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Wisconsin's Forgotten State Park
How the lumber industry led to the long-gone Wisconsin state park PLUS Bear rescue, Learn to hunt, and glacially-inspired architecture
Forrest Koslowski
July 27, 2022
Mornin' to everyone waving folks on at 4-way stops. This is the Wiscampsin Weekly - the email that gets you in the know on the Wisconsin outdoors in 5 minutes or less. New reader? Subscribe here.
Today's docket:
The first WI state park 🌲
Wisconsin's biking blunder 🚲
Holy Cripes! Bear rescued on lake 🐻
The Tale of Wisconsin's State Parks
"Their main purpose is to refresh and strengthen and renew tired people, to fit them for the common round of daily living."
That was the famous John Nolen, not on the powers of Miller Lite, but on the promise of a Wisconsin State Parks system.
See, while Wisconsin today enjoys a bountiful array of State Parks (66 in total) to hike, bike, and camp in, there was a time that wasn't always so.
And to save us from "physical and moral suffocation," as Nolen put it, someone had to do something about it...
Wisconsin State Parks
Designed to protect our wild spaces from the lumber industry
Wisconsin the first state to have a state park
John Nolen commissioned to fix the state park problem after the first one failed
Wisconsin's wanted wood
Before we were known for our long A's, beers, and bratwurst, Wisconsin's claim to fame came from its lumber.
With seemingly endless forests and a growing urban population, the economy around Wisconsin's wood boomed.
Because the Wisconsin River provided an easy means to transport the harvested resource, early settlements like Stevens Point and Wausau sprang up around the river, and soon the towns bustled with lumberjacks and those in the trade.
The pine trees around the Wisconsin River were cleared first, floated from the forest to the mills down stream.
Then the logs were cut into boards with saws powered by the river. From the Black River Valley alone, the pine cut down could have furnished a boardwalk nine feet wide to stretch around the globe.
By the middle of the 1850's, the lumber industry became the backbone of the economy, eventually employing a quarter of all working Wisconsinites.
Locomotives lend a hand
While the Wisconsin River was a cheap method to transport the cut trees, it limited the harvest to forests near the winding waters.
However, once lumber companies started deploying trains to transport the resource, forests that were once impossible to access soon fell by the axe.
And so, the camps moved from the river and into the woods. Men enjoyed kitchens, dining halls, company stores, blacksmith and carpentry shops, and bunkhouses.
As the soft pine of northern and central Wisconsin provided urban markets with all the wood they could peddle, it seemed the glory days of Wisconsin's lumber would never pass. As it was with Brett Favre...
The failed fight for the forests
While the lumberjacks basked in their wooded riches, the state of Wisconsin's forests was looking grim.
To save some of Wisconsin's woods from the lumber industry, a state park, aptly named "The State Park" was designated in 1878, the first in America. What a name...
The 760 square-mile piece of land seemed like a great victory, but the state owned only 10 percent of the land, and the population in charge was too small to support the project.
Lumber barons who stood in opposition to the park held the power in the region, and soon two-thirds of the land was sold to private interest in 1897. *sigh*
John Nolen to the rescue
After the complete blunder that was The State Park, the board members hired John Nolen in 1907 to draft a plan for a Wisconsin State Parks System.
A Landscape Architect, Nolen's approach to planning blended the social, economic, and physicality of urban life with the beauty of the natural world.
He knew the stakes were high for his endeavor. As the rest of the country contended with their own disappearing wild places, he said:
"No question before the American people today is of greater importance than the conservation of our natural resources and the preservation of all those means of health and happiness which through selfishness or thoughtlessness are so likely to be destroyed."
The roadmap forward
So his plan had to be feasible, as to not repeat the mistake of The State Park.
In State Parks for Wisconsin, John Nolen laid out five requirements that the state must use when looking to form a state park:
Must be at least 200-300 acres, though ideally 5,000+
Accessible by train, boat, or vehicle within reasonable time and reasonable expense
Air and climate of the state parks should be salubrious (read: health-giving)
The property for the state parks should be reasonable in cost
Above all, the site for the state park should have uncommon charm and beauty, an "irresistible appeal to the nature lover"
In his manifesto, he goes lengths to describe the private ownership of land in the east, and how it limits the general population's access to the natural recreation of the states they inhabit.
Based off his recommendations, the state established three new state parks: Peninsula State Park (1910), Devil's Lake State Park (1911), and Wyalusing State Park (1917). In 1997, the Dells Nature Area finally opened, the last of his recs.
And thus, the path towards a robust State Parks System was paved. In the midst of mineral and lumber depletion, and a boom in urban development, Nolen breathed life into the state parks we all enjoy today.
If you've never been to these original state parks, it's easy to see why he picked 'em. Shucks, co-founder Kevin spends nearly every weekend up at Peninsula...
But all of our state parks hold beauty that's worth the trip. And with the huge spread across the state, there's no excuse not to get out 'der and enjoy John Nolen's gift to us all.
Thanks John!
This week's Wiscampsin Weekly is brought to you by White Bridge Coffee Co.
Kevin and I were in trouble.
It was Day 2 of our bike ride across Wisconsin, and we were gassed.
Sore rumps. Sunburnt all over. Legs like concrete (and not the good one's from Culver's)...
With 200 miles to go, how were we ever going to make it?!
That's when our salvation appeared. As we geared up for the day, Hanna, our friend who hosted us the night before in Madison, brought out two steaming mugs of coffee.
But not just any coffee - White Bridge Coffee. With just a few sips, I felt like Lance Armstrong, ready to crush my enemies on the bike.
Based out of Madison, WI, White Bridge Coffee Co. offers the best specialty roasts on this side of the Mississippi.
What's more, they're 1% For The Planet and donate another 1%+ of revenue to environmental non-profits.
The "Holy Cripes" Moment of the Week❗️
It was bad news bears for this black bear that somehow managed to get its head stuck in a plastic jar. Luckily, the good folks of 'Scon came to the rescue and freed the fellar before things went awry.
Nuts and Seeds 🌰
🦌 Learn to Hunt: Remember BOW (Becoming an Outdoors-Woman)? Well, they're teaming up with Pheasants Forever, the National Wild Turkey Federation, and the DNR to put together a webinar on hunting basics. Just in time for the upcoming deer season, eh?
🧊 Glacially Inspired: Anyone who has seen the Milwaukee art museum knows that it's falling apart worse than Grandpa's old tree stand. Well, they've finally unveiled the new design, and it pays homage to our history with glaciers. Pretty "cool" if you ask us...
🚴 Biking Bummer: Wisconsin plummeted from two to 29 on the list of Bike Friendly States after repealing its Complete Streets policy, which takes a holistic approach to road creation (safety, bicycle use) rather than just speed and volume of traffic. Wisconsin currently ranks 49th in the nation for money spent on biking and walking paths. Gosh darn it, even Illinois beat us!
See you next week!
A Review from the Trail...
Well, how'd we do this week?
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