Barnum Bay on Petenwell Lake Once Site of Thriving Mill Town<\/h3>\n
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Written by Harry Davis from research by Jerry Carlton “There are also five sawmills in the county, the best one of which is situated at Barnum, in the north west part of the county and on the bank of the Wisconsin River, and is driven by steam.\u00a0 It is said to be the finest mill in the State.”\u00a0<\/em>The Adams County Press,\u00a0<\/em>Friday, March 27, 1868<\/p>\n <\/p>\n <\/p>\n Sawmills built in the 1840s and 50s built along the upper Wisconsin River cut the forest logs into lumber.\u00a0 Rafts of lumber were then floated over the treacherous rapids south of Plover and down the Wisconsin and Mississippi Rivers to St.Louis and other cities.\u00a0 A group headed by Mr. Theron Barnum, of St. Louis figured that it would be much cheaper and safer to float logs through the rapids, trap the logs below the rapids and cut them into lumber there.\u00a0 .<\/p>\n So Mr. Barnum and his associates formed the St. Louis and Wisconsin River Lumber Company in 1865 to build a sawmill in Adams County.\u00a0 They bought 367 acres of land in Section 28 of Rome Township[1]<\/a> including islands in the river together with control of the riverbank for about two miles. The Company also owned 6,000 acres of pine forest elsewhere in Wisconsin that would supply logs to the new mill. The Company then set about building a huge sawmill.[2]<\/a><\/p>\n D.H. Moran, an experienced millwright from Missouri was hired to build the Barnum mill.\u00a0 The machinery for the mill was purchased from the Milwaukee firm owned by Mr. William Goodnow.[3]<\/a>\u00a0 The river\u2019s current was not swift enough to power the mill saws.\u00a0 Instead, a massive steam engine was brought in for power. <\/p>\n <\/p>\n During the mill\u2019s construction a visitor to the site gave this account:<\/p>\n “On reaching the town of Barnum, about twenty miles below the rapids, and one of the most beautiful town sites I ever saw, \u2026 I took a stroll to the precincts of a big mill in process of construction. \u2026. I found the Superintendent of the company\u2019s works, Mr. Moran, who proved to be very much a gentleman, and who gave me all the desired information.\u00a0 The main mill is 80 X 120 feet and when completed will cut about 30,000,000 feet of lumber perannum, besides large quantities of shingles and lath.\u00a0 The peculiar location of the boom[4]<\/a>\u2014protected as it is by islands \u2013 renders it a perfectly safe harbor for logs, and obviates all the difficulties so much complained of above the rapids.”[5]<\/a><\/p>\n <\/p>\n The village of Barnum started to grow.\u00a0 A hotel, managed by Andrew B. Bronson opened in February 1866.\u00a0 A physician and oculist, Dr.Lewis Bronson (a relative no doubt) set up practice in the hotel.[6]<\/a>\u00a0 Andrew Bronson then got out of the hotel business and opened a dry goods and grocery store (\u201cGoods sold as low as by any house this side of Milwaukee\u201d).[7]<\/a>\u00a0 A new hotel owned by J.W.Hammond had its Grand Opening on New Year\u2019s Eve, 1867.\u00a0 William Harrison\u2019s gristmill started operating in 1868 on a creek nearby. [8]<\/a>\u00a0 Houses for the Barnum Mill management were built on the high ground over looking the village.\u00a0 Barnum School and a Methodist Episcopal Church were also soon organized and built.\u00a0 By the early 1870s Barnum was a thriving village with 15 or 20 houses where about 60 mill employees and their families lived.<\/p>\n <\/p>\n <\/p>\n Not much is written about how well or poorly the Barnum Mill did in 1866 and 1867.\u00a0 It may not have been operating much or at all in those two years.\u00a0\u00a0 At some point during this period, the Company vice-president, William Goodhue of Beloit replaced D.H. Moran as Superintendent of the Barnum Mill. The newspaper was still referring to the \u201cnew\u201d mill in Barnum in 1868.\u00a0\u00a0 Although the mill was capable of turning out 100,000 feet of lumber each day, apparently actual production was far short of that for the first few years.<\/p>\n Mill owner\u2019s disagreements and other disputes led to the mill being shut down for a period.[9]<\/a> Default on property taxes led in turn to foreclosure on the mill and the Weed Lumber Co. of Oshkosh bought the property in 1872.\u00a0 They immediately made improvements to the mill and started making it a profitable operation.<\/p>\n Solon W. Pierce, the editor of the Adams County Press<\/em> visited the mill in October of 1873 and described the mill as it was under the Weed Lumber Co. The basement of the two-story building housed the boilers and a 240 horsepower steam engine that drove all the machinery.\u00a0 The mill was really a double mill with two double rotary saws. A chain conveyor brought logs from the water into the mill and dropped them on the saw carriage.\u00a0 Sawyers rolled the big logs into position and the log passed through the saw. The sawed boards moved down the conveyor to the edger.\u00a0 After being sawed, edged and ripped, the boards were carried out on rolling cylinders to the rafting sheds.\u00a0 The rafting sheds were 40 feet wide and 135 feet long. There the boards were stacked into cribs to be tied together into rafts.\u00a0 When the crib was complete, the shed floor was tilted and the crib slid into the Wisconsin River.[10]<\/a><\/p>\n <\/p>\n <\/p>\n All went well at the mill for the next couple of years.\u00a0 The town of Barnum continued to grow and the mill kept busy.<\/p>\n A lath and shingle mill was added to the operation in 1874.[11]<\/a>\u00a0 The shingle mill was operated by one man and could turn out 100 million shingles per day.\u00a0 These shingles were taken to market as \u201cdeck loading\u201d on the lumber rafts.[12]<\/a>\u00a0 In the fall of 1875, the company built a planing mill above the sawmill.[13]<\/a>\u00a0 By February 1876 they announced that \u201cThe Barnum Lumber Company have their planing mill running, and people can get all kinds of dressed lumber there, at very reasonable rates.\u201d[14]<\/a><\/p>\n In the midst of the business doing well, bad events started happening in Barnum. In January 1875 Barnum\u2019s only hotel burned down.[15]<\/a> Then in April ice broke through the log boom causing the loss of many logs.[16]<\/a><\/p>\n The next year started out very promising.\u00a0 In April 1876 there were 12 million feet of logs in the Barnum booms and the mill was cutting at the rate of 60 thousand to 80 thousand feet of lumber every 12 hours.[17]<\/a>\u00a0 Then in June the river broke through one of the islands between the slough the mill used and the main river.\u00a0 Many logs were lost before the new channel could be dammed and closed.[18]<\/a><\/p>\n <\/p>\n <\/p>\n The mill continued operating successfully through the summer and fall of 1876 and shut down for the winter in October.<\/p>\n Then serious trouble ensued.\u00a0 Shortly after dark on Wednesday November 8, 1876, Mill Superintendent Andrew Bean was driving his buggy on the road from Grand Rapids when someone stepped out of the bushes and tried to grab the team of horses\u2019 by the bits.\u00a0 The startled horses jumped and the intruder lost his grip.\u00a0 As the buggy passed him however, the intruder took a shot at Bean.\u00a0 Bean returned fire with his own pistol and the intruder ran off shouting, \u201cFor God\u2019s sake don\u2019t shoot me!\u201d[19]<\/a>\u00a0 Two nights later the Barnum Mill burned to the ground.<\/p>\n An arsonist almost certainly caused the fire.\u00a0 The fire started on the river\u2019s side of the mill in one of the remotest areas of the facility.\u00a0 Firefighters discovered that the pumps intended for use in case of fire had been tampered with and were inoperable.\u00a0 The entire property was destroyed.[20]<\/a><\/p>\n No one was ever identified as having started the fire. People speculated that the person who tried to stop Mr. Bean on the road may have been a disgruntled employee and might have started the fire.\u00a0 It is also possible that the Company may have hired someone to set the fire.\u00a0 Such things were known to happen.\u00a0 The railroads were taking over the lumber transportation business and the supply of logs from the northern pine forests was dwindling.\u00a0 Many sawmills were burned for the insurance money. It could have happened to the Barnum Mill.<\/p>\n The Weed Lumber Company did announce that they planned to rebuild the mill, and did, in fact rebuild the planing mill, but the sawmill was not rebuilt.\u00a0 The sawmill being the village\u2019s only industry and reason for being, the businesses and houses soon started to disappear as well.\u00a0 Neighborhood farmers moved the houses to their own property or tore the buildings down for the lumber.\u00a0 Within a few years nothing remained.<\/p>\n —–<\/p>\n Note:\u00a0 The above article was compiled almost completely from the research papers of Society member Jerry Carlton whose great grandfather Robert Morris Burroughs worked at the Barnum Mill.\u00a0 Referencing the original documents rather than the research papers seemed like a good idea at the time.\u00a0 Thanks Jerry.\u00a0 Ed.<\/p>\n ___________________<\/p>\n Barnum Bay today<\/p><\/div>\n [1]<\/a>\u00a0 The location is now Barnum Bay on Petenwell Flowage near County Road Z and Aspen Ave.<\/p>\n [2]<\/a> Prospectus and By-laws of the St. Louis and Wisconsin River Lumber Company<\/em> 1865, page 5.<\/p>\n [3]<\/a> Prospectus and By-laws of the St. Louis and Wisconsin River Lumber Company<\/em> 1865, page 6.<\/p>\n [4]<\/a> A \u201cboom\u201d refers to a string of logs chained together end to end across the river to trap the logs floating down river.\u00a0 \u201cBoom\u201d also referred to the whole log entrapment facility as the writer did in this case.<\/p>\n [5]<\/a> \u201cSt. Louisan\u201d from St. Louis Democrat<\/em> quoted in Adams County Press, <\/em>Friendship, Wis.\u00a0 Friday, September 22, 1865.<\/p>\n [6]<\/a> Adams County Press<\/em> Friday, February 16, 1866<\/p>\n [7]<\/a> Adams County Press<\/em> Friday, July 12, 1867<\/p>\n [8]<\/a> Adams County Press<\/em> Friday, July 24, 1868<\/p>\n [9]<\/a> Bro. Croft of the Stoughton <\/em>Reporter quoted in Adams County Press, <\/em>Saturday, May 23, 1874<\/p>\n [10]<\/a> Adams County Press, <\/em>Saturday, October 25, 1873<\/p>\n [11]<\/a> Adams County Press, <\/em>Saturday, March 21, 1874<\/p>\n [12]<\/a> Bro. Croft of the Stoughton <\/em>Reporter quoted in Adams County Press, <\/em>Saturday, May 23, 1874<\/p>\n [13]<\/a> Adams County Press, <\/em>Saturday, September 25, 1875<\/p>\n [14]<\/a> Adams County Press, <\/em>Saturday, February 26, 1876<\/p>\n [15]<\/a> Adams County Press, <\/em>Saturday, January 16, 1875<\/p>\n [16]<\/a> Adams County Press, <\/em>Saturday, April 17. 1875<\/p>\n [17]<\/a> Adams County Press, Saturday, <\/em>April 29, 1876<\/p>\n [18]<\/a> Adams County Press, Saturday<\/em>, June 17, 1876<\/p>\n [19]<\/a> The Adams County Press, <\/em>Saturday, November 18, 1876.<\/p>\n [20]<\/a> Ibid.<\/em><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":" The Rise and Fall of the \u201cFinest Mill in the State\u201d Barnum Bay on Petenwell Lake Once Site of Thriving Mill Town Written by Harry Davis from … Continue reading ![\"\"](\"http:\/\/adamshistory.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2018\/11\/Barnum-Exterior2.jpg\")
<\/a><\/p>\nA\u00a0 Sound Concept<\/h4>\n
<\/a><\/p>\nAn Auspicious Start<\/h4>\n
Some Missteps and Some New Owners<\/h3>\n
Success!<\/h3>\n
Failure<\/h3>\n
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