Counties of Wisconsin; 23; Calumet County

One of the counties of Wisconsin has as its insignia a pair of crossed pipes surrounded by a chain of beads. It's located on the shores of Lake Winnebago. At one location in the county the coordinates are 44 degrees one minute north latitude and eighty eight degrees ten minutes west longitude. I am. The county for today's program is Calumet. During this half hour we'll be hearing from County residents and members of the University of Wisconsin

Extension staff. The county's history and present characteristics as well as extension activities will be discussed. First however I would like to read from a booklet entitled cesspool Neo which was published over a decade ago under the direction of Mr. Warren Meyer. Following the preface there's a section called how Calumet County was named. We quote what is now Calumet County was at various times the home of six Indian Nations. These were the Menominee Chippewa sac Fox Potawatomi and Winnebago. All were of Eastern Algonquin stock except for the Winnebagos. The Winnebagos migrated from the west and were of the Dakotas tracing their lineage to the Sioux the Algonquins were peaceful and easy going. They lived happily. The Braves would hunt and fish while the squaws would do the work and take care of the papoose. The children played not so with the Winnebagos. They were warlike treacherous and scheming.

Once a Winnebago chief told a commander at Fort Howard Green Bay if you come in peace you bring too many soldiers. If you come for war you'll bring not enough. It took some doing for the white man plus the six Indian nations to get along. Many councils were held on the east shore of Lake Winnebago. Many times the pipe of peace was passed from Chief to chief as he made a solemn pledge and puffed on the reed pipe. The French likewise would counsel with the Indians and it was they who called the peace pipe the Calumet. It's by this derivation that Calumet County gets its name. This intriguing name is also incorporated into a County insignia with a motto. We extend the Calumet the insignia is appropriately made up of two crossed Indian peace pipes circumvented by a chain of Indian beads. Later in the booklet the history of some place names is recorded. Here are some examples. Appleton

although Appleton to the average layman may not ordinarily be considered a part of Calumet County it is both geographically and politically and was first known as grand chute named after its rapids by the early French. Brother town brother town gets its name from the brother town Indians. The treaty of 1831 between the so-called savage nominees who lived in the area and the US provided land for the civilized brother town in Stockbridge Indians. These Indians were so named in the east by early Englishman after towns in England Crossfield this little settlement now forgotten was located at the northern tip of Lake Winnebago according to George Shaffer long time chairman of the town of Harrison. It was so named because it was here that the tolls were paid for use of the road when crossing from Winnebago to Calumet County. Forest junction in 1903 the forest junction post office was

established and named by the Post Office Department. The two railroad crossings in the village formed the junction and there upon the Post Office Department declared the official name as Forest junction. Harrison named after William Henry Harrison the first president of the United States to die in office. Harrison was an Indian fighter and hero of to the canoe. He became the ninth president of the United States at the age of 68. He gave an inaugural address in the rain for three hours. He danced and celebrated mightily at his inaugural ball. The next day he contracted pneumonia and died a month later. His campaign one appeal through the coonskin cap log cabin and hard cider to be canoe and Tyler too was the popular campaign slogan when casting about for a name. People in the area selected Harrison a personage who intrigued them. The final section of the booklet on Calumet deals with a number of waterways in Calumet County

such as Burton Brook East River Johnson Creek kill Snake River and Manitowoc river the most important of Calumet counties reprise. Now the conversations recorded in November of 1975. Agricultural agent Dick Lacroix talked with dairy farmer Gordon gash and Gordon killer of the soil service center which is a private firm producer. Johnson opened the conversation where you were only there if I heard tell of it can you tell me something about the size and how it's changed your run in with your parents or what I write I think graduated from college and three years ago and off I went with my dad now it's just a medium size farm 190 acres and we've got 50 male collars on and then another 50 had a young stock and we run the dairy farm in a partnership and we've utilized that you don't extension in setting up a partnership by consulting them and using information from the university proper methods of dividing income and dividing

labor inputs in the farm. How would you describe the type of land. I guess we call it kind of gently rolling and and the soil texture itself is clear. We're kind of lucky in that just north the children you know we don't have a lot of clay compared to some other areas of the county so it's fairly easy to work. What is the general makeup of the swells in the comics. Looking through old con I think you can put in a three classifications. You got three types of soils within a colony looking along Lake Winnebago area from about Stockbridge on so if you look at a fairly heavy style the ledge you know just along the area there you get away from the lake you going into the lonely stand. And when we head north in the colony we're going around a much heavier type of ground right into the playstyle and that

basically when you run into these higher Gleason You look a little reading on the soil whereas when you get to this other part because you're looking at actually still I think that and there again out toward the lake it's going to be an issue of things you can run in certain areas where you think something about ASH you know. Again I think we've got three distinct types of ground soil in our county. But all created right. Very productive. How are you serving the crop farmers in the colony already and what type of services are you giving them today other than what they've been used to receiving in the past but I think that the first of the first thing often time a service to a farmer you want we're looking at now an aspect of coming out there and selling them you know X number of times of fertilizer are going out there to help solve some of the problems that he's going to run into crop production whether it's

corn he still I mean the way I have it the biggest thing is dry our soil soil testing program which is probably very essential if you're going to be producing any crops in the county and make money on the next thing that's coming probably coming too. More and more used within the county as a tissue testing and leaf analysis and planning now that certainly are weather is cool in this part of the state I'm sure that our crop acreage isn't much different than they would be in the southern part of the state. Where do you find you're spending most of your time and what areas in helping the farmers of these corn farmers and small grain farmers or what but I mean that's one thing probably unique about Cali in the county and that not that there's a lot of total acres in the county but I think we're very well diversified. You know we got probably 50 percent work land

into an economy of it and he and the other 50 percent rally in corn. So you work a little make cash to farmers you know that you're going to with one guy that produces probably 80 to 90 percent of the crop and in time as he and the next guy it's just the reverse where you look at 80 and 90 percent on corn so we're dealing with several problems you know both in court and health office I think it's very well distributed. What do you do if you feel the need for a nursery school in your community and none exists. Journey through and pet stems explained their community effort the school was started in 1972 and Maryland. Minute call than the former home was the mean person I got it started she did most of the other. It started out with another Muppet mornings which she said was

a program I think there were five or six in the series where the mothers would bring their children either here or between Holstein and just have a little time for teaching motor skills and music and kind of four of them three and four year olds to learn the socialize and then there was more interest shown by the parents who wanted more of a permanent set up. So Marilyn went ahead and put our records in the newspaper for people to help parents who would want to volunteer their time. And by there she got more interested people and there were more meetings scheduled than just when and where all these meetings were really set to sticks however the program was started in January 22nd 1973

1972. All right. Anyhow much of the first material was donated by the parents they sanding blocks the building blocks were sanded and painted by their mothers and toys were donated. We had money contributions from different organizations to get started and we went ahead and hired teacher and board of directors was elected and from there they set up a schedule of money they needed to have at least 12 to 15 dollars per student in order to keep the teacher paid and insurance money for others. The first semester I think there were so

many in the room. You all can in one group. These are only three and four year old children. The three went on Tuesdays and Thursdays in the four year olds one on Monday Wednesday and Fridays for two hours from 9 to 11. A lot of the fathers did a lot of the work they would make you know stole the refrigerators that they could make out of woods who wouldn't have to go and buy it. The mothers did sewing and helped out in that way and I think that Marilyn really helped a lot with. We had quite a problem getting a place to have it at the beginning it seemed like no one wanted anything to do with it. We went from church groups to I don't know where we finally got the basement room in the city hall which worked out real well in the first semester and then the following year was held down there. The teacher we get was very good you know brightnesses

and things were working real good. As we progressed it seemed like our funds started building up a bit at first it was hard just to keep going with friends. We just couldn't get too many people interested and for a while before people would realize that it really was helping the children. Food Preservation has been a much discussed topic in 1975 as our next guest explains. I'm pretty snappy and I live in Kiel and I'm here by invitation of the Calumet County home extension agent Marilyn and a coven who has just retired and I'm promoting and working with the University of Wisconsin Extension Program and I'd like to tell how the keel area is unique in that it is located on the border lines of three and four counties so we call this our four county area. And we're so far from the cities that when the university extension has a program in one of the cities the people from Kiyo don't go all the way to

Manitowoc because it's 40 miles. So we want our own University Extension Program for all these rural people in Elkhart. Mary town St. and St. Mary's and school and Charles Burton. This board meeting when we started this started about two years ago I think you for three years in the form of economists from these four counties came we met at City Hall at Kiel and through the different civic organizations in sting and through homemakers groups out in the rural areas and for each interested people they got a group of us together I think there were about six or eight of us at the first meeting and we talked about what kind of programs would you like would you like programs and we said yes. And the four extension agents at that time were fires from Manitowoc County a coven from county. Janet Kools from Sheboygan County and Mary

Heisler from frond like me and then the first program that we put on was done at the high school and it was on food preservation preservation. We did a program on freezing a program on canning and they ran two days consecutively with all four home economists participating. The first day we did freezing in the afternoon and then we did freezing at night. Now we can in the afternoon on the second day and can at night. And some of the things we learned there like for instance in freezing a lot of people were using cottage cheese cartons and margarine containers to freeze things in. And we found out that they should not be doing this because they're putting expensive vegetables and meats in these containers and are not airtight so they're leaving them in the freezer for any period of time. So it is going to be damage then in the canning lectures we learned that there are 100 jars that things like peanut butter and nannies come in and these should not be used for canning because by the manufacturers they were meant to be one way jars and not meant to be

used in home canning office chairman Chuck Nicolay talked with Dorothy Ertl Sivan dog. Larry Ertl the topic for each work and special projects we got into specialized items what pulled can be generated grown it to the home gardener in the communities beyond just the plain potatoes and carrots and lettuce and cabbage. We've wanted herbs and how the growing weight will keep how the storm what to use them for. We've covered just a phase of the five. Permanent herbs that I think that most families are couldn't attend without using. But we want to get more of them in and in the next year or so we've gone. We have you know which is used for pickles and we have garlic which is also used for pickles and many other things in between the sausage

lines and everything. And we've gone into the raising of sea and sweet maple and sweet margarine chives which I don't know if the people in some sections they use and we've gone into things like that in the last year or two and we have a lot of fun with it and I think there's more people don't even realize that they can be grown right here in Wisconsin they think they have to get them out of the store in a can. We've got a couple gals here from a club where there's been some different type of leadership established here see him and what he like tell little bit about the present leadership situation in your club What was it before and what he has now. Well we started back about 13 years ago. My son and I belong to different clubs and kind of dropped out and then well he's still like didn't we. I had march over and serve the neighbors and we decided to have

our own coffee and of course the kids liked it and the parents liked it but no one wanted to take the Marine leader's job. So then we got together with Mr. Nikolai one night and we decided that we would each one each parenting year and we would try it that way we were told it wouldn't work. But right now we've got one and we think one of the best counters or one of the best clubs in the county. It seems as though when there's parent participation it really moves in the right field. That's right. The parents are more interested. Most of them have mothers attend the meeting each month. This way they know what their children are doing and what is required of them and we also do hand in the summer which most clubs have it's a family get together a picnic and also a club here in fall. And this family getting together and the

cooperation of the parents means a lot I think to the children. I think we should mention that all of our parents either the mother or father one of those are project leaders and we as the children join the mother isn't a project leader that first you relieve her or the father sit in and listen and learn about it and then the following year they become a project leader and then as their children have joined in line is how they become mean here in this way. I don't the interest is divided. It's new interest for the kids and it's not the same thing all the time and they seem to really enjoy who selects who the main leader will be here as the joining of the year they join in with patience. So you know your year is coming up is your child has joined so little difficulty think of criticizing their leader come right you know you're doing bad right.

Series producer Rose Johnson asked Chuck Nicolay about industry in Calumet County. Well we've got the small industry and lots of employment in the small industry here. Francis come see a holes you know one time a 23 hundred employed. We have brilliant Ironworks have got errands we've got to canning companies we do have a lot of these small industries where they don't make the major you know big diesel fire trucks and things like that but many of the small items where it would be lots and lots of people employed so that type of industry we do yes. We at one time had a trailer company building here in Chile but that has now gone out of existence he has called the shop their designers brush company where they make the brushes for students who produce for the large cities where they have the streets we use is made right here in Chile. A lot of these type of things are here. Recreation of course is a rather you know big industry and we do have an awful lot of that that's a third leg of the stool against it yet without it we're going to know what we took tourism and recreation. We don't

hear of the complex hotels and motels and facilities of that sort where we do have to state high cliff park we do have the Colony Park we have the ledge Park now which is a Colony Park that we're developing for a school use for outdoor conservation classes we do have that type of recreation area we do have small campsites individuals in a county but it's not extensive. Partly because of the road system we don't have the main highways going right through to an area. Fishing is of course a major part of our recreation area. Stockbridge for instance is a sturgeon capital of the world. We oftentimes see a hundred twenty eight hundred thirty pound sturgeon brought out of the ice in winter time here in the Stockbridge area and you know this is fairly common to see those kind. What about fishing. This kind of background of the late great Winnebago is that overfishing.

Oh yes it's a continuous fishing in the wintertime affect farmers get especially early in the wintertime when they ought to be sleeping late they want to get chores and so they get out of the ice and get out there for a sit in the wall and Saugor fishing is really terrific. When we ran the pike Rhianna contest years ago we would have many people registering from as far away as West and Manitowoc. Many of our many of our winners would happen to be from those areas. So we do have a lot of people coming in from the area. Well our company here is that we have I have about 30 miles of shoreline you're right in the county which is one of the unique parts of Bhat Lake Winnebago being the largest inland lake that we have around in this country here so you can see that we have some territory to fiction. We often refer to Calumet as being the hub of a big wheel we're right in the center here as the hub with a Manitowoc.

You've got Sheboygan final lack of Menashe Appleton Campbell a little shoot because Green Bay just kind of circling right around this area so we're you know all 30 35 miles from any of these major city complexes even though we don't have a large city in Calumet County itself the edge of Appleton with about four or five thousand population is is a closest to being a large city in Calumet County. But you talk about the ethnic background will certainly rural would have to you know describe it rather than an urban complex. But we're within striking distance of any urban complex you want to go to in any direction. You know how the county got its name. Well Calumet actually means peace by and would be our insignia as we extend a Calumet to all mankind. It's an Indian term meaning peace pipe and it was settled by the Indians a long time ago. Indians came here from New York

from Pennsylvania from many of the the eastern states when they were disposed of by a white man. They were shuttled out here and when a white man got here they were shot a lot farther away. We've had six or seven major Try that have lived here you know in the area of Calumet colony so the background of Indian folklore is quite strong in the colony. We have a lot of effigy mounds along Lake Winnebago on the Niagara Rocky escarpment. Many of them are preserved many of them of course have been torn down all but we have one lizard in Calumet County which is around 170 feet long. It was an effigy Moland leave figure of course the archaeologist is somewhere around nine or ten thousand years old. Calumet. Won in a series of programs on the counties of Wisconsin.

With three. This program was produced in the service of the University of Wisconsin Extension.