The Long Portage Moves. A Little.

A while back I had a look at an unusual and neglected monument.  It marked one end of a long portage that was part of the connection between Lake Superior and the Mississippi River system.  I put a geocache there, and it got a fair number of visitors.  Likely more than this obscure marker had seen in a while.

Well, a few weeks back a geocacher said the entire monument had been demolished.  Nothing left but a pile of stones.  As this would be an unusual degree of industry for most vandals I expressed the hope that the plaque had just been relocated.  

As indeed came to pass.  It's now a couple hundred yards to the East, right on County Road M outside the American Legion Post.  Hence the flags.  The ghostly image of Hank the Dog is just happenstance.

Alas, no good place for a geocache here.

Mystery in the Woods

Deer hunting approaches.  And while the main focus this year will be on our land a ways to the south, the area around our cabin is still public hunting, and I have a tag for it.  So I wander here and there looking for signs of deer, interesting trees, and...what the heck?

It's a well.

And some kind of cellar hole?

And a long stone wall with a flat area on one side.

Something is going on here.  Now it helps to know the local history.  This area was lightly inhabited by Ojibway folks for centuries, but they never built anything like this.  Lumbering came in circa 1870's, but initially it was confined to stands of prime timber near rivers.  This area did not get much attention until around 1890, when railroads were not too far distant.

Once the timber companies clear cut the land it was nearly worthless.  Just stumps with plenty of erosion happening.  Nearly worthless is not the same as totally worthless, so the land was sold off cheaply to anyone who wanted to try farming it. * 

Very few succeeded.  I've run across other remnants in my travels, but nothing quite this elaborate.  So, anything else knowable???

Here is Google Earth of the area.  The blue circle is roughly the location of the structures.  The X is what I suspect is the oldest habitation on the lake, at least my take on the circa 1905 whiskey and soda bottles that turn up there when the water levels are low is any guide.  "Supposedly" there was a log structure there from way back, that later became a lodge for a small mom and pop resort.  Few traces remain.

Period maps of this area are scarce, so the best I can do is this roughly 1906 image.

The odd thing here is that the east west road in the upper image - "Pioneer Road" - no less, does not appear to be present.  Look at where the road right at the number 34 lines up on the west side of the lake.  I assume there was some sort of track that went to the H.H. Fleming place.  I also assume that H.H. liked his whiskey.  Pioneer Road must have been created later.

So it looks as if my dog and I were wandering about - on public land it should be noted - where Peter Larson once tried to farm the miserable cut over land.  The long stone wall I'm seeing might well be a frontage onto the east west road that was then just south of his presumed dwelling.  It's too big for any barn he'd be likely to need.

So what happened?  That's going to be hard to know.  Larson is a common name.  And the story of little hardscrabble farms failing in the Great Depression is even more common.

________

* An old timer told me once that "back in the day" you just had to go to the county extension office and you could sign for as much World War One surplus free dynamite as you wanted!  And you'd want a lot to clear the stumps out that kind of land.

Brick Yards of Chippewa Falls - Part Three

The Laycock and Barrett brick yard probably got off to a great start.  Chippewa Falls was growing, and they had the inside track.  But times were changing.  There is a gap of several years in the on line version of local newspapers, so all I can say for certain is that sometime in the mid 1870's this partnership went away.

There were a few mentions of brick yards in the 1880's.  There was a George Robson of whom it was said: "He will probably operate his brick yard in this city the coming summer if he does not sell out before the season opens".  That was in March, 1888.  In August of the same year an I.B. Taft was supposedly intending to start a brick yard on his farm.  

But a real revival of the industry had to wait for J.B. Theriault .  As you can see from the link, we've met him before.  He caught my attention early as his are, to date, the only marked bricks from our town.

Theriault's brick yard was on the western edge of town.  From the various descriptions of earlier yards I'm assuming they were all in the same general area.  There was, still is actually, a nice vein of good clay to be had there.  But as we shall see, that's not enough.

John Theriault got his operation up a bit late in 1890 but still had a good season.  He sold all the bricks he could make, employed 20 men, and was aiming to double production the next year.  I've shown this in the linked post, but here's a view of part of his plant.  Keep in mind that brick yards are sprawling places.  Lots of kilns, drying racks, clay pits, etc.  

There were actually two brick yards working the same vein of clay by about 1900.  Below is a Birds Eye view that shows the adjacent Goulet brick yard and gives a better sense of the scale of the operation by 1907.

A reporter for the local paper visited the Theriault brick yard in 1893, and had a lot to say about it.  The clay was said to be of a quality equivalent to the highly successful brick yards in Menomonie.  The proprietor had invested $11,000 in the buildings and equipment and employed 25 men.  Some of them lived on site at a boarding house with "a first class cook". * 

The capacity of the plant was 40,000 bricks a day, although it was only doing 30,000.   It was mentioned that the new addition to St. Joseph's Hospital, as well as many buildings up in Rice Lake, had recently been completed using Theriault bricks.  But there was that recurring problem.....

Theriault was handicapped by having no rail road spur.  Efforts to obtain one came to naught.

Eventually this impediment proved fatal.  Bricks, so long as the quality is good, are all the same.  And for big projects it would only be natural to go with the lower bidder, this usually being the yard that could eliminate some contribution to the expenses.  Like that extra shipping.  

By the mid 1890's Theriault was making 1,200,000 bricks a year.  But was still only running at half capacity.  The other yard, adjacent to his, had several owners.  French Lumber Company brick yard, Goulet and Bergeron yards, and the Chippewa Brick Manufacturing Company. 

Although both brick yards dwindled in the early 20th century and seem to have been gone circa 1915, there are still traces of their presence.  It now has nice new homes on cul-de-sacs, but there are three ponds, at least some of which were clay pits where material for making bricks had been excavated.  Potentially since the late 1860s!

* The first class cook at the Theriault brick yard boarding house was Zele Fourboul.  We've met her, her unfortunate spouse and her murderous step son in a previous installment!

Brick Yards of Chippewa Falls - Part Two

 Spring of 1872 found the Winans brick yard under new management.

A contemporary account gives a bit more information.  Henry Laycock was described as being "..the leading brick layer of this section", and mentions that he had built the new Tremont hotel and other structures in town.  J.E. Barrett was described as a young man, new to town.  

Laycock was the more interesting of the two men.  He was born in Scarborough England in 1842,  He came to America in 1861, joining the Union Army shortly after Bull Run.  

He had a busy Civil War service,  at the end of which his regiment was involved in hunting down "Mosby's Raiders" in Northern Virginia.  On the night of April 14, 1865 they were summoned to Washington DC with the news that Abraham Lincoln had been shot.  Immediately on arrival they were dispatched as part of the search for the assassin.  

They almost caught up with John Wilkes Booth at the home of Dr. Mudd, who had treated his injuries.  Booth was captured hiding in a barn a few days later.  Mudd, whose guilt is debatable but likey, was arrested and sentenced to a long term.  The phrase "your name is mud" comes from this incident...

Laycock came to Chippewa Falls in 1870, moving to Eau Claire in 1877.   He had a long career as a builder, also continuing to make bricks.  

His Chippewa Falls venture does not seem to have prospered.  It faced a new challenge when the railroad came to town in 1874, namely the reality that bricks are a very expensive item to ship by wagon.  

As we shall see in Part Three, the location of the Chippewa Falls brick making enterprises was always about the same, and never got a rail spur.  

His competitors, while making equivalent products, did not have this hindrance.....

Brick Yards of Chippewa Falls, Part One

To understand the history of brick making in Chippewa Falls you have to remember the reality of a community built around a giant sawmill.  The buildings were made of wood.  They were heated with wood stoves and lit with kerosene lanterns.  There was probably scrap wood everywhere.  You can see where this is headed..

In February 1869 a fire broke out that destroyed most of the commercial district of the town.  Following this there were ordnances passed that required any structure built in the down town area to be fire proof.  That is to say, not out of wood.  Although this does not seem to have been universally adhered to it was obviously a major boost to making things out of brick.  And an entrepreneur stepped up shortly.

This is the earliest known photo of Chippewa Falls.  Undated it dates from either late 1870, sometime in '71 or early '72.  It shows substantial brick buildings as new construction.  So where did the bricks come from?

The first brick making enterprise that I know of - and bear in mind that all the local papers also went up with the fire of '69 - was started by a Captain George Winans.  Why, the embers were only just cooled off when this appeared in the Chippewa Union and Times:

It sounds like an up and coming operation by early summer of that year.  Note the location given, "about two and a half miles west of town".  This will factor in later when I try to locate this pioneer enterprise.  A "lost cow" notice in September of 1869 quotes a Martin Roch, who says his residence was "..one and a half miles from the Falls, near brick yard".  

Business seems to have been good in 1869, despite the loss of 40,000 bricks which were destroyed in the drying process by heavy rains in August of that year.

George Winans was an interesting character.  Like almost everyone else in the early days of Chippewa Falls he was in the lumber business.  Specifically he guided rafts of cut timber down rivers.  Hence the title "Captain".  He continued in this line of work far past the end of the prime timber years, actually sending rafts down the Mississippi quite late in the 19th century.  

One of the big projects for the brick yard was the building of the Tremont House in 1871.  It was a very swank place, and was actually "under the management" of George Winans!  But as it happens, brick buildings can also burn, and that's exactly what happened on a cold January night in 1874.

By that point Winans had sold the brick yard.  In fact he sold it to two men, one of whom had done the brick work for the Tremont.  We'll meet Laycock and Barrett in our next installment.

From Latte to Lynching. A Curious History.

Downtown Chippewa Falls.  Spring of 2025.  Right down on River street is the "Market on River".  It's a fun place.  Restaurants, a coffee shop, space you can rent for events.  There are swank apartments on the top floor with a magnificent view.

It's been a retail establishment for less than a year.  But I knew the place in its previous incarnation too.....

From 2016 to 2020 the robotics team operated out of this building.  The ground floor was a production shop that refurbished and later manufactured CNC machines.  The top floor was the residence of the owners, with the aforementioned great view.  The second floor was, for about 4 months each year, Robot Land.

I think our drivers became extra proficient because they had to learn to drive around those wooden pillars!

Those marks on the floor are significant.  Prior to its use as a cnc company the building had sat empty for a while.  Before that it was a warehouse for a shoe manufacturer.  But I think much of the layout actually dates back to when it was a wholesale grocery business.  Marks on the floor designated specific storage areas.

This is the location, although the date of the picture is unclear.  The Mercantile company built on the spot in 1903, but their place burned down and had to be rebuilt on the same footprint in 1916.  If you pay attention to such things you can maybe see where older and newer areas of foundation exist.

Obviously a bit of prime real estate like this would have earlier history.  Lets take a look....

In 1883 the entire block was basically hotels.  The train station was across River Street.  Here's what the corner looked like then:

Part of the site is vacant, but part is taken up by the River Hotel.  Note the skinny yellow structure coming off the back.  It was probably an elevated walkway so that upper floor patrons could trek over to the outhouse without needing to do the stairs!

The railroad station was not there in this 1874 "Birdseye View".  Trains did not come to town until 1875, and not to this side of the river for a few years after that.  But the hotel seems to be there already.

Across River street, on the future site of the train station, there is a single building.  And a large tree.  Does the latter factor into the dark side of our little history?

The year was 1849.  Our best source for early history of the area was a Thomas McBean who did not turn up until 1856, so this was a story he'd heard, not witnessed.  As he recounted in 1904...

"As I stood near the alley on Island Street between River and Spring, looking at the new building of the Chippewa Valley Mercantile Company, the thought came to me that I was standing on the spot where, 55 years ago this summer, the Indian was hung by a frenzied mob of toughs from some of those early days."

The story he then relates is a sad one indeed.  In that early time there were Ojibway camping near modern day Spring Street.  A Frenchman named Caznobia had come up from Galena Illinois with a party of rowdies.  He proceeded to get drunk and try to enter the wigwam of a native and his wife.  He was ejected, but tried again using "..rude and insulting language to the Indian and his squaw.."  In 1904 you probably could not come out and say it, but likely he had dishonorable intentions towards the woman.

Well, the Ojibwa man stabbed Caznobia who was taken in dire condition to the home of a man named Hurley, who had just opened the first saloon in town.  Probably that's where the "fire water" that played such a role in this tragedy originated.

An incensed mob gathered and, undeterred by the remonstrations of H.S. Allen the leading citizen of town, the Indian man was strung up and lynched on a nearby pine tree.

Repercussions were immediate.  The white population of Chippewa Falls at this point was very small, perhaps 100 not counting transients.  As many as 1500 Ojibwa gathered in the days that followed, threatening to burn the settlement if justice was not done.

With difficulty they were persuaded to settle for the ring leaders being sent to justice.  A Tim Inglar and three others were sent down river to Prairie du Chien, at that time the nearest point where a court was functioning in Wisconsin Territory.  Alas for the cause of justice the six Ojibwa men who accompanied this party got nervous as they drew near the lands of their traditional enemies the Lakota, and turned back.  With no witnesses against them the four men who led the lynch mob were set free.

That in any case was the tale told to young Thomas McBean in the 1850s, as it was remembered by him the better part of a lifetime later.  It has the ring of truth to it even if a few details like just how many Ojibway had gathered and with what intent may have been embellished.  A slightly different version of the story appears in several sources from the 1870's, but its likely that McBean provided the information for those as well.   The man who started all the trouble, Caznobia, recovered from his injuries.

McBean said that the unfortunate Indian was buried near the pine tree, and that the tree "...stood there for many years after I came here."

But for how many years?  And, can we see it?  I think the tree shown in the 1874 view is not the right one.  Here's the exact spot that McBean stood at while remembering this dark event in local history.  The back of the Mercantile building is on the right.

Now it is a fair question, just how long did the tree stand there?  McBean lived in Chippewa Falls from 1856 until he went off to war in 1861.  He returned circa 1865 and was here into the 80's at least.   Birdseye views are reasonably accurate but not down to the level of individual trees, which artists probably sketched in where they thought it would enhance the overall work.  But we do have a single early photo that might show us something.  Its from 1870 or 71, so twenty years plus from the events he described.  But trees, especially big trees, can last a long time.....

I've put an arrow over what appears to be a tall pine tree.  It is standing next to Spring street just down the alley from where Thomas McBean was standing when he was pondering that dark day.  

Chippewa Falls saw another lynch mob in the 1870's, not long after this picture was taken.  But that's a story for another day.

  

History Underfoot

A fun talk for the local community ed program.  History Underfoot looks at how archaeology can help us fill in the gaps in historical information...and sometimes correct errors.  I enjoyed dusting off artifacts and documentation from digs many years ago...

Whiskey flasks with eagles, flags and prospectors...

Doorknobs, marked bricks, crockery, assorted metal bits and bobs...

And china dolls.  Complete with moveable, now removed, creepy eyes....

Watching you..........

The Taverns of Old Chippewa Falls, Part Two - Mother Fossler

Part one of our exploration of early Chippewa Falls taverns was fairly upbeat.  Peter Rosseau came to the area as an adventurous young man, became the leading figure of his little community of French Town, married, had a bunch of kids.  Yes, things were rough in the early days.  And French Town was fated to decline and vanish, but that was after his passing.

Our next story is, like Rosseau's, fragmentary.  And interesting.  But also less happy.  Pioneer life was hard.  Making a living running a bar/hotel (now it would be the hospitality industry!) has never been an easy path.  It certainly was not for "Mother Fossler".

In advance, apologies for the numerous spellings of her name.  That's just how it is with German names in the 19th century.  We have tough sledding ahead to make sense of this one folks, so lets dive in.... 

It's pretty certain that in the 1850's it would be hard to find a home, store or boarding house where you couldn't get a drink of whiskey!  But as to the first actual saloons, an interesting starting point is a sort of letter to the editor from 1913 that is simply signed AN OLD TIMER.*  In it he - probably not a she given the topic - has a lot to say on the topic of saloons.  In an article about Chippewa Falls that is mostly encouraging churches, businesses and construction of a nice public library he says:  "By the number and character of plague spots, it is growing better, for when I first knew it as a village of a few hundred inhabitants, there was but two saloons, Old Mother Fosslers and Mose Heberts...."

Hebert, or Old Moses, we've met before, but this was my first clue about an early saloon run by a woman.

She was then married to a man named Andrew, who appears on the muster list of the 1st Wisconsin Regiment as either Fosler or Foster.  His point of enlistment was Chippewa Falls, and it is known that Mrs. Fossler was one of the women of the community who sewed a flag for the home town company.  They carried it through entire conflict, and it was returned home tattered but proud in 1865.  

Andrew Fosler probably came back sooner, as he is recorded as being discharged due to disability in November of 1862.  But he now becomes peripheral to our main story.

Because curiously almost every subsequent reference to the Foslers I can find is centered on her.  For instance, in 1867 "Mother Fosler's" barn burned down, with arson suspected.  Mr. F. is not mentioned.

Best I can determine the Foslers moved to Chippewa Falls in 1855, making them very early settlers indeed.  They appear to have lived "at the foot of River Street", putting them well out of the orderly community centered around the saw mill and company store.  Indeed, it seems likely they lived just across the river from the dubious hamlet of French Town, and conveniently next to the ferry that went there.  This area was also called "Comstock Landing".  

But that seems to have been a bit later.  Thomas McBean, the go to source for history of the early town, had a few things to say in 1897.  He mentions that "Old Fosler" had lived in one of the boarding houses near the Falls called "Battle Row", which burned in 1857.  He then says that "..his relic still lives in the lower end of town."  Battle Row, by the way, is said to have gotten its name from the ongoing squabbles of its female inhabitants!

One very odd feature of this situation is that at some point after Andrew Fossler vanished from the scene he was replaced by a man often called John Fossler, but whose actual name was Klinsch.  Supposedly little was known about him other than that he came here from Luxembourg in 1855.  That's the same year as Mother Fossler. Did she remarry a fellow early settler after Andrew left her?  And when did the actual saloon get started?  Perhaps after the fire in '57 that made them relocate?  John seems to have been associated with it from an early date.  From his obituary comes this memorable passage...

This sure sounds like the pre-Civil war era, so I assume "Mother Fossler's" establishment was on south River Street.  Actually it is very close to my home, and I walk my dog past it almost every day.  The area has been much altered by flood control measures and road work, so there is realistically no prospect of pin pointing its location.

I think this is the spot, that lone building at the bottom of the hill.  This is from an 1886 Birdseye view.  It shows a two story structure all by itself.  River street no longer goes there due to a re-routing of the railroad tracks.  That outbuilding behind might be the "little shack" referred to above.  It was a sad and lonely place by the late 1880's.  Literally on the other side of the tracks, and not far from a swamp that was used as the city dump.  The flat spot on the river bank is where the ferry used to run.  It had been discontinued years earlier as bridges were built.

The same spot today....  Ironically the colorful stuff on the left is a mural depicting early Chippewa Falls history.  The high school kids who did this had no idea how historic this spot actually was.

So what to make of the two "Mr. Foslers"?  In the 1860 census we find Andrew, his wife (her name was Catherine by the way) and their son William living in Chippewa Falls.  Occupation, "keeps boarding house".  So that fits.  Husband and wife were from Baden, Germany.  I can't find a John Klinsch, or anything like that name, but to be fair the copies are hard to read, and I'm getting used to this crew being sneaky with names!

John "Fosler" dropped dead in the street in 1895.  He had been little noticed in the paper before that, other than being arrested for what sounds like public drunkenness.  My difficulty finding him in 1860 census suggests a bit of confusion on the part of the later writers, who might have mixed him up with Andrew Fosler.  I've had no luck so far in tracking down Andrew, who I suspect may have reverted to the alternate name Foster that sometimes is listed.  There is a fellow of that name and about the right age who lived in Menomonie, so maybe that's him.

Catherine Fosler got a brief bit of publicity in 1893, when it was reported that she was destitute and near death in her unheated shack.  Neighbors later denied this and the sheriff confirmed that she had been seen as usual, about town with her bucket of beer.  In one of these exchanges some rather harsh things were said:

Ouch.

Although I have yet to find an obit, Catherine Fosler apparently died in 1896.  Old Settlers usually got a bit more grace from the later citizens of Chippewa Falls, but her dubious marital status, her penchant for drinking, and general lack of success in the world were apparently held against her.  Well, as it says above, let her sufferings - of which she had quite a few, cover her faults.  Which were probably also numerous.

_____________________

* OLD TIMER may well have been Thomas McBean.  It's not as if there were that many people still alive at this point who had seen Chippewa Falls in the mid '50's, and McBean did like to write letters to the newpaper...

The Taverns of Old Chippewa Falls - Part One. French Town.

Wisconsin has a "Tavern Culture".  There's good and bad to this of course.  Some people get themselves in trouble with alcohol, and when we made the move from a shoe leather and horseshoes based transportation system you had the horrible issue of drunk drivers.  But those problems aside, its like the Pub Culture of England.  Its nice to have a local establishment where you can go, have a glass of beer, maybe something to eat, maybe watch a ball game.

Oddly, it is difficult to put taverns into their rightful place in local history.  They were on the fringe of respectability in the era of the Temperance Movement, and were mostly an all male domain.  The writers of newspaper columns and official histories darn well knew all the watering holes in town and had a plenty of stories, but its not as if they were going to put them down on paper for the whole world - their wives included - to see!

So as I try to bring the early days of Taverns in Chippewa Falls into focus I can say at the onset that this will be nothing more than a series of glimpses.  All historians are travelers from afar.  Not in distance but in time.  So think of me as a visitor strolling down the streets of a frontier community, peering into the windows of some fascinating buildings while trying to figure out what goes on in there!

Part One of this study has to begin in French Town.  In terms of anything other than a "company town" this was the original community here.  It is, or was, on the south side of the river.  As its name suggests this was an early French Canadian settlement, or more properly, French Canadian guys and their mostly Native American wives.  Nobody seems to know when it got started, and indeed, there have been fur trappers and such coming here since the 1700's.

But just about the earliest name and date I can put to the place happens to be part of our tipsy tale.

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Peter Rosseau was born in Canada in 1815.  He is said to have been in this part of the world early enough to help build the first mill in 1832.  The account suggests this was down stream a ways, but it's likely he was living in French Town in the 1830's, with the first sawmill here being built in 1837.  At what point does a house with a friendly owner, who'd put you up for the night and offer you a drink become a tavern/hotel?  The "Rosseau House" was certainly present in some form in the early 1850's, and I'd not rule out an earlier date.

Just about the first documentation I could find was an offhand reference to a rather unsavory murder.  A man named Wylie had a jealous streak.  When his wife walked by a saloon in French Town in 1857, something impolite was said.  The next day the man who had offended her was found with his head bashed in.  This sort of thing happened every few years in the French Town of the pre-Civil War era.  Wylie by the way was not charged, but decided it was prudent to skip town for parts unknown soon after this incident.

Another 1850's reference to French Town and Rosseau comes from a man who remembered the place when he came to the area in 1854.  "Peter Rosseau kept a boarding house there.  Rosseau was the king there and owned everything around."

The Rosseau House went for a bit of respectability later on.  An 1869 mention in the Chippewa Falls Democrat: "Peter Rosseau's well known hotel in French Town is now in full running order and ready to accommodate guests.  Bar and stable in connection with the house".

Curiously, this also appeared in 1869:

It's hard to make much of this.  Baumgarth was a dealer in Wines, Liquors, Cigars and Groceries over on the "respectable" side of the river.  He was also County Treasurer.  Mondelert must be a mis spelling of Mandelert, a common enough name in these parts to be a dead end.

I don't have any information on the origin of this photo, so all I can say is that some claim it is a picture of the Rosseau House.  Date unclear.

I've been a bit skeptical of this one in the past, but seeing the Harness Shop in the context of "Bar and Stable..." maybe its legit.   I could see that fancy overhang on the right side of the picture being a hotel/tavern.  My prior dismissal of a street light in an obscure back water of town is probably not valid.  I've found evidence of them being installed pretty early in more isolated spots.  The long, wide straight road.  Does it have a parallel on this 1874 illustration?

This image by the way is just about the only reliable plan of French Town.  There are three buildings big enough to be the Rosseau House.  I thought I had another one identified as a second known early tavern, but as it turns out, I was wrong...........

Peter Rosseau died in 1871.  Despite being one of the first settlers of our community he seems to have passed with little notice.  To be fair, newspapers of this time period are intermittently available and not very good.  I'm sure for his wake there was a serious bash at the Rosseau House.  Perhaps the apparent management changes in 1869 reflected poor health?  

At about the same time another man comes onto the saloon scene in French Town.  And despite turning up a generation later and only tending bar for a short while, we know a lot about Valentine Blum.  And no, you can't see his establishment on the 1874 view.

Valentine, or sometimes Valentin, Blum was born in Germany in 1844.  He moved to Wisconsin in 1860 and to Eau Claire in 1864.  His main work then became....river pilot!  He was the guy who steered big rafts of logs down the Chippewa River.  And evidently he was good at it.

In 1870 the census lists him as working at the mill in French Town.  And, starting in the spring of 1870, also running an establishment in French Town that combined saloon, restaurant, bowling alley and "lager beer fountain"!  

Sounds like a fun place.  I'd go there.  But it does not appear to have been a success.  It seems to have gone out of business in 1871.  In October of that year the owner, the fascinating E.R. Hantzsch, was advertising for a new tenant as the place had been "unoccupied for some time".  A month later it burned down.  These things happened often in places built out of and heated by, wood.  Maybe more often if there was insurance money involved.  Just sayin'.

After his year or so running a sort of 19th century entertainment center Blum went back to working in the saw mill.  1873 finds him sounding rather respectable, he was an election official in Eau Claire where he presumably lived.  But then there's that other matter.  Also in 1873 a batch of rowdy lumberjacks turned up in Chippewa Falls and "..got upon a right lively bender...".  The police who were sent in to quiet them down were met with fists, thrown objects and abuse.  They retreated for a time and things really got out of hand.  And it is reported that: "Valentine Blum, a resident of this place but now running the French Town mill was shot through the neck."  It was pointed out that he was "...taking no part in the affray", making him sound like an innocent bystander.

He survived, and on his death in 1896 was considered a highly respected Old Pioneer.

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Not sure when I'll have time to take on the Taverns of Old Chippewa Falls (other side of the river), but it might be a few weeks.  Busy times and a complicated subject.

 

The first Baseball in Chippewa Falls

Looks like spring is on the way.  And, although I no longer follow it closely, that means baseball.  I've been meaning for some time to write a bit about early baseball in my town of Chippewa Falls, and was pleased to find an Old Timers reminiscence in a 1905 newspaper that basically did my work for me.  It discusses the purported arrival of the game in 1867.  After a few preliminaries it begins:

Some prominent names on that list.  Coleman has a street named after him, Stillson a school.  Taylor ran the ferry across the river and was the fire chief.  

The comment was made that most of these men were former soldiers, and that they played without mitts or masks; with a somewhat larger ball that was thrown underhand.  The playing field was improvised, just an open space between Bridge and Bay streets.

The first game was refereed by a visiting agent for the Chicago Times who supposedly gave it a big write up in his paper and left with a long list of new subscribers.  The Chippewa team played regularly, almost every afternoon in fact.  But of course a challenger was not long in arriving:

We need to read between the lines a bit here.  It seems as if the local boys played a spirited style of baseball in all senses.  Old Mose Hebert has turned up a few times in my historical writings.  He ran one of the first and most patronized saloons in town.

In some fashion the Eau Claire team tried to get their Chippewa rivals drunk past their usual levels.  Alas, to no avail.  And it turned out to be the Eau Claire nine that came up on the short end of the score, and with the bigger headaches the next day!

That seems to have been the high point of the 1867 season.  Soon afterwards:

Baseball has been played every year since then, although these days it has a fair bit of competition from soccer and other sports.  A complete history of it would be a major undertaking and probably of limited interest.  But one final snippet.

I spend some time studying old maps.  On a "Birdseye View" from 1906 - one year after this historical rambling - you can see what I think was the first official ball field in town.  Its on the south side of town and is labeled "Athletic Park"

I can't say how early it went back, but I can report that a ball field was still there in the early 1990's when my son was playing.  It was seldom used, there being newer and better facilities around, and was tucked in behind the City Shops and yard waste dump.   The field is now gone, with the last remnant - a disused concessions stand - finally being removed just a few years ago.

History Underfoot

I'm doing another community ed talk next month.  It's called History Underfoot, and will cover the archaeological record of our town.  If you are local and interested, contact: Cardinal Community Learning Center.  I'm told sign up is such we'll be moving to a bigger space.

Of course a place that was started in the 1840's and was a boom town during the lumbering era will have History, but much less that what I encounter on my annual archaeology jaunts to work Roman sites in England.  But that does not make it less interesting, and it is fascinating to compare early accounts, early images, and what the record of artifacts actually shows you.

Did lumberjacks coming to town really blow their wages on booze?  How early do you start finding evidence of women and children in the community, and what would that consist of?

It's all "underfoot" at least in places where newer buildings and public works have not destroyed it.

In earlier days I spent a fair bit of time excavating trash pits, cisterns, and yes, outhouses to see what had been tossed heedlessly or dropped and regretted.  

In the course of prepping the talk I looked at, for the first time in decades, pictures of my friends and I circa mid 1980's, happily digging away.  It's interesting stuff.  

Ah, good times, good times.  So, could my 68 year old self still grab a shovel and go straight down six or seven feet?  Heck yes.  I in fact still have the short handled shovel seen in the above vintage pics.  It's been repaired a few times, but still sits patiently in the corner of the garage just in case......

Murder in Old Chippewa Falls - Part Five, Was Justice Served?

If you are coming to this story late, here's the tale of Murder in Old Chippewa Falls from the start:

Part One - The Wrong Corpse

Part Two - The Suspect

Part Three - Arrest

Part Four - Escape and Recapture

Felix Fourboul Junior was convicted of second degree manslaughter and sentenced to seven years in the State Penitentiary.  He was released after four.  

It seems a light punishment for patricide, and the matter of escaping from jail seems to have just been ignored.  Some newspaper accounts actually sounded a bit admiring!  From time to time there were reports on his life in prison, as in this short bit from 1915.

I'm not sure why the lesser charge was pursued instead of say, murder.  Perhaps the account of a fight between father and son, along with the injuries Felix came away with, gave doubt as to premeditation and motive.  And who knows, perhaps Felix Senior was not as nice a guy as he was portrayed.  In a small town people know such things.

As to the other characters in our little tale....

Mrs. Fourboul vanishes from view.  From an off hand remark by her step son it sounds as if she was from Canada.  With poor health and no remaining ties to Chippewa Falls I suspect she went back there.

As mentioned earlier Orrin Fuller, the apparent brains behind the jail break, was also never heard from again.  He must have been a resourceful fellow.  His would be a story well worth the knowing and the telling.

Mrs. Alice Bertrand also gets no further mention in the local papers.  Bertrand is a common enough name in this town, so perhaps the various other Mrs. Bertrands were just being precise when they always listed their first initial.  Or, given the allegations, perhaps they wanted it known that they were certainly not THAT Mrs. Bertrand.  There is an Alice Bertrand, nee Germain, buried in Chippewa Falls.  She lived from 1877 - 1971.  This would make her 28 at the time of these events, so the servant girl might have been onto something with her suspicions.  

So what ever became of Felix Fourboul Junior?  I wish I could tell you.  I find no burial record in either the US or Canada.  Newspaper archives are always hit and miss, but essentially I find no mention of a Felix Fourboul anywhere in North America following the events of this story.  Its an unusual enough name that changing it to something simpler, and ditching connection to a sordid past, would only be sensible.  Essentially Felix did his time, then appeared at the offices of the Chippewa Independent on October 20, 1915.  He paid the bill for the paper he had been receiving while imprisoned, walked out the door and vanished to history.  As it happens, his is only the second most remarkable escape from the Chippewa Falls Jail, but that's a story for another day.

And Felix Senior?  He also makes a final appearance in 1915.  After a fashion.  In an article describing the need for a new courthouse much is made of the crowded and dilapidated state of things.  I don't know what to add to this quote:

Presumably his mortal remains were eventually interred in a pauper's grave.  Perhaps his final resting place is under one of the small, unmarked stones in the cemetery associated with the County Poor Farm.

Murder in Old Chippewa Falls - Part Four, Escape, Capture and Trial

Let's continue the story of Felix Fourboul Jr. and Senior, and Murder in Old Chippewa Falls.  For those coming in late:

Part One - The Wrong Corpse

Part Two - The Suspect

Part Three - Arrest

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When Sheriff Lund turned up at the Chippewa County jail on Monday November 4th, 1905, one of the inmates - who was also awaiting trial for murder - asked him if he'd seen the big hole in the wall.  Indeed, the jail now had a new exit.  What it did not have were Felix Fourboul Jr. or Orrin Fuller.  

Evidently somebody had slipped them a hacksaw, possibly through an opened window.  Over an undetermined period of time the duo had sawed through a bar to the extent that it could not only be dislodged - giving them access to an outside wall - but then used to chisel away at the stone of a window sill and create a hole big enough for them to get through.  Hmmm....maybe this is why Felix seemed so cheery when he appeared in court two weeks earlier!

Fuller was felt to be the brains of the operation.  But in another puzzling detail, he was in jail only for a relatively minor forgery charge and would have soon been released.  Outside help was strongly suspected.

Despite an intensive search neither man was located.  Indeed, from the lack of mentions in later years of the paper I suspect Orrin Fuller got clean away.  It was easier to vanish 120 years ago.  Being a forger probably was a big help.

The trail went cold for years....

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There were of course plenty of rumors.  One early suspicion was that Felix had gone north to the Indian Reservation where he would be protected.  One commentor said that any attempt to take him from there would be met "..with a Winchester...".  I used to work near the LCO Reservation.  I'm inclined to agree with this idea.

In actuality Felix Fourboul wandered here and there.  Through North Dakota and up into Canada.  Eventually he ended up in the small town of Sioux Rapids Iowa.  Going by the name "John Compton" he used his previous experience working at the brickyard to gain employ at a similar plant that made brick and tile.  He was "hard working,  industrious and of good habits".  But evidently greed got the better of him.

The account in the paper is a little vague, but it sounds as if Felix still harbored thoughts that his father had done him wrong financially.  So he wrote to the Executor of Felix Senior's estate asking for any remaining money.  As it happens, this was John Therriault, his former employer who knew him well.  This started the wheels of justice moving, and through the cooperation of the postal and law enforcement folks in Sioux Rapids, Felix was apprehended on July 18th, 1910.  He cooled his heels a while in their local jail, where it was said that "He was visited by several women and girls who shed copious tears over his hard fate."  Again with the Bad Boy allure....

Fourboul was returned to Chippewa Falls where he went on trial in January of 1911.  On the 18th of that month he was found guilty and sentenced.   

But was justice done?

The Chippewa County Courthouse as it appeared in 1911:

Murder in Old Chippewa Falls - Part Three, Arrest

 Continuing the saga of Felix Fourboul, Jr. and Sr.  For the earlier installments:

The Wrong Corpse!         The Suspect

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With discovery of the body, Felix Fourboul Jr. was immediately re-arrested.  The evidence against him was strong.  He'd already pled guilty to stealing money from his father.  He claimed they'd later met near a structure variously described as The Stand Pipe or The Water Tank.  Probably this was the water tower on the East Hill.  A struggle ensued.  Supposedly a grief stricken elder Fourboul went away from it to an unknown fate.  While the younger man went to his boarding house and hid until full darkness, to avoid having to answer questions about his minor injuries and the blood on his clothes.  Here's a map showing the relevant locations, including where the body was found months later.

The decomposed state of the body made identification difficult, but based on clothing, tattoos and a repair of one shoe, it was determined that this was indeed Felix Fourboul Senior, and that the cause of death was blunt trauma to the head.  One bit of testimony that raises questions was when the very perceptive servant girl at the boarding house was asked if she thought Felix Jr. was having "intimate relations" with his land lady, Mrs. Alice Bertrand.  She thought that was likely...

The Coroner's Inquest laid out the facts quite clearly.

Felix Junior would certainly be facing trial in this case in short order.

Or would he?