Roosevelt Woods Traditional Cache
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(regular)
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Democratic Women’s Club of Wisconsin Plantation
In the late 1800’s, the United States was a growing nation with an insatiable appetite for softwood lumber. During this period, billions of board feet of virgin pine were cut by axe and crosscut saw throughout the Great Lakes Region. Following this Pine Logging Era, the remaining virgin hardwood forests were liquidated. Unlike the lighter pines, hardwood could not be rafted to the mills on the rivers. Instead, networks of narrow gauge railroads were built to haul countless loads of logs to the sawmills. By the early 1920’s the forests of northern Wisconsin were cut over. Landscapes of scrub and brush were all that remained in many areas.
Left with lands devoid of timber and burdened with property taxes, the Timber Barons eagerly marketed the properties to homesteaders. Immigrant farmers, attracted by promises of bountiful harvests and a new life, flocked to the region and painstakingly cleared the land of stumps and rock. Their reward for the back-breaking labor: marginal crops and long distances to markets. When the Great Depression hit, prices plummeted and they were no longer able to pay taxes. Many of these tax-delinquent farmsteads (and properties formerly owned by timber interests) reverted to county ownership.
In 1933, the Chequamegon and Nicolet National Forests were created from these “lands that nobody wanted” as they came to be known. In the same year, President Franklin Delano Roosevelt created the Civilian Conservation Corps (CCC). Together, the U.S. Forest Service and the CCC began the work of reclaiming the forests of Northern Wisconsin. On the Lakewood/Laona Ranger District alone, the boys of the Civilian Conservation Corps planted tens of thousands of acres of conifer plantations.
The Democratic Women’s Club of Wisconsin Plantation, just north of Mountain at the junction of Highways 32 and 64, is just one of those plantations. However, this one has a particularly interesting history.
In September, 1933, the newly-formed Camp Mountain (R-19) planted the stands that surround you. Initially, they were planted with Norway spruce that originated in the Black Forest of Germany. The Democratic Women’s Club of Wisconsin provided cost-share funds for reforestation that year and, thus, this plantation was named “The Democratic Women’s Club of Wisconsin Plantation”. Planting records on file at the Lakewood Ranger Station indicate very poor planting conditions – and survival. And so, like in many other CCC plantations, this site was repeatedly planted with red pine until it was fully stocked.
First Lady Eleanor Roosevelt was reported to have visited Camp Mountain in the early 1930’s and it was said that she dedicated a plantation just north of the camp. This is believed to be the plantation that she dedicated.
The U.S. Forest Service has continued the CCC’s legacy. This stand has been thinned at least four times, most recently in December, 2012.
Additional Hints
(Decrypt)
BCF