Counties of Wisconsin; 52; Ashland County

Today's county of Wisconsin is Ashland during this half hour we'll hear from County residents and University of Wisconsin Extension staff about one of our state's northern county. Rigt. First a conversation between the extension office chairman and some of his guests.

I'm doing creator Ashland County agriculture agent with University Wisconsin Extension here in Ashland County and with me I have a number of people I'd like to introduce. We have a newspaper reporter here a long time resident of the city of Ashland. John Chappell with the Ashland Daily Press and he's quite a historian been. Concerned about political issues in the total area up here and been reporting for many years and we have John McDonald who is a member of the action county board an agricultural extension Education Committee. John is a former school teacher from the Park Falls school system lives in butternut and is very knowledgeable about the history of Southern Ashland County quite involved in forestry programs in the colony. And then we have Bob who is in Barry also a member of the action Connie Board of Supervisors and the agricultural extension Education Committee and Bob is quite involved in CERN with the problems of Lake Shore all these people have been public servants working in local government and serving many boards and committees. I would just like to briefly make a few statements about

Ashland County. The Ashland County is located up in the northern tier of counties in northern Wisconsin on the southern shore of Lake Superior bordered on the West by Bayfield county money East by and calling it south by price County and then on the south west by Sawyer County it's one of the larger counties in the state and kind of a unique County in that it does contain many islands and has the majority the Apostle Islands which are now part of the posse Islands National lake shore. It has a square mile area of a thousand and forty seven and if you consider that 640 acres makes up one square mile of land area. We were around six hundred seventy five thousand square miles. Six hundred seventy five thousand acres I should say. But all of this the Ownership is quite unique too in that all about 53 percent of the land area is publicly owned which leaves somewhat less. Something like

47 percent are privately owned and even the private ownership is held many times by paper companies and large land holders. We do have about one hundred seventy five thousand acres in the federal forest to show our national forest and 32000 acres in the county forest is around 22000 acres of state owned land in quite a large area in the Bad River Indian Reservation tribal lands about one hundred twenty five thousand acres. So you see it is kind of different as far as land ownership. I don't want to see too much more here because we've got some real experts on history of the area and I think I'll call on John Chappell to expound a little bit on how Ashton got its name and. How have you seen action change over the years. The most unique fact in the history of the Ashland area is that this is the way that the very first Christian structure in the entire Middle West was built at the head of our bay. This was what was called the Little Chapel of bark erected by Father

Claude Alloway in the year. Sixteen hundred and sixty five A.D. not nearly 200 years ago. But over 300 years ago more than 100 years before the United States became a nation. And from our big day the message of the Christian faith was carried by various Indian tribes to the entire area from the western end of the state of Virginia to the Rocky Mountains. This time I would like to talk to John McDonald from the southern part of the colony. We also have Bob was married here from the northern part and both of you have a good background of the area and the history of the area and I would find it very interesting talking to you about some of the early logging days in the court as a biased one here and me mining and railroading. John would you like to comment a little bit about the southern part of the county and a little bit of the history down there and all thats developed and changed over the years.

Well we have found that the logging process from the south. In the southern part of the county and there we found that Dave Miller lumber company had logged both east and west to Billiton and my father was a very lovely one of the company. He also logged for the Heinz lumber company and we found that in the southern part of Russian County we have the most beautiful maple in the United States. Time exports date is not very much or very much hurt. And we also found that I see in this area. We followed up for a World War One. During that period of time I saved when I was just a youngster and become involved in being in the woods a lot of my father. These camps were large and. I would say he was all pretty much greater ability to get the logs into the mail

are false. Getting him into is that the normal it didn't at that time. There is still considerable logging in the southern part of the the Federalists is actually a national forest as well as our own county forced lines. There's quite a bit of blogging still done no I think it's interesting action coming in being a rather large company. But about 85 percent a land area is forest and we only have around 12 percent of the land area in agriculture and we do have some sort of wood using industries in every community throughout actioned County and Lake yours at quite a number of these have come into being. John you also serve on the as a director of Wisconsin county Force Association and also as I advised remember on the Northwest Regional Planning timber resources committee these you know I've been kind of closely associated with extension programs extension being the advisory information education

arm of the USDA agencies and I want to make any comments about your activities there and some of the things you've been involved with with you know thing up right where you know the Aspen study in the garden I think Northwest timber resources they've had to Scouting's boats a vast amount of the hardwood. Mark good job there. Becker over there he had just and he's pretty much the guiding light pours there and it's going to friend he's from the extension. We've done much else with prior to bringing helping industry command to we've done some work on the line there. It's real good I also enjoy very much the Wisconsin heart of Horse Association and many of the things that have developed in the legislature started right there in front of Wisconsin that's a repeat for the 28 counties in the states that have county force.

And while I know John you want boys here on the Ag an extension education meeting you also actually got a forestry commission you're getting a lot of guidance as far as developing a 10 year plan on the county force. I think at this time our shipped over here to you and ask you to make some comments about your work I know you're not only very knowledgeable out Ashlyn and some of things that happened here in past history but you're working very closely with the red clay project because those on management project Northwest Regional Planning and strong water programs. Ashland County the northern part of action county in fact the northern portions of the four counties in Wisconsin bordering on Lake Superior has what we call the red clay problem. The red clay problem is the sedimentation on the bottom of what was once Lake dilute the glacier predecessor to Lake Superior sedimentation in the

bottom of that lake the loop was was a red clay deposit. This red clay is a non permeable soil that gives problems to septic systems because of the low perc rate. Also the drainage basin into Lake Superior it's short and steep and the sedimentation that carried into Lake Superior in the spring run offs and. During periods of heavy rain leave huge plumes of red clay silt in Lake Superior. Recognizing the sedimentation problems in Lake Superior basin area provided money through a grant of 3.7 million dollars to

the study of this red clay sedimentation problems. At first the primary purpose focus was the maggi River which is separates Douglas County Wisconsin and Carroll County Minnesota. So actually there is five counties in this two states involved in this so-called red clay project. Dwayne then returned to his conversation with John Chappell. John being a historian I think the kind of interesting to let the people know how Ashton got his name a little bit about the Voyagers perpetrators trappers missionaries that came in and some historical markers and cites the Great Divide country things like that. My comment first concerning ashlands name Ashland was named after the estate of Henry Clay in Kentucky I some of our earliest

leaders here were great admirers of clay and they chose the name Ashland at first. This area could not use Ashland because it was in Ashland Wisconsin and on the chip or river. And so it was called Whittlesey for a while after one of our earliest settlers. Later when the other community disappeared the name Ashland was used. Originally the head of the bay was called the Quaid and which really means head of the Bay Area. How so far as the general picture of the missionaries in the early sixteen hundreds and I'm up to the time they I mean if traders are all through that era they were collecting for trading furs with the Indians there were seven Indian tribes located around this bay like the Chippewas and the souse who later went west. He and other Indian groups and they traded with the French and that good

presumably started in the 16th 30s 40s and 50s and they're the two that Dusenberry refers to Radisson and Grossi there were here in the year 16 59. And this was the first white structure that was I mean a first structure built by a white man in this area six years after that was when Father Alloway came and built the first church. Thank you John and I have mentioned a number of historical markers in the county here relating to the early history of the area and the fur traders and the union people and also we have the one the great divide marker where Ashland County is split in as watershed part of the water flowing south of the Mississippi basin and park into Lake Superior. Just a comment about Lake Superior too. We recognize that the five Great Lakes make up over half of the freshwater in the world and of course Lake Superior Being largest with over 200 feeder streams coming in so we look at this as a as a real untapped resource. And

being right on the lake here there's much concern among the people today about the quality of the water and maintaining it as such. I did comment a little bit about some of the people here and I think it's interesting you know that there are around between sixteen thousand five hundred and seventy thousand people in Ashland County actually 70 cents a 16000 743. We have quite a few different nationality groups within the county. And I wondering Bob do you want to comment a little bit about some of the nationality groups at that time. We have I think our own 775 Native Americans and 25 blacks listed in the population. But we do have a lot of ethnic groups around the area. In the area a hybrid show there is any settlement Glidden area was settled primarily by a German and Austrian Donner but are not there is

only German and Polish used to bash them. Well that would be getting more over the Big Hill County though I would suspect would be the cool Asian settlements of course we have a lot of Scandinavian people in America and the general mix we might talk a little bit too about the labor force. And these are the latest job service figures. Recent figures. We have a total civilian workforce around 6000 204 people and all that but we found 29 are female meaning 400 male people in the workforce and we have had. Someone of a high unemployment rate throughout the area except in recent years it would using its you know industries have have helped us quite a bit. The office chairmen then turn to other guests. This is doing creator again action county agricultural agent and I have a new group of people here that I would like to visit with a little bit about Ashland County changes taking

place the economy agriculture changes in the city of Ashland and like introduce Mrs. Robert Beck Nancy Peck who was president in action County for its Leaders Association a farm wife for foreach leader very active in many community activities and a real community leader and also a partner in a big farm operation the solace of Irishman. Paul Fisk is the city planner with the city of Ashland and the staff member of the Northwest Regional Planning Commission and Spooner. He's got a background in extension work from the state of New Hampshire and he'll be talking a little bit about the city of Ashland in changes taking place. And then we have Norman Warren who has been a close personal friend for many years and we work very closely in Ashland County Fair Norman is retired but he's busier than ever and he's still chairman the board of the Northern State Bank in Ashland which also has. For branch bank serving the area and serving at the farm area especially

I think a first. We'd like to just talk a little bit about agriculture. Nancy you're a farm wife and for each leader I mentioned before that about 12 percent of the land area or some county around 75000 acres is in agriculture and we don't have a big agriculture economy up here but I think there are a lot of things that we look at that are real progressive in that we've got a lot of young people going on farms sizable farm operations good machinery they're getting acquainted with many of the management techniques and trying to do a good job of farming. We have about 400 farms in Ashland County of which there are about three hundred twenty five farm households in our own Thirteen hundred people that have residents on farms. We don't have a big livestock population we are primarily a grass and cool weather type of agriculture and forged a bagger culture which lends itself very well to dairy farming which we have around 20 25 dairy farms and be farming in there about

50 farms in the county. Nancy what do you see as the potential for farming in northern Wisconsin with 85 percent of this land still forested and good land base. I think that just in the past few years there's been a resurgence of. Interest in farming in this area. My husband and I were talking just this past week and adding up a few names in our particular area which would be the merino area of young people on farms. And we find that young people are staying in these communities. Our farming problem with the farms getting bigger and less farms I think all follow through with the state track. But on the other hand the young people are staying in a big big percentage of them. You know this this area up here is a prime dairy country we find that over half of the dairy cows in Wisconsin are north of Highway 10. And the

reason for this is our land is not as valuable for corn land we we can only grow corn on a small percentage of our land. This means it's going to be grassland farming. And this means that dairy farming is only financially stable way of making a good living on the farm. We do some of have some corn grown in the county but it's a very minimal age acreage and of course this year was a good year from the standpoint of heat days but not so good from the standpoint of moisture. However the corn looks as though it will will help out the Fort Supply for this year. Norman your serving as chairman the board of Northern State Bank here in a long history of living in Ashland County going up in banking retiring out of banking somewhat but you're still very active on farm programs. You've been the secretary treasurer of the Ashland County Fair for many many years and done an outstanding job there and up here that is growing and growing. They've also been a real supporter of many of the

extension programs. Your experiment farm out here west of Ashland summer garden schools and things of that tape. But you've also been real active in the quantities and they've been promoters of Agriculture and farm people I know in years back. You also saw it fit to saw fit to buy it land labor and scrapers So some of the land management practices could be carried out. I'd like to have a few Your views on northern Wisconsin agriculture and your involvement with overseers constant attention. One thing I like to imagine is that for many years they had no action county fair. And so a group of citizens men and women got together and formed their own you know culture society which is a nonprofit organization voluntary help and we tried for a while a national but finding a group in worrying though where are the farming mostly as we thought would be a good place to have a fair and group down there of real active in the community so we started the action they call a culture a

safe fair merino and as we've grown so that we have large buildings are now in the grandstand was all volunteer help putting things up and as we made money we pay off the mortgage on these buildings and we start another building and this is really has grown and it's been a big help to the farmers and special for each might show there are things that do grow and there are ways you can have a foreach chapter in your comedy. Thank you Norman not your kind of our financial expert here today to say you've been born raised in the grid an area and work with a bank for the year. What do you see is the big change in the economic picture of Ashland County city of Ashland Ashland area what is taking place in the economy. Well I think the economy is not bad at all in Ashland County as you have here.

Industries here in Ashland and you have a large hospital in Iowa and New School both banks are joining in the growth of all things make culture loans they make. Machinery along home loans every type of loan the two can think of and specially the farmers today. You do want to help in putting up silos and keeping up with the trend of the farm industry because the farms are getting larger and need more machinery to take care of their crops. Tourism is very very good in this area. We know it was a great trend to the tourist coming here and you can tell by the. Economy in the summertime especially with merchants and restaurants and stores. The money taken in stone will be willing and last year the dog sled races

all helped kind of change the picture up here and with Apostle Islands National insurer recreation seems to be when the real potentials are there in tourism. Nancy if I served last year on a cigarette also in answer to the advisory committee and we did a study on the area. Tourism is the number one money industry in Ashland County agriculture is second and wood products a third has kind of an interesting. Valuation. One thing we haven't mentioned here is that some of the resource we have we have north of the college private college in the area that is serving the area very well the technical school. The Ashland branch here is serving a lot of people we have the universe was a constant stream in the far west of Ashland and I think when the big industries is the Memorial Medical Center a new medical facility and some of the

outstanding facilities for this area. Some of the others I guess I'll leave that up to you Paul you're probably the most knowledgeable about Ashland being the city planner and I guess we can go back and say there were times when things didn't look quite as bright as they do right today. Sometimes the expert part of it is open to question Duwayne but I will try I think to pick up a little bit where Norm left off. I think from my perspective anyway that. There are definite upswings. On the horizon for the economy of Ashland County. While it's true that the city of Ashland for example has been declining in population from an estimated ninety six thousand and fifteen. Thousand nine hundred seventy to an estimated nine thousand one hundred eighteen thousand nine hundred seventy five. The rate of decline in population is slowing. On the most current estimate we have is that the city of Ashland has declined

only to about nine thousand one hundred nine as of 1976 and April. And there are other positive signs I think that are in the wings. We just compile some statistics relative to housing starts. In the city of Ashland which I think are very encouraging and give credence to what the arm was saying a minute ago about upswing and the economy of fashion from economics we turn to this concluding conversation on some traditional extension programs. This is Karen Jo's nice service Ashley County Extension home economist and also for age a new thing agent for Ashland County. And with me today is Bertha Kirky and Bertha serves as the north district chairman for the Wisconsin Extension homemakers Council. And Bertha had I would like to ask you what kind of things you get involved in with homemakers and also you serve as secretary treasurer of the Ashland County Extension homemakers Council. Well in my role as North District here I am and I'm a member of the State Executive Board and I

represent the two thousand plus homemakers in North District and we are part of course of the State Council which is comprised of some 330 thousand members. Maybe we could just mention a few things that we've done that have been kind of special activities in Ashland County. Could you describe the holiday fare that we held last year in December. Well the holiday fairs are very popular and all of our North counties and national county held its holiday fair here in the city of Ashland and attracted a couple of hundred people where the clubs brought their crafts that they had meat for the holidays and it was to them a very interesting day. Also the ornaments that were donated by each club member for this holiday fare were donated to the children's wing at the

Memorial Medical Center here in Ashland. Other things the homemakers might do in Ashland County are. Are helping and craft days which take in a different topic type of thing. One special thing that we can maybe talk about here is their special bicentennial booklet contest that we sponsored this past year. Yes that created quite a bit of interest among the clubs because it really gave the members an opportunity to find out more about the history of their localities and the booklets that came out were really very fascinating. I'm sure many of the club women have bought their particular areas as well as other areas of the county by doing those bicentennial booklets. This program on one of the counties of Wisconsin was produced a whl

radio a service of University of Wisconsin Extension.