Resort guests in the first few decades stayed longer than most guests today: from a month to a whole season, and there were more men, generally, than women. Cottage owners often came for the entire seasons, bringing along the season's supplies -- "Kerosene lamp chimneys by the hundred," recalls one lady. Or they ordered things like from mail order grocers like Pieper's, Steinmeyer's in Milwaukee, and other things from Sears.
Getting here, in those days, wasn't any too easy. North Western Railway Pullmans sped guests up from Indianapolis or Chicago or Milwaukee, but when they clambered down from the trains into the Manitowish dawn, it was a horse and buggy that awaited them, and a rough ride paralleling the river bank on the little lane to the dam site... the end of the road. Most resorts and some homeowners had big, gasoline-engined launches, and at the Rest Lake dam travelers and their baggage transferred to those for the last leg of the trip. (For travelers to Big Lake, two more transfers were ahead: an overland portage from Clear Lake to Big and then a boat trip on Big. Can you imagine moving up a piano in the face of such handicaps? One party did -- and it took days!)
Showing posts with label trains. Show all posts
Showing posts with label trains. Show all posts
Tuesday, July 17, 2012
Wednesday, July 11, 2012
the resort era begins
"Manitowish Waters Area History: A Look Back," continued...
The Chicago & North Western Railway main line may have been the key to the development of this area.
It was built north in 1888 and where the track crossed the Manitowish River, the settlement of Manitowish developed (even before Mercer did!). It was a cluster of general stores, liveries, hotels, post office and homes. Supplies for the dam building crews, lumber camps and residents now could be wagon-hauled easily from Manitowish, or poled or rowed up the river in the bateaux that the Chippewa Lumber & Boom Company favored. For decades afterwards the railroad remained a lifeline, bringing up settlers, vacationists and supplies. Passenger train service ended just after New Years's later.
From 1906 till World War I, travelers could ride a small connecting train directly to the waters of the Manitowish chain at a landing at Rice Creek Bridge. The train, which often handled freight and log cars ahead of his little coach, linked Buswell, Rice Creek, and Boulder Junction with teh main line of the Chicago, Milwaukee & St. Paul Railway at Star Lake (near Sayner).
Logging, rafting and even river driving were still going on when the first adventurous vacationists began coming up to enjoy the Manitowish Waters, and the trend eventually spawned several forms of hospitality or enjoyment: resorts, camping, summer homes, even group camps.
Resorts, as a result, have been an important part of the Manitowish Waters scene for over ninety years [since the original writing does not have a date], and there have been resorts at over one hundred locations on the chain or nearby lakes during that time, divided between American plan resorts and housekeeping cottage resorts.
It was the American plan idea that the first area resorts adopted, usually in the form of a central lodge with dining room, lobby and perhaps a few sleeping rooms, along with a few separate sleeping cottages, and all with the trademark of the era: screened porches.
The early host chose picturesque settings for their resorts. Abe LaFave perched his hotel and cottages on a little island in Island Lake around 1895, making him the first resort operator on the chain. Within less than five years George Washington Buck had opened a lodge at the narrows between Spider and Manitowish Lakes (a resort better remembered as Koerner's), and J.A. LaMotte had chosen the eastern shore of Manitowish Lake, facing the sunset, to begin Deer Park Lodge. He blended ruggedness with gentility as he equipped it with a launch, fishing boats, a cow and a piano. Peter Vance ran a little "resort" about the same time, before burning out in 1903, but his was more a roadhouse or little inn with meals downstairs and a few sleeping rooms upstairs, on the shore of Rest Lake near the dam.
The Chicago & North Western Railway main line may have been the key to the development of this area.
It was built north in 1888 and where the track crossed the Manitowish River, the settlement of Manitowish developed (even before Mercer did!). It was a cluster of general stores, liveries, hotels, post office and homes. Supplies for the dam building crews, lumber camps and residents now could be wagon-hauled easily from Manitowish, or poled or rowed up the river in the bateaux that the Chippewa Lumber & Boom Company favored. For decades afterwards the railroad remained a lifeline, bringing up settlers, vacationists and supplies. Passenger train service ended just after New Years's later.
From 1906 till World War I, travelers could ride a small connecting train directly to the waters of the Manitowish chain at a landing at Rice Creek Bridge. The train, which often handled freight and log cars ahead of his little coach, linked Buswell, Rice Creek, and Boulder Junction with teh main line of the Chicago, Milwaukee & St. Paul Railway at Star Lake (near Sayner).
Logging, rafting and even river driving were still going on when the first adventurous vacationists began coming up to enjoy the Manitowish Waters, and the trend eventually spawned several forms of hospitality or enjoyment: resorts, camping, summer homes, even group camps.
Resorts, as a result, have been an important part of the Manitowish Waters scene for over ninety years [since the original writing does not have a date], and there have been resorts at over one hundred locations on the chain or nearby lakes during that time, divided between American plan resorts and housekeeping cottage resorts.
It was the American plan idea that the first area resorts adopted, usually in the form of a central lodge with dining room, lobby and perhaps a few sleeping rooms, along with a few separate sleeping cottages, and all with the trademark of the era: screened porches.
The early host chose picturesque settings for their resorts. Abe LaFave perched his hotel and cottages on a little island in Island Lake around 1895, making him the first resort operator on the chain. Within less than five years George Washington Buck had opened a lodge at the narrows between Spider and Manitowish Lakes (a resort better remembered as Koerner's), and J.A. LaMotte had chosen the eastern shore of Manitowish Lake, facing the sunset, to begin Deer Park Lodge. He blended ruggedness with gentility as he equipped it with a launch, fishing boats, a cow and a piano. Peter Vance ran a little "resort" about the same time, before burning out in 1903, but his was more a roadhouse or little inn with meals downstairs and a few sleeping rooms upstairs, on the shore of Rest Lake near the dam.
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