(Important note: see route instructions below unless you want to add some serious terrain stars)
Chippewa Falls is a wholesome midwestern town. So it might surprise you to learn that it got its start in a rowdy frontier hamlet, now entirely vanished. It was called Frenchtown and got going in the 1840's. It was a collection of French Canadians, Native Americans and various mixtures thereof. There was a fair amount of drinking and mayhem in the early years....a party of Dakota warriors killed a citizen in 1851 and a jealous husband murdered a man who looked admiringly at his wife in 1857. Even its later days were a bit rough around the edges, horse racing and cock fighting are mentioned as entertainments in the 1870's. It had a ferry, a lumber mill, and at least two saloons. A series of floods in the 1880's pretty much wiped it out. A bridge and a facility to process yard waste and sand have buried it entirely.
More on local history at https://detritusofempire.blogspot.com
Difficulty rating for this one assumes that you take this advice. Drive down West Canal Street and park halfway between Mitchel and Herbert streets. There is a sane path leading up the embankment to your right. Take the left hand path at the Y. Enjoy your stroll. As you near the railroad tracks - don't cross 'em - the cache is on the right. Take the map enclosed and go just a bit further to "the last tree on the right" to see how Frenchtown has changed from 1874 to 2020.