Langlade County

Langlade County / Related Stories / Manufacturing & Trade / Region 2 - North East / 1920-1940 / Transportation & Tourism / Mepps Fishing Lure

Building a Tourism Industry in Northern Wisconsin

Equipment manufacturers played a major role in developing fishing as a part of the tourism industry in northern Wisconsin. Each year nearly two million people fish in Wisconsin’s waterways. They catch about 72 million fish of various species. Fishing lures expanded in…

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May 24, 2018

Lumber rafts on the Wisconsin River near the Wisconsin Dells, c. 1886. Photograph by H.H. Bennett, courtesy of the Wisconsin Historical Society, Image ID 6314.

Home Furnishings / Clothing & Fashion / Langlade County / Related Stories / Manufacturing & Trade / Nature & Environment / 1880-1900 / 1900-1920 / 1920-1940 / 1940-1960 / 1960-1980 / 1980-2000 / 2000-2020 / 2020-2040 / Bark Spud

The Lumber Industry in Northern Wisconsin

Prior to the Civil War, most of northern Wisconsin was inhabited by the Menominee and Ojibwe Indians and transient fur traders of European origin. Demand for wood in Chicago and Milwaukee after the Civil War brought lumbermen to the north woods. Initially,…

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February 1, 2016

Bowling featured on this 1964 cover of a special issue of Life Magazine devoted to Japan. Click to enlarge.

Art, Sport & Entertainment / Antigo / Langlade County / Related Stories / Global Connections / Manufacturing & Trade / 1960-1980 / Vulcan Bowling Pin

Bowling in Japan

In 1964, a representative of Japanese company Sanko Trading visited the Vulcan Corporation, a bowling-pin manufacturer based in Antigo, Wisconsin. Sanko was seeking a deal for exclusive rights to import bowling pins to Japan. At the time, Vulcan didn’t think much of the…

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February 1, 2016

Inspecting pins coming off the Vulcan assembly line, 1954. Photograph courtesy of the Langlade County Historical Society.

Art, Sport & Entertainment / Antigo / Clothing & Fashion / Langlade County / Related Stories / Manufacturing & Trade / Nature & Environment / 1900-1920 / Region 2 - North East / 1920-1940 / 1940-1960 / 1960-1980 / 1980-2000 / Vulcan Bowling Pin

The Vulcan Corporation

The Vulcan Corporation was founded in 1909 in Ohio as a manufacturer of wooden shoe lasts. The business really took off once they developed a new shoe last turning lathe. In 1919, Vulcan started a plant in Crandon, Wisconsin, which made “rough-turned”—or unfinished—lasts.…

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February 1, 2016

European immigrants boarding a steamer to the United States. Harper’s Weekly, November 7, 1874.

Home Furnishings / Antigo / Ethnicity & Identity / Clothing & Fashion / Langlade County / Related Stories / Global Connections / 1880-1900 / Politics, Society & Government / 1900-1920 / 1920-1940 / CCC Pillow Sham / 1940-1960 / 1960-1980 / 1980-2000 / 2000-2020

An Immigrant Family in Rural Wisconsin

Rose Mary Drab was born in southeastern Langlade County on April 23 of 1913. Her family had settled there the year before on a small farm south of Antigo. Originally named Drabowski, Rose Mary’s parents left Hungary for Chicago a few years…

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October 1, 2015

Civilian Conservation Corps Camp 657 temporary barracks at Summit Lake, WI, c. 1933. Photograph courtesy of the Langlade County Historical Society.

Home Furnishings / Elcho / Education / Langlade County / Related Stories / Nature & Environment / Politics, Society & Government / Region 2 - North East / 1920-1940 / CCC Pillow Sham

Daily Life in the Civilian Conservation Corps

The young men who lived and worked at Camp 657 were typical of Civilian Conservation Corps enrollees throughout the country during the 1930s. The first enrollees were between 18 and 25 years of age, were unmarried and physically fit, and were willing to allot most of their earnings to their families. In 1937, with the CCC’s popularity growing, Congress expanded the age range to 17 to 28 and later extended enrollment to World War I veterans.

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October 1, 2015