Razing of the Lake Menomin boathouse

Eau Claire Leader July 19, 1956

A rail line runs through it.

Here is Wolske Bay on the map in 1915, just a little over 100 years ago.   This would make this map 15 years after the close of the lumbering operations.

Of course, no Broadway Street exists.  Highway 12 if it was yet numbered followed Tainter Street.

The Chicago, Milwaukee, and St. Paul short line that extended from the former Knapp, Stout, and Co. mill would follow the river all the way to Cedar Falls.  Sections of where the electrical power lines are along Cedar Falls road follow this former railroad bed.

In the image above, Wolske Bay is still a lower lying area but it would be somewhat swampy at times depending on how active the still existing springs would have been.   A meticulous and detailed map maker, the Sanborn fire map includes the rail line here indicating it was still in existence in some form even if it was abandoned of use by the Milwaukee line.

The Omaha railroad follows todays bike trail, or apparently the North Menomonie part of what someone decided to call "Logger's Loop."   The Omaha at this time would have been operating "the dinky," a short line train from the depot flat south of today's Conagra and near Hwy. 29, to the main line at Wilson St. near where DKS is located now.


Another point to observe is over at the Evergreen Cemetary is the note of a Bayou, and it is seemed that prior to the 1957 dam raising the water level that a person did not need the bridge as we need it today, but it must have been much more wet than Wolske Bay to facilitate the need to indicate water.

Wilson Creek would have been likely better accessible and tied in without the challenge of crossing today's mega local multi-lane highway 12, people in Menomonie in 1915 were likely able to walk with more ease and enjoyment between the south shore of Lake Menomin  near the Lakeside and Lake Shore additions all the way to the "tourist park," and enjoy Wilson Creek.

Of note, Hopwood Ave. was not built any closer to the Wilson Creek bank that U.S. Highway 12 or North Broadway Street is threatening today.    A natural enjoyment that is continually destroyed by excessive speed enabling automotive lanes.

Welcome to Menomonie

At the Library of Congress. From 1941.

https://www.loc.gov/resource/fsa.8c20048/

Save Lake Menomin in 1943

From the Dunn County News, February 10, 1943. 

This article indicates the islands that were just opposite Point Comfort.  This would be old Point Comfort, of course, but still very near where it is now.   Not too far away from where today's City of Menomonie will be foolishly spending money to dredge a former swamp that is simply catching up to where it should be:  a healthier transition zone, a delta, the bridge from a tributary into a larger body of water.
But this is what a current city council member wants for their own personal shoreline so the cost must be certainly just to paid for the residents as a whole for $500,000.

In this old article, the question of, "who owns" the area is questioned.   Did they ever resolve this then?   Who owns what we have now?

Examples of pride and appreciation for Lake Menomin are fairly abundant.   However, poetry is one reactionary method to nature that has not been as apparent in more modern days.

An example from The Dunn County News September 25th, 1946: