The incident in question happened in Eau Claire. It involved a "wild boy" living inside a tunnel that was (or had been?) used to convey logs to Half Moon Lake. It is said that he gave the authorities a real challenge but eventually they captured him and, lacking a better idea, housed him in the Eau Claire jail until they could figure something out. I suspect this happened in the 1900 to 1910 time frame.
Perhaps the history of the Half Moon Lake tunnel will provide a few clues. It is an interesting story in its own right.
The economy of 19th century Eau Claire was based on lumber mills. Logs came down the Chippewa and Eau Claire rivers. Generally this was in the spring and they came in gigantic batches. Mills of course need to run year round. So how to spread out the supply? Some kind of storage system was needed.
In 1877 the Dells Dam was built just upstream. This provided an opportunity. It provided a degree of elevation that made it possible to convey logs to Half Moon Lake, a long closed off oxbow of the river on the West Side of town. The lake could hold plenty of timber which could then be cut by mills either on the lake proper or back on the river.
Work began in late 1879, the company behind it being the Dells Improvement Company. The newspapers carried frequent updates on the project, which carried on through the coldest part of winter. A January 31st, 1880 article mentions that a crew of 23 men was doing the excavating, half starting at each end. On the "Lake End" they averaged 15 feet per day. The East End team only did about half that. It was necessary to dig down 22 feet, the first four of which were frozen ground.
The tunnel proper was made of wood, and was lined with boards. At 5 and a half feet high and 4 and a half feet wide it was not a large space.
Only the final stretch of the project- about 1000 feet - was underground, for most of its length it was a wooden covered chute, then an open "log canal". It started at the dam, ran along the river bank for a stretch, then turned inland and dove underground near the intersection of Mappa and Randall.
The system worked as planned, and soon Half Moon Lake was full of logs. Several mills were on its shores, others were on the riverbank just beyond it, with two "log races" existing to bring logs out of the south end of the lake.
There were quite numerous deaths recorded in association with this project. Eau Claire had a lot of saloons in those days and not surprisingly patrons of same tended to fall into the open canal portion of the system. Equally unsurprising was the attraction of it to the young. In 1884 a five year old "German Boy" fell into the canal and was miraculously saved when a quick thinking bystander took a log hook and snagged him by his "inexpressibles" (really hoping that means his underpants!). In 1902 a 17 year old crashed his bike into the canal and was swept to his death. The log covered lake also looked like great fun to play on, and a number of boys fell in and drowned. I've found newspaper accounts of at least 9 such deaths and many near misses.
The case of Marshal Jaeger was especially poignant. On July 2nd 1903 the local paper recounts:
FELL IN FLUME AND DROWNED
"Marshal Jaeger, Boy of Ten Years Meets Death while catching driftwood."
He was a local lad who apparently was snagging bits of wood for resale or fuel for his family. He fell into the open canal and was swept into the tunnel. Finding his body was difficult but eventually he was recovered from the lake. His parents were "..overcome with grief". Marshal was said to have been "..an exceedingly bright fellow" who "Had frequently fished for wood at the same place and being always very cautious he was freely trusted". An interesting but tragic comparison of how we regard acceptable risk for our children in the past and in the modern era.
As I've had occasion to discuss on other occasions, an economy based on one industry is always precarious. When the prime pine woods of Northern Wisconsin were logged over the flow of logs to Eau Claire was reduced. The local mills switched to hardwood and to making lower grade items such as shingles. But one by one the mills closed and the flume/tunnel system was no longer needed. By that point railroads were well on their way to supplanting water transport of logs.
Interestingly, there were efforts to keep it intact anyway to help provide clean water to the otherwise stagnant Half Moon Lake. By various accounts somewhere between 1905 and 1908 the wooden tunnel had concrete pipe placed into it. Presumably the flume and open canal segments were also converted at that time.
It was a dismal failure. The initial project was done quickly, in dubious weather conditions and was made of wood instead of stone. The concrete pipes cracked and buckled with changes in temperature and water flow. Soon began a series of sinkholes, damaged sewer lines and partial basement collapses that was really only concluded about twenty years ago.
Below is part of the "flume" near its origins along the river bank. It had a wooden top and sides, with what appears to be overflow valves. No pictures of the open canal or tunnel section seem to have survived.
Here's a bit more on the lumbering industry and Half Moon Lake.
Oh, and the "Wild Boy"? It is hard to see him taking even a temporary refuge in the tunnel when it was in full use. When the supply of logs was dwindling and in some instance being delivered by rail, there likely were times when the flume/tunnel was not supplied with water. As to an end date it is difficult to say. The account you'll see on the historic marker suggests a post Prohibition use of the tunnel to store beer. I am quite sure this is an incorrect if understandable statement. Once the concrete pipes began to be installed circa 1905 the available space in the tunnel was quite cramped. And accounts I've read suggest that the whole thing began to deteriorate quickly after its abandonment.
Next time we'll visit the site of the flume and tunnel today. Think there's anything left?
1 comment:
There is photo of Open canal going past the Pioneer Furniture company, along Oxford
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