of the process to fill the lake. In 1969, landowners north of La Farge began the process of selling their land to the federal government for the dam project.

In the earliest phase of the project, nearly all of the land purchased for the project was located in the Town of Stark. As the acquisitions by the Corps for the dam project were completed, the tax rolls for the township began to shrink. As more and more people in Stark sold their land to the federal government, the property tax burden for the remaining landowners in the township became greater. As the Corps representatives negotiated the purchases of land in the Town of Stark for the dam project, they were doing more than just acquiring lands. The process was also shifting the resulting loss in property tax revenue over to the remaining landowners in the township. As names like Rush, Shumate, Rankin’s, Anderson, and Trappe disappeared from the tax rolls of the Town of Stark, others would have to assume the lost tax revenue for the township, school district, and county. It was an unintended consequence of the land acquisition process.

By December of 1970 when the property tax rolls were published by the local government units, the property owners in the Town of Stark would see firsthand the unintended consequences of the La Farge Dam Project. Most landowners in the township saw their taxes increase by more than 25%. Property taxes for Virgil Thomas, who lived along Bear Creek, increased from $413 in 1969 to $537 in 1970, an increase of 30%. Thomas’ neighbor Don Potter saw his taxes go up 24%, while up the road, Ralph Steinmetz’ property taxes increased 28%. It was the same throughout the township. Van Aumuck’s property taxes rose 37% and Dale Fish’s went up 26%. The largest percentage increase in the township for the 1970 tax year was felt by Howard Anderson, whose taxes rose from $348 to $652 – a whopping increase of 87%. Ironically, Anderson’s negotiations with the Corps of Engineers for the sale of his property probably figured into the huge increase.

Anderson owned the farm where most of the eastern end of the flood control dam would be located. In the process of negotiating with the Corps Rock Island land acquisition office, Anderson had improved the value of his property, which had probably been under assessed previously. By whitewashing several farm buildings and making repairs to others, Anderson not only increased the value of his farm for purchase by the government for the dam project, but also for tax assessment. Anderson paid the tax increase for one year, but by the following year had sold most of his farm to the federal government and saw his property taxes decrease to only $97 – a drop of over 85% from the previous year. Other taxpayers in the township would have to make up the loss. The shift of the tax burden weighed heavily on the community.

In the February 11, 1971 issue of the La Farge Enterprise, editor Arnie Widstrand addressed the local property tax problems in a front page editorial titled “Construction and Acquisition”. The editorial was prompted by an announcement from Washington D C a week earlier that $1.73 million was to be included in the proposed federal budget for the La Farge Dam Project. The announcement said that the money would be used for construction of the dam and further land acquisitions. In response, editor Widstrand wrote, “That this money NOT be used to purchase any more land to the north of the project. We do not need any more land taken off the tax rolls in this area. It is too much of a burden on the remaining taxpayers. (Every taxpayer in the Town of Stark knows of what we speak as their taxes soared this year.)

At previous meetings the Corps made it known that the plan was to buy some land, then build the dam, and continue buying land northward as the dam progressed. It is estimated that 47% of the land needed for the project has been purchased. That is plenty. Now start the dam. If all the land were bought it would be very easy to lose the project through, inefficiency of our bureaucracies, public apathy, lack of interest of public representatives, change of public interest in and attitude toward the project, or just plain difficulty in getting money for it through the Congress.

At any rate, if the $1.7 million goes through and is used to acquire land, it will do us more harm than good. What we need now is more employment in the area, not more land taken off the tax roll.”

By March the federal budget had been approved by Congress and signed into law by President Nixon. The nearly $2-million appropriation for the La Farge project was included. In April 1971 the Corps of Engineers announced that 1,646 acres of agricultural land in the Kickapoo Valley purchased for the dam project was available for lease. In addition, the Corps Rock Island land acquisition office released a list of buildings and personal property available for purchase on the lands purchased for the dam project. Included in the list of items for sale were 12,500 mink pens. All of the listed property, buildings and items had once been assessed for payment of property taxes in the township. Eventually, the federal government would own over twenty per cent of the land in the Town of Stark, over eight sections of land on which no property taxes were paid.

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.