Odd Wisconsin Archive
The philosopher Heraclitus claimed that you can never step in the same river twice, but his logic apparently didn't apply to Wisconsin lumberjacks in need of a drink.
The trees of the Wisconsin River pinery were among the first harvested in the state. As early as 1853, 20 mills running more than 100 saws were floating 70 million board feet of lumber down the river each year to St. Louis and other markets. These makeshift rafts were piloted by some of the toughest lumberjacks, called "river pigs" by their contemporaries. The work was hard and dangerous with injury and death never far away, as these photographs by H.H. Bennett show.
One night on a river drive, about 1850, when the lumber industry in Wisconsin was still young, a raft piloted by a river pig called Buckskin Brown pulled up to the shore at Sauk City. Its crew was tired and thirsty and, "being without money," (a witness recalled), "they carried a bunch of shingles up to the saloon and offered them in lieu of cash." The saloon keeper agreed to the deal, saying, "All right, just carry them out into the back yard."
One round of drinks was not enough for the lumberjacks, though, so two of the men came in again at the front door with a bunch of shingles "which they were told to carry out to the back yard" in exchange for a second round. As the evening wetn on, so did the exchange of shingles for drinks, until the loggers finally said goodnight and wobbled back down to the river bank.
Buckskin Brown later said, "some of the boys claimed they sold that bunch of shingles eleven times and then carried it back with them to the raft. He said he didn't know how many times they did sell it, but he knew he had all the whiskey he wanted." There's no record of what the tavern-keeper said in the morning, but we might not be able to publish it, anyway.
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:: Posted in on June 6, 2008
Did You Know?
The Wisconsin Historical Museum is currently featuring Odd Wisconsin objects in the latest exhibit: Odd Wisconsin. And don't miss the Odd Wisconsin book by author Erika Janik published by the Wisconsin Historical Society Press.
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