Wisconsin 101

OBJECT HISTORY: Log-Marking Hammer

Between the 1840s and the 1890s, logs meant money. Wisconsin had a large supply of trees. Lumber mills made money by cutting down trees. Logging was one of the largest industries in Wisconsin. There were more than 450 lumber camps across Wisconsin. If we study this log-marking hammer and think about the people that used…

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September 10, 2020

Read more about the article OBJECT HISTORY: Fiddle

A fiddle from a lumberjack camp. Image courtesy of Ron Dennis.

Lumber Industry / Music, Theatre & Cinema / Industry / Art, Sport & Entertainment / Object Histories / Ethnicity & Identity / Manufacturing & Trade / 1877-1900

OBJECT HISTORY: Fiddle

As the lumber industry flourished in Wisconsin beginning in the 1840s, immigrants from all over Europe and Canada came to live and work in the Northwoods of Wisconsin. All winter, men called lumberjacks would cut down pine trees, preparing the timber to be used as building material, or sometimes to be turned into pulp or…

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September 10, 2020

Industry / Lumber Industry / Medford / Object Histories / Manufacturing & Trade / 1877-1900 / Region 1 - North West / Nature & Environment / 1900-1918 / Taylor County / Bark Spud

OBJECT HISTORY: Bark Spud

The bark spud is an iron tool used to remove bark from cut timber. Most bark spuds have a steel head with a hard wooden handle. The head is rounded or dish-shaped and has one cutting edge. The sharp wedge on the end of the bark spud slides between bark and wood on a log…

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September 10, 2020

Industry / Wade House Museum / Lumber Industry / Greenbush / Object Histories / 1848-1877 / Manufacturing & Trade / Nature & Environment / Sheboygan County / Region 5 - Center East

OBJECT HISTORY: The Muley Sawmill

If you grew up in Wisconsin, you may be familiar with some of Wisconsin’s forests like the Black River forest, Menominee forest, or the Chequamegon-Nicolet forest. For hundreds of years these forests have provided Wisconsin with lumber used for building homes, factories,…

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September 10, 2017

Read more about the article The Lumber Industry in Northern Wisconsin

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.

Industry / Lumber Industry / Related Stories / Langlade County / 1848-1877 / Manufacturing & Trade / Nature & Environment / 1877-1900 / 1900-1918 / Region 2 - North East / 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