Wisconsin Rapids, Wisconsin
Wisconsin Rapids is a city in and the county seat of Wood County, Wisconsin, United States, along the Wisconsin River. The population was 18,877 at the 2020 census. It is a principal city of the Marshfield–Wisconsin Rapids micropolitan statistical area, which includes all of Wood County and had a population of 74,207 in 2020.
The city was established in the late 1830s as the series of rapids along the Wisconsin River provided good sites for water-driven sawmills, and nearby forests held pine lumber to be sawed and floated down the river. After the lumber dwindled, the waterpower drove electric generators and various other enterprises–particularly paper mills.
History
Establishment
The Menominee claimed the big rapids in the forest prior to European settlement, with Ojibwe and Ho-Chunk lands nearby. They called the place "Ah-dah-wah-gam" meaning "Two-sided Rapids" because the rapids were split by a large chunk of rock. In 1836, the Menominee ceded this land, along with more land to the east, to the U.S. in the Treaty of the Cedars. This particular land cession was a strip spanning three miles on either side of the Wisconsin River, starting at Point Basse and reaching upstream to Big Bull Falls – the future site of Wausau. The U.S. negotiators pressed the Menominee for this strip before the surrounding lands because it held prime pine timber and was within easy reach of the river.In 1832, Daniel Whitney had built a sawmill downstream, across from modern Nekoosa. Whitney's operation demonstrated the feasibility of rafting lumber to markets downstream. When the treaty of 1836 made the strip along the Wisconsin River available, lumbermen rushed in exploring for mill sites, and by 1839 two water-powered sawmills were running at the future Wisconsin Rapids, when a surveyor described the site as a "succession of rapids & chutes called the Grand Rapids", with two "extensive lumbering establishments thereon owned by Bloomer, Chamberlain, Adams, Strong, Hill & others, now in operation."
The first house in Rapids was a small log cabin built by H. McCutcheon, a cook for Strong and Bloomer's mill. The second came soon after when Nelson Strong built a frame house for himself with boards sawed at his mill - the first frame house in Rapids, built in 1838. Rapids' first church services were conducted by visiting Catholic priests in 1837. In 1842 a Methodist missionary J.S. Hurlburt began ministering too, visiting homes by foot or horseback. He also started a primary school in a log cabin in the early 1840s. The first hotel came in 1843 and the first blacksmith shop in 1844. A post office named Grand Rapids opened in 1845, with mail carried in once a week. Pioneer J.L. Cotey later wrote an account of the early sawmill town as it stood in 1846. He described a community of "130 males and 17 females," with businesses along a slough crossed by a temporary slab bridge, frame homes and log houses and barns, picturesque pine trees, a sawmill with two up-and-down saws, boarding houses and saloons for the workers at the mills, and a stopping place for loggers headed upstream. Across the river on the west side was another sawmill, three frame houses for the men who worked in the sawmill, two shingle shanties, and a block house. At that time supplies were hauled overland to Rapids by ox and wagon from Galena, which took three weeks.
The business of this ramshackle wilderness outpost was lumber. In the 6-mile strip along the river, lumberjacks working from winter logging camps felled the prized pine trees. They limbed the trees and cut them into 12 to 18-foot logs, then skidded the logs with oxen and horses to rivers and stream banks where they were stored until spring. During spring floods the logs were driven downstream, and, if all went well, captured in booms of the sawmills at Grand Rapids. The sawmills pulled the logs in and sawed them into boards. Some of the boards went into drying piles for local use, but the majority were destined for distant markets like Portage, Dubuque, and St. Louis. These were stacked along the river, then bound into 16 by 16-foot "cribs" of boards. When the river was running well six or seven of these cribs were joined into a "rapids piece" - a 100-foot long, flexible raft suited to running the rocky rapids of the upper Wisconsin River. Of those rapids, Grand Rapids was one of the most dangerous. Before today's placid, flat reservoir, the river surged through a series of rapids a mile long, and rafts had to run when the water was high. In early years that passage was aided by wing dams to focus the current; in later years dams across the river provided chutes for the rafts to plunge down, with spectators watching from the bank. The rafts that succeeded in passing the rapids regrouped at Point Basse and joined three of the rapids-piece rafts side by side into a "Wisconsin raft" for the rest of the Wisconsin River, which was less turbulent. Then at the Mississippi the Wisconsin rafts were joined into huge "Mississippi rafts" for the final leg to Dubuque or St. Louis.
In 1848 another treaty with Indians opened most of northern Wisconsin to loggers and settlers, which allowed access to much more timber outside the three-mile strip along the river. In 1856 Grand Rapids became the county seat of the new Wood County when it was split out of Portage County. The town was growing. A promotional booklet in 1857 reported Grand Rapids' population at about 1,000. It reported eight sawmills from Grand Rapids down to Point Basse, plus six steam-powered mills - all producing 19 million board feet of lumber per year, plus around 42 million shingles. Rapids consisted of 187 buildings including homes and a Catholic church, two public schools, a drug store, five general stores, six variety stores, five taverns, two saloons, two lawyers, three blacksmiths, two carpenter shops, two shoe shops, a wagonmakers' shop, two tailors, a cabinet maker, a bakery, two lawyers and two doctors. In 1857 the first newspaper began publication - the Wood County Reporter. Mrs. Clarice Arpin later gave her impression of the town when she arrived about 1859: "a rough lumbering town, filled with lumberjacks who engaged in many drunken brawls, and Indians, who when they had an over-supply of firewater yelled and danced in the middle of the streets."
The first plat of part of the Rapids had been made in 1847, with others following. Growth slowed during the American Civil War, when some of the workers left to fight in the Union Army. A bad flood in 1864 and a fire in the business district in 1865 were other setbacks. In 1869 Grand Rapids incorporated as a city. Its first order of business was to require a license to sell liquor. Shortly after, city officials were elected, including Dr. G.F. Witter to "doctor city poor for the sum of $75 per year." A ban on selling liquor on Sunday was passed, and a ban on running hogs loose in the city.
Centralia, a somewhat separate community on the west side of the river, had been developing too. George Kline Sr. had built a sawmill there around 1839. By 1855 Centralia had two sawmills, a gristmill, a general store, a tavern, and houses and shacks. In the 1850s a ferry carried people across the river between Centralia and Grand Rapids. In the 1860s a wooden bridge was added across the river. A "town of Centralia" was formalized in 1856, perhaps to avoid annexation by Grand Rapids. In 1874 Centralia was incorporated as a city.
Late 19th century
The railroad boom burst upon Rapids in the 1870s. In 1870 the nearest railroad was at New Lisbon, with mail carried from there daily by evening stage. In 1872 the Green Bay and Lake Pepin Railroad reached Rapids itself, heading west. In 1873 the Wisconsin Valley Railway arrived from Tomah. The Port Edwards, Centralia & Northern was built by local interests in 1890, and the Chicago & Northwestern line to Marshfield in 1901.With the arrival of the railroads, the transport of lumber from the area began to shift from the unpredictable and dangerous river to more reliable railcars, which could carry the lumber in more directions than downstream. The last rafts of lumber passed through in 1888, from the sawmill at Biron heading downriver for St. Louis.
In June 1880 an unusually high flood of the river forced many businesses to evacuate their stock to higher ground, and in some cases tie buildings down with ropes. Nevertheless, several buildings were swept into the river and one hardware store partner drowned while trying to save his goods. By that year Grand Rapids had 1,367 people and Centralia 800. As pine timber ran out in the vicinity of Grand Rapids, manufacturers took root in Centralia. Around 1880, the big ones were Robb's machine shops, Mackinnon & Griffith's hub and spoke factory, Wharton Brothers' planing mill, Haertel's chair factory, Bremmer's machine shop and foundry, a flouring mill, Moore's wagon works, and Lyon Bros. shingle works. In 1887 the first pulp mill was built, which would develop into Centralia Pulp and Paper.
Paper-making was a big new industry for Rapids. Paper had been made over in the Fox River valley for decades, but not on the Wisconsin River. Around 1885 some of the mills at Rapids - formerly sawmills and gristmills - began converting to pulp-grinding and paper-making. By 1902, after many acquisitions, J.D. Witter and Nels Johnson had organized the many mills and water rights under one corporation - Consolidated Water Power Company. They decided to focus their resources on paper-making. The founders both died shortly after, leaving Witter's son-in-law George Mead to manage the new enterprise. The main plant began with 14 pulp-grinders and two papermaking machines, producing 50 tons of paper per day.
Other diversification of the industrial base away from lumber occurred from 1880 to 1920, including the Grand Rapids Brick Company, the Grand Rapids Foundry Co., Wisconsin Ice Machine Co., Prentiss-Wabers Stove Co., Oberback Brothers furniture company, Badger Box & Lumber, Grand Rapids Brewing, Samson Canning, Citizens Factory Company, Blommer Ice Cream, and Chambers Creamery. These last four resulted from farmers settling in the surrounding cut-over lands, which were also transitioning from the logging era.
Modern public services began to take shape around the turn of the century. Fire departments were formalized in Centralia in 1887 and in Rapids the following year. At this time that meant a hook-and-ladder, a chemical fire suppression apparatus, and a steam pumping engine. The T.B. Scott Library was started in 1889 with a donation from one of the city's pioneers. In 1890 John Arpin installed an electric dynamo in his home - the first electric service in Rapids. In 1894 Mack and Spencer added a generator at their dam which offered electricity to the public. The Wood County Telephone Company was a member-owned cooperative started in 1895.