Highlights Archives
The Magazine Heads North for the Summer
The summer issue of the Wisconsin Magazine of History explores Wisconsin's rich maritime history with stunning underwater photos, details the rise of the northwoods as a premier vacation destination, examines John Bordner's contribution to the preservation of our natural resources through the Wisconsin Land Economic Inventory, and re-creates the daring and dangerous lives of the men who worked in the logging industry.
Underwater archaeologist Tamara Thomsen shares her remarkable photographs in "Underwater Treasures: Preserving Wisconsin's Maritime Heritage." Wisconsin waters hold some of the world's most impressive collections of 18th- and 19th-century shipwrecks — more than 700 ships in all. Many of these wrecks have been wonderfully preserved by the cold, fresh water of Lakes Superior and Michigan. The Society's Maritime Preservation and Archaeology program documents and preserves the state's shipwrecks, and has created the Maritime Trails program to encourage divers, snorkelers, boaters and tourists to visit many of the wrecks.
National Forest Service historian Aaron Shapiro takes readers to the northwoods in "Up North on Vacation: Tourism and Resorts in Wisconsin's North Woods, 1900-1945." At the end of the 19th century, as the logging industry waned and farming proved difficult in the northern cutover lands, entrepreneurs moved to buy the unused land and create resorts on the region's many beautiful lakes. Tourism accelerated in the early 20th century as increasing numbers of middle class families had the money and time to travel. Northwoods resorts worked tirelessly to promote the scenery, recreational opportunities, and health benefits of northern vacations. View an 1875 guide to some of these "healthful" resorts. They created advertising pamphlets and literature, roadside signs and mailing lists, and had even hired a full-time publicist who established a prominent promotional office in Chicago by the 1930s. The state of Wisconsin itself entered the promotional arena in 1936, creating the Recreational Publicity section in the Department of Conservation which has grown and evolved into today's Wisconsin Department of Tourism.
It was the logging industry that first brought people to northern Wisconsin, and author Richard Cornell retells the story of an old tragedy that marked the end of the lumbering era in Wisconsin. In "Knights of the Spike-Soled Shoe: Lumbering on the Chippewa," readers relive a significant event in lumbering's colorful history, which began in the 1830s and came to a close in the 1910s.
John Koch, a retired government documents librarian from the University of Wisconsin-Madison's Steenbock Memorial Library, arranged to have nearly all of the Wisconsin Land Economic Inventory maps posted on the Web. In "Touching Every Forty: John Bordner and the Wisconsin Land Economic Inventory," Koch explores the life of Rusk county farmer John Bordner. Bordner surveyed much of Wisconsin between 1928 and 1947, creating detailed maps of the terrain and economic features that have proved invaluable to zoning and the future smart use and preservation of Wisconsin's natural resources. You can search the Wisconsin Land Economic Inventory maps for your own community. Use the legend to decode the buildings, plants and other natural resources that Bordner and his crew documented in their surveys of the 1930s and '40s. You can also go further back in time to view the maps and field notes from the original 19th-century survey of Wisconsin, or read the memoirs of two surveyors, Franklin Hatheway and John Brink, as they recount their experiences in the field.
The "Wisconsin Magazine of History" is a benefit of Wisconsin Historical Society membership. Individual issues are available at the Wisconsin Historical Museum online store and at bookstores across the state.
:: Posted June 14, 2006
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