Counties of Wisconsin; 67; Sawyer County

Muskie fishing is one of the tourist attractions in the county visited today on this program in the series. The counties of Wisconsin. Sawyer is the county featured on today's program. The conversations you'll hear were recorded in the fall of 1076 at the county courthouse in Hayward. First an account of some of the early history of the county. In all probability the area now included in Sawyer County was visited in early years by French explorers fur traders and missionaries who were active along the Wisconsin shore of Lake Superior. Shaquan Bay which many of them visited and where a mission was maintained for some years is not far from Sawyer

County. Sawyer County was part of the great empire of forests which once covered a large part of Wisconsin for three quarters of a century many Wisconsin men found their livelihood in exploiting these forests. The state provided lumber for both its own pioneers and those of the western plains lumbering has been a phase in the history of the state that will never be repeated but which remains of great interest and significance to succeeding generations. Following the Blackhawk war of 1832 the federal government and the various Indian tribes of the state signed a series of treaties which in less than 20 years deprived the Indians of all their lands except certain reserved areas. Immediately after the execution of these treaties and the surveying of the land the government began issuing permits for logging on a large scale. By 1850 to a sawmill on the Red Cedar River had reportedly become the largest establishment of its

kind in the country. Other mill sites along the river were soon occupied and the lumber output mounted rapidly. Then came the crash of 1857 in which many lumbermen were ruined. But the civil war again restored prosperity and the annual log cut again increased. The Capitol was one of the big problems which faced the early lagers the potentialities of numbering in the Northwest Territory were publicized by advertising in doing the newspapers. Eastern speculators viewing the profits that lumbering was yielding in New York considered the Northwest timberlands a good investment. However timber barons such as Philip Sawyer and Fred require house or did not actually move into northwestern Wisconsin until the early 1880. The first sawmill in Sawyer County built Hayward in 1981 was later known as the North Wisconsin lumber company. Mr. Wire Houser was president of this company during the winter of 1889 to ninety the approximately 50 logging

camps located in Sawyer County banked an estimated 150 million board feet of pine logs. Up to this time the Hayward mill saw an average of about 30 million board feet per season. This output was increased as improvements were made in 1903 the Hayward mill held the world record for amount sought. The supply of logs gradually decreased and finally in 1919 the mill closed down. A fire later destroyed the mail the forerunners of modern resorts and Sawyer County were stopping places along the roads leading into the lumbering areas. W e bill Korn and his wife Matilda ran such an establishment on the road from Chippewa Falls along the triple River into Sawyer County. Another place was operated by Paul or starred in the vicinity of the site of the present dam which later created the chapel flowage. Neither of these places cater to vacation ist's or fisherman. They were visited exclusively by lumbermen.

Farming in Sawyer County had its beginnings as was the case in many other parts of northern Wisconsin in the need of supplies by lumber companies. The constant problem of supplies for all the lumber and logging camps was a major concern of every lumber operator at the start of the logging boom. There were under 2000 farms in the entire north woods area by the beginning of this century farming and dairying were both well underway. We begin now with a discussion led by for each agent Bill Peterson talking with Sharon Marion felt and home economist Georgia home today. I'd like to just talk to Sharon the we've been working together for a number of years now with 4-H and activities and we're. Just like to mention something about the program so your colony is is an area where we've got a lot of people moving in and out and specially some of our older people are moving in for vacations as well as living full time

here. But our youth activities are going fairly strong I think we've got a number of things going on all the time with foreach as well as other activities and Sharon. What is your interest as far as over you think Timothy's are concerned. Well I am generally leader of one of the local 4-H clubs here in Hayward and this is my third year as a leader. I'm interested in points because I was a foreach for myself when I was younger and then I'm relatively new in Wisconsin. But when I moved to Hayward I became familiar with some of the 4-H clubs and so I started as an assistant project leader and then I worked my way up to being a general leader. Sharon you mentioned that. You're interested in the cultural arts and you've seen this trend developing in the county and I guess since I've been here in the four years I've seen the same type of trend and yet I also see another trend to getting back to

the agricultural things a little bit. Of course we've got a situation in the county where our agricultural output is not great is not huge. But at the same time the total agricultural economy is good. Last year I believe we put a total of five and a half million dollars in gross sales of agricultural products which is you know nothing to put down. And I'd really like to see the agricultural part to become stronger in a colony where at one time it was very strong. In fact our county fair for example was one of the better ones in the whole part of the state. And of course that has diminished and yet now there is more of an increase in towards coming back to that kind of thing too. George do you work a lot with her. For each kids in terms of dress review and some of the home ec projects. And I know a lot of this ties in with the interest and homemakers of this is of course a group that you work with and so I imagine there is somewhat of a tie between the home

makers. Maybe their interests and their the fact that they are maybe a parent of some sort. What about that. I wish this time was stronger here in Stark County. For years they tried to get the homemakers more involved with the foreach program but it seems like as our industry up here is recreation that they are very busy in the summer time with their own resorts that they don't have time for the summer time activities in which foreach is very active in the summer. This is always been a problem we do have a few home makers that are very much youth oriented and work well with the faire but there are few in number and I wish there was some way that we could help this relationship but I think because of the nature of our recreation industry that it takes that time of with businesses away from a lot of women who ordinarily would have the time in the summer to spend with youth

programs. A lot of them are Girl Scout leaders and church groups