During the Second World War, raw materials were in high demand and difficult to obtain. This made recycling of metal, rubber, and paper more important than ever. Oneida County met its scrap collection goal but had to sacrifice an historic treasure to do it. When Congress declared war in December 1941, the nation had to mobilize industry quickly for full-time military production. The U.S. needed raw material to manufacture the steel and rubber necessary to construct ships, tanks, guns, and other

Today, travel in and out of the Northwoods can be accomplished by private automobile or airline. In prior decades, people had multiple options for traveling, including that most mundane of all modes, the bus. Buses are often ignored in the history of transportation because they have an image problem. While they are the cheapest form of public transportation, they are also the slowest. They are not as glamorous or romanticized as passenger rail or airlines and are often associated with

People interested in polar geography may know about the Eklund Islands in King George the Sixth Sound southwest of the Antarctic Peninsula. What might be less commonly known is that the Eklund Islands in Antarctica are named for a Northwoods native. The southernmost continent of Antarctica is cold, inhospitable, and not the sort of place that most Northwoods residents think about when looking for adventure. But for one Northwoods native, the chance to live and work in Antarctica was a dream come

In the nineteenth century, people believed Wisconsin’s forests to be inexhaustible. Lumber production proceeded at an unsustainable pace, but few cared as it was assumed that farming would naturally follow. Successful farming never came on a large scale, and the damaged land needed repairing. This is where the Trout Lake Nursery comes in. Frederick G. Wilson was born in October 1887 in Red Oak, Iowa. At the age of two, Wilson’s family moved to Milwaukee, and then to Sheboygan. Wilson loved the

The Indian Termination Act of the 1950s was a misguided attempt to alleviate economic hardship on Reservations by terminating tribal sovereignty and relocating Native peoples to urban areas where they could find work and be assimilated. The act had a significant impact on Wisconsin’s Menominee Tribe. It also led to the founding of the American Indian Movement. The Indian Termination Act of 1953 and the Indian Relocation Act of 1956 were conservative reactions to the liberal reforms of Franklin

The town of Sayner promotes itself as the “birthplace of the snowmobile” and the community has a legitimate claim to that title. However, as with so many historical topics, the story is a bit more complicated than that. Carl Eliason’s hand-built 1924 motor toboggan is on display in Sayner’s Snowmobile Museum, and Eliason’s design was the prototype for the modern snowmobile. While Eliason’s model became the most successful, it was not the first, and Northwoods residents experimented with all

The early history of Phillips in Price County is primarily one of the railroads and logging industries. Like other Northwoods communities, Phillips had a healthy economy based in logging, and that industry helped contribute to a catastrophic event in its early history. The town of Phillips is in the center of Price County and serves as the county seat of government. It was a logging town but originally came into existence because of the railroad. The Wisconsin Central Railroad was formed in 1871

The Northwoods economy was focused on the logging industry in the late nineteenth and early twentieth centuries. However, mining was just as important to the economic growth of the region, and in the Northwoods of Wisconsin and Michigan’s Upper Peninsula mining for copper and iron brought economic prosperity to many communities. It also brought hardship and tragedy. Logging has always been among the most dangerous jobs in America, but hard rock mining is not far behind it. To illustrate the

Cornelius Harrington, a native of Hurley, grew up in the Northwoods and maintained a lifelong dedication to the land he loved. Before his career could take off, his forestry skills made him invaluable to the U.S. Army in World War I. Before getting there, however, Harrington survived a harrowing shipwreck. Cornelius Harrington, who was known around the state as Neal, was born in 1891 in the town of Hurley. He entered college in 1909 and finished in 1913 with a degree in forestry from the

Today no one really thinks about air mail as anything particularly unique. In the past, however, the railroads transported most interstate mail in the U.S. To receive a letter with a special air mail envelope and stamp meant that it was either important enough for the sender to pay extra for the postage, or that it came from overseas. The United States Post Office Department, which is today the U.S. Postal Service, began experimenting with air mail delivery as early as 1911. In 1918 the Post