|
| |
Edmund Willis My Town 1949
 |
Edmund Willis is the son of Gladys and Philip Willis. He
graduated from Pembine High School in 1950. This item (along with Edmund's picture) was
published in the 1949 “Sapling” Pembine school year book.
Edmund Willis whose story, "Pembine, My Town," was chosen by
the county to be broadcast over the Marinette station as a part of the National
Educational program and was later chosen by the State Historical Society to be printed in
the January 1949 issue of the State’s Historical magazine, Badger History.
PEMBINE, MY TOWN
By Edmund Willis
Edmund Willis, the author of this story, wrote us that, “I am a
Sophomore in the Pembine High School. Last fall my English teacher, Mrs. Amy La
Fevre, asked me to write the history of Pembine to be sent to Mrs. Hazel Hocking of the
Marinette County Normal. It was our contribution to the County history program that
was being broadcast over the air from the Marinette station.
Mrs. Hocking wrote telling that she liked my history and that it would
be broadcast. On the day of the broadcast our school took time off from our school
work to listen.
A few days later I received another letter from Mrs. Hocking suggesting
that I revise and rewrite the history and illustrate it with the pictures of
Pembine’s growth. It was suggested that I send it to you for consideration as
to whether or not it could be published in the BADGER HISTORY magazine.
It has taken a long time to collect the pictures and have reprints made
of them. At last I have the history finished with pictures and map. I am
sending it to you for your approval. I hope that you will like it.
If you publish it may I know when so that I could buy several copies of
the magazine, and if possible could the pictures be returned to me?
Yes, Edmund, we like it. Pembine, My Town, will be an inspiration too, we
are
sure, to other boys and girls to dig up the
history of their own home town. We regret
that lack of space prevented us from using all
your fine pictures.
PEMBINE, MY TOWN
By Edmund Willis
This is the story of my town. It is one of the towns in Wisconsin
which grew up during the lumbering boom and the days of the colorful lumberjack.
The name, Pembine, was derived from that of the river which flows
nearby, Peme Bon Won. Peme Bon Won, which is not an Indian term, came partly from
the Indian word for crooked river Peam-Ah-Wan-Seba. Peme Bon Won is just a name that
was put together from: the Indian term for crooked river; the French “Bon” for
good; and broken English “Won” which is one.
I will give a brief review of the various forms of government which at
one time or another ruled over the territory which is now my town. In the early days
of the state, Marinette and Oconto Counties were one. About the year 1876 when
Marinette County was created, there were only three units of government in the county.
They were the city of Marinette, Menakaunee and Peshtigo, of which we were a part.
Later Amberg was our governing authority followed for a few years by Niagara.
By an act of the state legislature in 1913 Pembine township was created. This
was just thirty-three years after an Indian trader, Warren Buckman, who was the first
white man to establish a settlement, erected his trading post here. He operated two
other posts in the forests of the northern part of the county too.
The Milwaukee and Northern railroad had been completed as far north as
Ellis Junction, thirty miles to the south. In 1884, a surveying crew was sent north.
The late Charles Dahl of Amberg, a member of this crew, determined to locate the
trading post and use it for headquarters while there. Upon locating it he found it
to be filled with Indians. He calmly informed them to get out as five-hundred
soldiers were on their way. The hoax worked. The red men soon gathered up
their belongings and fled into the woods.
Two years later, in 1886, the rails were laid through Pembine to Iron
Mountain. Closely following, in 1887, the Soo Line made a junction here with the
former railroad. It was then that the town really began to take shape. The
railroad workers erected their log cabins and several saloons were built.
John Lundgren, the first permanent settler here, was a contractor who
helped build the railroad. Beautiful Lake Lundgren, which took his name, was very
near his homestead.
The logging companies bought a large share of the vast virgin forests
of White and Norway pine. With the coming of the railroads logging operations were
soon in full swing. The three logging scenes pictured here show a steam
caterpillar in use hauling, in the one scene, five loads. Not many other such
machines were in use near Pembine. The second picture shows a load, as much as
12.000 board feet, piled with logs. Loads such as the above were possible only
because of the ice-roads in use.
Imagine yourself getting off one of the early trains and landing on the
platform of Pembine, we’ll say in the year 1901. You could get lodging at any
of the three hotels. In the morning you would set out for one of the large logging
camps. The William Holmes and Son; the Sawyer Goodman; the Hamilton and Merryman;
the Butler and Meuller and Kirby and Carpenter; and the Cook and Bullit were but several
of the largest concerns which operated in and around the town. The third picture
shows one of the many large logging camps near Pembine.
These companies employed hundreds of men in the woods each season.
It was said that for several winters at the peak of operations there were close to
two thousand lumberjacks employed in the camps around Pembine. It was among men like
these that many of the legends of the mythical Paul Bunyan and his daring exploits
originated, as men gathered in their bunkhouses at the end of the day.
William Holmes and Son, the largest of the companies here, privately
owned two hundred miles of their own railroads. They used five privately owned
locomotives to haul their large loads of logs to the Menominee River at Miscauno Island.
Now there is a golf course there owned by the Four Seasons’ Club. The other
branches of the land extended west of Pembine in various directions.
The river drive was an annual event of extreme importance to the
companies, occurring, for the most part, every spring. The timber, that was cut in
the winter was piled in readiness for the spring thaw. Pine, by the millions of
board feet, was floated on the Menominee River to Marinette, in such river drives.
If for any reason a company’ logs did not get in on the drive, the company would lose
thousands of dollars.
Of course all of the rivers had log dams which supplied extra water
during the drives. Pictures show the log chute built at Long Slide Falls on the
north branch of the Peme Bon Won River to keep the logs from jamming in the descent.
Many of the dams near Pembine were operated by the Menominee River Boom Company.
This company built the first warehouse at Pembine. They also had two dams on
the south branch of the Peme Bon Won. The remains of both may still be seen.
The most spectacular of the log dams was Pemenee Dam just below Grand Island on the
Menominee, near here. This dam, almost a quarter of a mile long, had sixteen gates
eight of which were for sluicing logs and the other eight for spillways to let out water.
Part of this dam is still in evidence.
The last virgin timber owned by one of the original companies was cut
by Sawyer Goodman Company in 1942.
John Lundgren, mentioned above, owned much land around Lake Lundgren.
He was one of the few who practiced selective cutting. Many of the fine big
pines which once covered this country may be seen on land owned by his descendants near
the lake. A summer camp for underprivileged children has been established there.
With the coming of the railroads and the many lumberjacks, several
unusual characters sprang up. Some of them had the following names:
Buffalo Bill, a Norwegian sailor who never cut his hair or his beard; Alcohol Pete;
Claypipe Willy, Timothy “Wild Cat” Cassidy; Hinky Dink; Harry, the bum barber;
Charlie the Bear, and others. The heavy shoes of the lumberjacks resounded on the
board sidewalks as they came into town over the week end. Fist fights were
common. The local police had their hands full.
When there were still a number of Indians traveling through town it was
not uncommon to see them bringing in saddles of venison and baskets of blueberries.
Those were packed in barrels and baskets and shipped to Chicago.
One Indian trail which passed through town came from west of Armstrong
Creek. This continued east all the way to Harris, Michigan, which is near Escanaba.
Another of their trails skirted Lake Lundgren and is still used by present day
vacationers.
In 1890, school district number 18, which included Pembine, purchased a
tract of land and built a one room school. In 1903 a high school was built across
town. This was where school was conducted until 1934 when the new modern building
was constructed. About 1915 the first “bus” service was started, a covered
wagon in summer and a sleigh in winter. We now have four modern school bus routes.
All travel other than that of the passenger trains was by horse and
buggy over the various wagon trails. The first automobile seen on our streets was a
one cylinder “brush” driven by Andrew Redeman from Amberg in a
two-hours’-long journey in 1912.
During the years before extensive travel by automobile, the railroads
furnished the main means of transportation. Freight and passenger business was very
heavy through this junction. At the peak of business as many as thirty freights
passed through every twenty-four hours. Later, when passenger travel was the
heaviest, at least ten passenger trains a day were in use.
The Soo Line for many years maintained a roundhouse here which held two
locomotives. In connection with it was a Y for turning the trains. A
connecting track between the two railroads was used when the iron mines at Iron Mountain,
Michigan, were running full blast. Much of the ore came through on the way to
Gladstone, Michigan. The Soo Line also kept an ice house here to replenish
refrigerator cars and a track scales for weighing newly loaded cars.
By 1920 many of the modern conveniences were just coming to Pembine.
Four years before a new community hall was built. The roads were much
improved and cars were seen more frequently. It was in 1920 that electricity was
first available to the residents. Mr. George Robinson installed a Diesel powered
light plant and put up wires. Only night service was offered because lights were the
only appliances then. About this time, too, there was a doctor here and later a
dentist.
The annual Fourth of July celebrations were always big events for the
townspeople. The proprietor of each establishment along Main Street built wooden
frames and mounted evergreen trees upon them. A large fireworks display and contests
were staged.
The Works Project Administration and the Civilian Conservation Corps
did much to help restore part of the forests here by their plantings. Near Kremlin many
hundreds of acres have been reforested. This is a fine example of what can be done
to reforest a place cut over or destroyed by fire. Pembine’s school forest too
is both a means of revenue and a place to study biology and many other things.
The great days of lumbering are over now. The main industry here,
other than farming, is the manufacturing of the Staso Milling Company located at Kremlin.
This company makes roofing granules from the special type of trap rock known as
Pre-Cambrian greenstone which is found here.
Pembine is not only a railroad junction but an intersection of two
federal highways. U.S. 141 runs north and south, U.S. 8 runs west.
My story shows how a thriving small town, such as is known to many of
us in Wisconsin, was carved out of a vast virgin forest in the land of sky blue waters.
|