Profile of Vilas County, "Wisconsin Communities"

[engine noise]

MAN #1: Get it started O.K.?

MAN #2: Yeah. Third time always. First two for priming. Want to come along?

MAN #1: No thanks, got to go into town. Where are you headed?

MAN #2: Going out to the point.

MAN #1: After that big one?

MAN #2: Yeah, You've seen 'em?

MAN #1: Sure. Saw him after a muskrat last fall. The rat got ashore and the musky tried to go up after him. Ran himself half aground. One big flip and he was back in before I could shoot.

MAN #2: Yeah, that's a pretty good story Mike. Well see you later. If I don't bring back a fish, I'll bring back a fish story.

[sound of motor boat]

[organ music]

ANNOUNCER: Going for a fish, or a fish story. And his boat might be in any one of a thousand lakes with a thousand names: Oxbow, Spider, Gunlock and Fence, Tenderfoot, Little John and Lost Canoe, Lost Lake, Found Lake and Bragonier. Snipe Lake, Stormy and Lac du Loon, Cranberry, Catfish, and Scattering Rice. This is a story of lakes and the trees around them. And hey are many. And the people around them. And sometimes they are many, and sometimes they are few. This is the north country. These are the lakes, the trees, and the people of the top of Wisconsin.

[organ music]

ANNOUNCER: The Wisconsin State Broadcasting Service presents, "The Vilas County Profile," part six of a recorded experimental series entitled "Wisconsin 00:02:00Communities." Listen to the sound profile of Vilas County, as told by the people who live there, and by Carl Schmidt, narrator-producer.

SCHMIDT: Ever tell a fish story? If you feel like telling one, Vilas County is the place. But it better be good. Dream one up and they'll come up with a better one that actually happened. Here's what I mean.

STEIN: I was with two fellows on Long Lake, on what we call the upper eagle chain out of Three Lakes, and they had gotten disgusted with Long Lake fishing, because they hadn't seen a musky and they wanted to leave the lake. I was very adverse to that, because I don't believe in wasting time by jumping from one lake to another, because it isn't apt to improve your luck, and also wastes fishing time. But I couldn't persuade these fellows to change their mind. So I said, well, then, we'll go into the landing, I didn't have a motor, I was rowing across the middle of Long Lake and I was stepping along at a pretty good rate. 00:03:00And I said, why don't one of you fellows drag a bait back there or both of yah, I said it isn't going to mean anything to my rowing, and you might catch a fish on the way over. And so they both did. We were about in the middle of the lake, and I knew there weren't any weeds or anything out there, it was deep water, and one of the fellows said, I got some weeds on my line. And I said I don't think you have, there isn't any weeds out here. Well he said, I got something. Well, I said reel it in. So he reeled it in, and I could see that he had an undersized musky on his line, and it was just sliding along on the top of the water, and it wasn't moving a fin. And it came in right alongside of the boat, and I said, you got an undersized musky on there, I can see that it's a musky, but I said bring him right on in. He brought him along side of the boat, and I reached over and took a hold of him by the back of the head, and he still didn't move, and I held him up and he was a beautiful native musky. And I said, gee, isn't that a beautiful fish? And the other fellow said, yeah, but he isn't long enough. And I said, no he isn't. So I took the hooks out, didn't have any difficulty at all 00:04:00taking the hooks out. So I throwed him about eight feet out in the lake, and he no more than hit the water, and he jumped back in the boat between their feet in the back end. Of course, they were pretty much scared of him, but I got back there and throwed him back into the lake again. There was a big heavy set fellow in the back end of the boat, and he laughed, and he laughed and he laughed, and he couldn't quit laughing, and he was very fleshy and red in the face, and I thought he was going to have convulsions, until finally I said, for heaven's sake, what's so terrible funny about that? Well he said you know, Stein, I've had so many of these fish stories told to me all my life, but it's the first time one ever happened to me.

SCHMIDT: Ask for the teller of that story in Eagle River, the county seat of Vilas County. His name is Pross Stein. He's been guiding fishermen for forty years. That story of his is something like the story of Vilas County, a fish story that actually happened. And it's still happening. Of course, there is more to it than fish: people, for instance. Fish wouldn't be worth two hoots without 00:05:00people. But there is something else. It was here before people, and it takes more space than people. Bigger than fish. Even bigger than the fish Tom Big John saw over on Lac du Flambeau. Tom Big John, he's the guy who can catch a musky anytime he feels like it. But you will meet him later. Right now we are talking about something else.

[telephone ringing]

BOLOGNIA: Trout Lake.

RANGER #1: Jute Lake Tower calling. Small white smoke at 176.

BOLOGNIA: Check.

[telephone ringing]

RANGER #2: Monahan Tower.

BOLOGNIA: Jute Lake sees a small white one at 176. Have a look.

RANGER #2: Roger, hold the line. You are right. Small white at 268.

BOLOGNIA: Check. Stay with it.

[telephone ringing]

RANGER #3: Star Lake.

BOLOGNIA: Bolognia, calling from Trout. Small white smoke, half mile east of Partridge. Get on. Hold the line, Bill.

[telephone ringing]

BOLOGNIA: Trout Lake.

RANGER #1: Jute Lake again. Small white is getting big, brown and ugly. Hit her hard.

BOLOGNIA: Check. Bill, she's getting big and brown. Take a pump and a couple extra men.

[telephone ringing]

SCHMIDT: That gives you an idea of what happens when a fire starts in the Vilas County forest. Most of the county is covered with forest, and it takes a pretty sharp organization to keep the fires down. Last year, the national forest lost only a few over three acres, and the state forest less than ten. Out of hundreds of thousands of acres, that's pretty good. Two fellows responsible for that record are Will Bolognia of the State Forest, and Ken Elliott, National Forest, But the responsibility goes a lot farther than that. It goes right to you, if you live in Vilas County, or even if you just drive through. Want to know why? Listen.

ELLIOTT: Ninety-nine percent of our fires are man-caused fires.

SCHMIDT: And here's what to do about it.

ELLIOTT: One thing we have to be careful about, especially in the spring of the year when the vegetation is dead, is these high grass areas along the trout 00:07:00streams. We'd like to warn all the fishermen to be careful, and if anyone builds a campfire, we want than to be sure that that's out before they leave it. Dig a good trench around it right down to the mineral soil. If you have a bucket or can or anything that you can use, why, dip up enough water and drown it out. Be sure it is out to the last spark. When you are traveling along the highways and the forests, use your ashtrays. Don't toss your matches or cigarette butts out the window.

SCHMIDT: But there is more to forestry than putting out fires. Growing trees, for instance, like up at the Trout Lake Nursery. Don Mackie is in charge of the place. He has about 9 million trees, and he sends 3 million out every year to be planted. Then there's Trees for Tomorrow at Eagle River, an organization sponsored by eleven northern Wisconsin paper mills and a power company. Talk to M. M. Taylor about it. He's the director.

TAYLOR: One of the most important phases of forestry in the state of Wisconsin is surrounded and is predicated by the planting of trees. In fact, this is the 00:08:00initial way and the best way to interest people in forestry. 

SCHMIDT: So Trees for Tomorrow gives away trees free for the planting, three and a half million since 1945. That's looking ahead. But here's looking even farther.

TAYLOR: Just yesterday at Wausau, the members of the Trees for Tomorrow Forestry Scholarship Committee interviewed and screened fourteen boys from a range of seventeen counties. These boys had been screened previously, and one of these boys will receive a $1200 forestry scholarship.

[sawmill sounds]

SCHMIDT: Well, that takes us back a ways. We are still in the woods, but back a ways. Back when Vilas County was covered with a beautiful stand of virgin 00:09:00timber. They made short work of it, those lumberjacks and sawyers. They were part of a big business that went through it like a fire. Not so long ago, either. Plenty of people in Vilas County can tell about it.

BRADFORD: There were at that time about twenty-eight saloons here. And streets, of course, had wooden sidewalks, composed mostly, when it rained, of mud about four inches deep, and then, dry weather, of dust about four inches deep.

SCHMIDT: That was Ed Bradford of Eagle River. Did you get that part about wooden sidewalks? Here is another fellow who remembers them.

COOK: We had pretty near as many sidewalks as we have now, but they were all plank. Lumber was cheap, and they planked the town in pretty good shape. I do remember that as small boys, went barefoot in the summertime. When they would come down to the store, we'd walk on the road because the sidewalk was a mass of 00:10:00slivers from these river-drivers with their cork shoes.

SCHMIDT: Do you know who that was? Listen.

COOK: First white boy born here.

SCHMIDT: Think of it.

COOK: First white boy born here.

SCHMIDT: Paul Cook of Eagle River, only 65 years old. Yet he's the first white boy born in Vilas County. That makes Vilas pretty young, from the standpoint of civilization as we know it. That doesn't leave the lumbering days very far behind. But let's get off the lumber pile now. I think it's about time for another fish story.

UNIDENTIFIED: We had a couple of fellows here from Wausau. They came late in the afternoon and were out fishing with a live sucker on a cane pole. And after dark, I heard them yelling out there and I hollered out and asked them what the trouble was. He said, we got a big musky on. Will you come out and help us land it? Well, naturally I didn't know how big it was, but I took gaff hook and a gun along, and we got out there, and here they had it on this cane pole, and it was 00:11:00down on the bottom of the lake. But we finally got it up, and gaffed it for them, and it was after dark, which made it quite an experience.

SCHMIDT: Well that's a pretty good fish. But he wouldn't even make good bait for the fish Tom Big John saw over on Lac du Flambeau. You will meet him later, Tom Big John. He's a guide, and you don't have to pay him unless you get your musky. Something else about him. You know the minute you see him that here is a real American, although the song he sings now may be foreign to your ear.

[singing and drumbeat]

BROWN: Lac du Flambeau was not always Chippewa country. It was occupied in the first place by the Siouxs or some other tribe and it was taken over by the Chippewas. The Chippewas originally came from the north, in Canada and up around 00:12:00Lake Superior, and they came up here, and of course seen the beauty of the country, the lakes, the rivers, and the chief source of living, of course, was hunting and fishing. In the darkest time of the year, the spring of the year, they always used a torch to fish. And it was one of those such evenings where the Flambeau lake must have been fished pretty hard by the Indians, for there were several torches on the lake. When the French missionaries came up here, during the evening I suppose, they came up the river, the Bear River, and saw all these torches, and they called the lake "lake of flames," Lac du Flambeau. And other than that, it has been called by the Indians also Wa-sha-wan, which 00:13:00means "fishing with a torch."

[singing and drumbeat]

SCHMIDT: Legend of Wa-sha-wan, the lake of flames, told by George Brown, Indian official at the Lac du Flambeau reservation. George is a short chunky fellow, and he's a shrewd one. You've got a feeling when he looks at you that he's got you all sized up. He's got the Indian situation all sized up, and he's been the leader in making some big changes. Like fish spearing, for instance.

BROWN: The Indians have always had the privilege of taking the fish anytime, and in any manner, and has been the practice for many years for the Indian to take fish, or spear fish, during the spawning season. This year the Tribal Council, that's the governing body of the Indians on our reservation, have passed an ordinance forbidding any Indian from taking any game fish from the reservation 00:14:00waters during the spawning season, and it has been good so far. That is, the boys have cooperated in every way, and I think that with the help of the state in propagation, we will have fishing here that will not be surpassed anywheres in the state.

SCHMIDT: Better will bring more tourists to the reservation. It will give the Indians some of the same kind of bread and butter that the rest of the county's getting. There will be entertainment, too. Traditional tribal songs, like the one you heard a minute ago, and Indian dances. Here's George Brown again.

BROWN: It is the intention of the many organizations of the town of Flambeau to fix up what we know as the bowl or arena to be built. In fact, we're starting on it now, and it is the intention of the organization to put on a program every 00:15:00night, every evening during the summer months when the weather is favorable. And one of the most important parts for them will be the Indian dancing and pow-wows and other Indian activities. Which, after all, are the chief attractions of this north woods, and it is going to be good, because we are going to have a director who had worked with the Indians at the Dells and other places.

[organ music]

SCHMIDT: There are places in this world that seem to be made just for enjoyment. Look at a place like this, and try to imagine a smoke stack. You can't. The 00:16:00thing has branches on it and leaves or needles. Try to picture a guy with a lunch basket heading for an assembly line. You can't do it. That's a fishing tackle box he's carrying. He picked it up when he set down the lunch bucket. He walked from the shadow of a smoke stack into the shadow of a tree. They called it recreation, re-creation, making a new person out of you. That's what they do for you in Vilas County. They specialize in it. They even have a recreation zoning ordinance. Farmers are not allowed to settle in back-woods areas, where the land is so poor that the valuation would not bring enough taxes to pay for upkeep on roads. Only land near main highways can be used for farming. The backwoods areas are strictly for recreation. One thing that's making recreation more and more a big business is the fact that people don't come up here to rough it very often any more. We are all victims of civilization. Even in the north 00:17:00woods, we've got to have plumbing, electricity, groceries, cocktails. Most everybody up here is concerned directly or indirectly with supplying these things you need on a vacation, especially the resort owners. They have accommodations for more than eight thousand people, a number nearly equal to the total permanent population of the county. But not everybody who comes up here stays at a resort. There are the summer homes.

LARKIN: Everybody that comes into the area usually comes into the newspaper office and wants to know about where certain lakes are, and which road to take to go such and such a place, and where to find summer home people. That's our biggest curse, because so many people have summer homes called Dunrooving or Dunroving or something.

SCHMIDT: That's Joyce Larkin, editor of the Vilas County News Review. You get to know a community inside out, working on a newspaper. You get to know what it has to offer, what it needs, what makes it tick. But we were talking about resorts, 00:18:00and summer homes. Here's a theory on how one establishment goes out of the other.

LARKIN: In 90% of the cases, the resort industry started because somebody moved in and had a cottage on the lake, and then invited friends up. The friends brought more friends, and so they decided to build a guest cottage, and then they decided to build another guest cottage, and by this time they decided to charge. When they charged, none of their relatives and friends came, but they were in the resort business.

SCHMIDT: A change in the season means a lot more than a change in the weather to a community full of resorts and summer homes. Listen to R. J. Freilich of Hiawatha Lodge outside of Eagle River.

FREILICH: We live for these two or three months in the summertime, and when the middle of September comes around, why, the north woods goes back to really a north woods, and we're all alone again.

SCHMIDT: And what do you do then? Here's Glenn Roberts, a resort owner on Little 00:19:00Arbor Vitae. 

ROBERTS: When the fishing season is over, we start to put out boats away. Then we begin to have a little recreation ourselves. We do a little late fall fishing, then comes a little grouse hunting, and duck hunting, and then comes our muskrat trapping. Later on in the season after the lake freezes up, we do a little perch fishing, then comes beaver season. Then we are back on the ball again fixing the boats for the following spring.

SCHMIDT: Speaking of late fall fishing. Did you ever get a hold of a big one when you didn't have a gaff hook to land him with? Well Glenn Roberts did. But he was lucky enough to have his wife along.

ROBERTS: It has been more than once that she's helped me land a good sized musky out there. For instance, one day I hooked a nice one out there, and had quite a time with him. We didn't have a gaff hook in the boat, because we were out fishing really for pan fish. I did a little casting, and this musky took on. And we had him up the boat four or five times, and we had a small landing net. We 00:20:00couldn't get him in the net, he was too big. So she wound the net around the hooks that were on the side of his cheek, and pulled him overboard into the boat. And then sat on him.

SCHMIDT: This part of the story wasn't supposed to be about fishing at all. When you get fellows like Pross Stein, Glenn Roberts and Tom Big John around, you just can't get away from it. Getting back though to the resort business and R. J. Freilich, he's a spokesman for people who depend on tourists for their living. Not only in Vilas County, but all over the state. Largely through his efforts, Wisconsin now spends $105,000 in advertising for tourists. Now that may sound big--

FREILICH: --but it's still low compared to other states. Now, I might add, our neighbor state to the left of us, across Lake Michigan, spends $250,000 a year. I believe rightfully that Michigan offers less for the tourist and vacation 00:21:00business than Wisconsin. I know that Florida spends close to a million dollars, Pennsylvania that has 50% less to offer than Wisconsin has spends $850,000 a year. Many other states that are in the tourist business are two and three times more on their allotment and money set aside to advertise their own recreation areas.

SCHMIDT: There is an advertising program for the whole state, and it's working. Wisconsin sells more out-of-state fishing licenses than any other state in the Union. This year should be even bigger when fishermen hear of the 10,000 muskies taken last year in Vilas County. Say, did you ever hear the one about the two fellows who got a musky in their boat, started shooting at him, shot the bottom out of the boat? Well, we are talking about advertising now. For instance, what besides fishing could Vilas County advertise? Joyce Larkin has an idea about that.

LARKIN: Well for years, I have been trying and trying very hard to get our resort people to advertise our climate. We have the ideal summer climate, warm during the day and cool at night. I have felt that we have more to sell than fishing. We have no factories, nothing to put smoke or dust in the air, and the Arizona Chamber of Commerce will please note that the ultraviolet and infrared rays of the sun come through this area with greater intensity than they do in Arizona.

SCHMIDT: Another thing besides fishing that Vilas County can rightfully boast about is scenery, especially the scenery around the world's longest chain of lakes near Eagle River. Talk to Joe Dwyer about that chain. You'll find him at the Dwyer Boat Works near Eagle River. He's a big husky fellow with iron grey hair and a mustache to match. When he wears a red wool shirt, he looks like the cover picture of an outdoor magazine. Joe Dwyer knows boats, and he knows and 00:23:00loves the Eagle chain.

DWYER: This is the most beautiful chain that there is in the country.

SCHMIDT: During the summer rush season, at least a hundred people a day travel through the chain for sight-seeing alone. Of course, there also are those who also like to mix their sight-seeing with other pleasures.

DWYER: Guides use it quite a bit for musky fishing, where they have a fast motoring boat. They start out here and probably hit three, four nice musky beds, and then go up to the upper chain. Well, then they go over that lift and take in probably fifteen lakes on the other side, all in one day. That's why we've really worked it out so that they can get speed, and get over there and cover these different musky beds.

SCHMIDT: While Vilas County has the world's longest chain of lakes, it also has perhaps the world's shortest driver of racing speedboats. His name, Kenny Stallman, and he has a perfect right to be short because he's only nine years old. Kenny started racing last summer.

STALLMAN: I was in about four or five races, and I got first in one and I placed 00:24:00in all the rest.

SCHMIDT: And here's Kenny's description of the boat that did the work.

STALLMAN: It was an Ace runabout. It was about nine feet long and it didn't go too fast, but I had to put five horsepower on it when I won.

SCHMIDT: And here are plans for the future.

STALLMAN: I would like to get a 7 1/2 Mercury [unintelligible]that, or a hydroplane.

SCHMIDT: Now that implies a distinct difference between a runabout and a hydroplane .

STALLMAN: A runabout doesn't have a step in it. A hydroplane's got a step in the bottom of it.

SCHMIDT: Well, anyone with a nine-year-old son who doesn't take kindly to conventional hobbies, there is an idea.

[organ music]

SCHMIDT: We have been talking about a few of the summer pastimes that Vilas County people are proud of, but summer is a pretty short season. What they probably would like most of all is to get more people to go north when the sun goes south. Here is what R. J. Freilich says about the county in wintertime.

FREILICH: You might say this. The north woods, and particularly our area here with the lakes and pines and streams, are typical of what most people see on Christmas cards. And I always say it's the winter wonderland.

SCHMIDT: No matter how much of a winter sports enthusiast you are, chances are you have never tried a winter picnic. Probably sounds like a wild idea, until you talk to the Harvey Hazens up at Phelps. They keep their resort open ten 00:26:00months a year. When the rest of the north country is hibernating, they are out having picnics. Mrs. Hazen likes to tell about these picnics.

MRS. HAZEN: Winter picnics, which involve skiing across this lake, Long Lake, across a wooded stretch which has ups and downs, a very interesting trail, then across Sand Lake, where we have a hunting cabin. Someone skis ahead of the crowd and builds a fire, and then the crowd joins them to have a winter picnic. We have either fried steaks or hamburgers. It is a novelty to them, no ants, no mosquitos to bother them and, of course, the appetites are enormous. Everybody overeats, and coming back, they enjoy it maybe more because of having relaxed in the meantime.

SCHMIDT: Now, many people, when they think of being outdoors in the winter, also think of being indoors with a cold. But some people who have spent winter 00:27:00vacations in Vilas County have other ideas.

MRS. HAZEN: We have had quite a few physicians in families, who also said that the climate here in the wintertime is very much more beneficial to the youngsters when they get back, in as much as they build up a resistance towards colds. If they take them down to the southern climates and bring back to strenuous cold winters in Chicago and suburbs, they are so much more apt to catch colds again.

[organ music]

[sound of motor boat]

SCHMIDT: Remember that sound? At the beginning of this program, it went out with a man on his way for a fish or a fish story. If he comes back with a fish, chances are it's a fish he helped to pay for when he bought his fishing license. Suppose it's a musky he catches. Of course, there's nothing he'd rather catch: the musky, being Vilas County's glamour fish. Suppose it's 30 inches long, just long enough to be legal. Five years ago, the mother of that fish was netted out of the spawning bed and her eggs were fertilized and placed in a big jar at the Woodruff Hatchery, just south of the Vilas County line. The egg hatches in the jar, and the small musky bubbles over into a tank. There he lives on small organisms called zooplanks, and pretty soon he is big enough to be dumped into an outdoor pond where he spends the summer eating small suckers. He's a vicious 00:29:00little fellow, that musky. By the time he is two or three inches long, he is living on one inch suckers. By the end of the summer, he is eight or ten inches long, big enough to be planted in a lake, big enough to stay away from his grownup relatives who'd swallow him if they got a chance. He eats his way through a few more years, and then he's ready to give some fisherman the thrill of a lifetime.

ROBERTS: He'll give you just about everything that you want in a fight. To begin with, he keeps you in doubt most of the time. He's following your plugs around, and very often he will follow it time after time and won't hit it. And of course when he hits it then you've really got your hands full.

SCHMIDT: In fact, he's so much of a handful that the only way some fishermen can handle him is to shoot him. But here is what Glenn Roberts has to say about guns.

ROBERTS: Well some do it, although we don't recommend it, because that way too many undersized fish might be shot, and therefore they're good to no one then. 00:30:00We would rather see them net them or get them without injuring them, and then if they are undersized they can always return them to the water. However, sometimes when you get a big one, there is really no other way to handle him.

SCHMIDT: According to Pross Stein, though, who has been guiding musky fishermen for forty years, you won't even get the fish near a gun or gaff hook if you don't have the right kind of rod.

STEIN: Use a stiff rod. I've seen more mistakes made by a limber rod in fishing. I'm talking, of course, about casting, because all our musky fishing is done by the method of casting. Now, because it is much more advantageous. You cover perhaps ten times the area through casting that you would in trolling, and when you cast, you must set the hooks with the power in your arms and the power in your rod, and if you have a limber rod, you are just licked from the word go. You don't have a chance unless you are just lucky. 

SCHMIDT: I suppose it is natural for a fisherman to talk about landing a fish before thinking of how to get him on the end of a line. Anyway, here is the 00:31:00question that should have come first. What do you use for bait?

ROBERTS: Well you know that's very hard to say. They get them on almost everything. Some fellows swear by live suckers, others again get them on river runts, Heddon river runts, and well, the dare devil is a very good bait. And the Johnson silver minnow produces a lot of muskies.

SCHMIDT: And if you are inclined to use a plug the size of a chunk of cordwood, here is a tip that will save a lot of work.

STEIN: My best bait that I have found in all the years of my fishing are a number 6 skinner spoon and a bucktail. The colors don't mean too much, but my pets are red and white even mixed color in the hair. And next to that, I would place a common, jointed, pikey minnow, that is in the medium size. The larger baits don't mean anything for large fish. Medium size bait will catch you just as many fish and large fish, I mean real big fish, as your larger baits will, 00:32:00and not nearly as hard to handle.

SCHMIDT: Then there is the matter of fishing secrets. Fishing secrets and Tom Big John. Here is the answer you get when you ask Indian Tom Big John, what do you use for bait?

BIG JOHN: Well, that's my business. [laughter] All you bring is your rod and reel, that's all. I've got the rest of it. Might tell the rest of these guys down there and they'd be out there catching them, too. I'd run myself out of a job. 

SCHMIDT: And the secret must be a good one because here is your answer to "How's fishing?"

BIG JOHN: It's always good to me. I can catch a musky anytime I feel like it.

SCHMIDT: A musky anytime he feels like it. A technique like that, whether you are talking or fishing, allows an entirely new financial arrangement between fisherman and guide. Hire Tom Big John, and if you don't catch your musky, you don't have to pay.

BIG JOHN: I guarantee a fish or no pay, that's the way I fish.

SCHMIDT: Someday when you get to know Tom Big John, he may take you out on Lake Flambeau to see the world's most gigantic musky. Now don't take a rod and reel 00:33:00along, it won't help any. Just bring an open mind, a sense of humor, and a good imagination.

BIG JOHN: We got one musky right here in front of the lake that would make this world's largest musky look like a minnow. I was fishing here one day about ten years ago, and saw this thing coming. The lake was kind of calm, and we saw the thing coming, it was like a great big buck with still velvet horns. Got to about the middle of the lake and it disappeared. Didn't know where it went. Now I was fishing very close to where this, Medicine Rock is down here. So for about half an hour, didn't know where this fish went. All at once I heard a lot of commotion there near this rock over here, and that's where the musky was. He was bumping this deer's head against that Medicine Rock. Knocked his horns off so he 00:34:00could swallow it. [laughter] The musky is still there.

SCHMIDT: And that's the story of the disappearing deer, and the musky that was seen beating the deer against a rock to knock his antlers off to make for easier swallowing.

[frogs calling]

SCHMIDT: That sound is for a very important fisherman and one we haven't mentioned yet. That sound is for the fisherman who didn't catch any fish. Dozing off at night with a chorus like that in the background, he can't feel bad about a supper without fish. Or when he hears the cry of a loon from a mile away on a smooth lake, his mind wanders easily from an empty stringer. Sounds like these, as much as fish, make up the soul of a fisherman.

[organ music]

SCHMIDT: We have been talking about the more conventional tourist attractions in Vilas County: fishing, scenery, or even winter picnics are commonplace, compared to something you will find just off Highway 51 near the western border. It concerns bullet holes and a story known to everyone old enough to read headlines during the middle 1930's. It even concerns Father Flannigan's Boys Town. It attracts at least 50,000 people every year. 1,100 cars a year ago on Memorial Day alone. Here is the story as told by Emil Wanatka. The background noise was made by logs in a six-foot fireplace, and was not intended to represent gun fire.

WANATKA: On April 18, 1934, a car drove into my yard. A girl and two men was in this car. They got out of the car and asked me, how about some food, can we get something to eat. I says, yes, would be glad to. And after this lunch, they asked me if I had accommodations for about ten, twelve people. They told me they'd like to stay for three, four days. They played the slot machine, had a few soft drinks, didn't drink anything except soft drinks, and this is how the afternoon went on. About half past five, two more cars drove in, a Buick and a brand new V-8 Ford. All these men had glasses on. They got out of the cars and they introduced me to John, and to Tom, to Ted, and they all came in and I want 00:37:00to help them with the baggage. They took their baggage out. It was awful heavy, exceptionally heavy. Something I was--still I was thinking, who put this [unintelligible] in this kind of baggage? So I helped them. We took the baggage upstairs, and they asked what they could get to eat tonight. Well, I says, well, we have some very nice steaks, and they all settled for steak. After their dinner, it was about eight o'clock, I would say, they asked me if I played cards. But how about a little poker? I said, well, I says, I [unintelligible] here, I haven't got very much money, I still have plenty of mortgage on my place. So he played dollar amount poker, stud poker. The first hand, I lost $36.00 and it was really a bad deal for me, because at that time $36.00 was very big to me. When John reached for that money, he laughed at me and says, that's just too bad. He had kings and ace, and I had kings and sixes. He reached for 00:38:00his money and then his coat opened up. Here I could see two automatics in his shoulder strap. Well, I got a little nervous. Who wouldn't? As I dealed cards, I looked to the left and I looked to the right, and all these men were armed. Well, then I got thinking, who could this be? After all, I spent a lot of time in Chicago, knew a lot of men of that type, so I kept on playing cards. It must have been ten o'clock or half past ten, they all got sleepy, and start to yawn. He says, how about quitting this game? We're tired, we had a big drive. I says that's fine, suits me. So I got my money back and I'm very happy about that, perfectly alright with me. Well, everything was quiet. I was thinking, who could these men be? After I got looking through all the papers, the picture of Dillinger was in the paper every day. His height, his weight, his scars on the 00:39:00forehead, his scar on the chin, slow motion walking, he was about my size. I just got thinking it must be John Dillinger. So the next morning they got up about half past six. After breakfast I said John, I'd like to talk to you. He says perfectly alright. So he followed me to my little office and I talked to him, I says, you're John Dillinger. He says, you're not afraid, are you? I says no, I'm not afraid. You're just another man to me. But after all, every policeman [unintelligible] is looking for you. And if I can help it, I don't want no shooting match here. Everything I made in my life is right here and I don't want no trouble. He took my arm by the shoulder and he says, Emil, I'm tired, I'm hungry, I want to eat, I want to sleep for a few days, so I stopped. I pay you well, and we will all get out. And from then on we were very friendly.

SCHMIDT: But three days later, things started happening at a pace that left friendliness far behind. Little Bohemia Lodge went cops-robbers and utter confusion under cover of darkness. A lumberjack driving away from the lodge with two friends was mistakenly shot to death when the noise of his car drowned out a command to halt. Dillinger, Baby Face Nelson and his friends decided to leave through an upstairs window, and they went to steal some cars. Emil Wanatka left the place, too. Let's follow him.

WANATKA: Firstly, myself, I went to Kerner's. Alvin Kerner was a good friend of mine. I was going to call from there. When I come [unintelligible], which I would say is about, probably 45 minutes after the shooting started, Baby Face Nelson was behind the door. And when I came in, he was behind the door with two 45's. I walked in, and everybody at Kerner's family was sitting down, and I 00:41:00said, what happened here? And then Nelson jumped out. He says, put your hands up, which I did. He says, who is outside? I says, nobody. I says, what you doing here with this gun? I says, these people are friends of mine. He says, you mind your own business and get out in that car. So I went outside, thinking what was gonna happen in the next minutes, or half a minute [unintelligible]. He put the 45 in my ribs, and I got into the car, a Model T Ford, and I started the car, but I didn't put the switch on. He says, why don't you get this car started? You know I got to make this getaway. I says, I can't, I says, you got me scared. I says, what's the big idea putting the gun into my ribs? What are you afraid of? Wasn't I all right the last three days? He says, get this car started. He pushed the 45 a little deeper and naturally, I started the car. I took it about ten feet when I could see the lights in my looking glass. So I slowed down. And the 00:42:00car came up, it's Carter Baum, who was Ferguson's assistant from the FBI office. He says, hold it, we are federal officers. I stopped the car, and Nelson jumped out and he killed him right in the seat. He shot him eight times in his neck, because he had a bulletproof vest on. He shot the other two men, Neuman and Christianson, who was a constable. While he was doing this, I jumped out of this car into a pile of snow and I laid there. Well, Nelson took the federal men's car, it was a brand new V-8, left my car over there, and left. In the meantime, I ran home, which was about a mile and a half, and naturally was [unintelligible] my yard, so they hollered at me to put my hands up, cause they didn't know who I was. I just couldn't. You just run a mile and a half like that, it's pretty hard. From then on, the shooting kept on going until about six 00:43:00in the morning. Well, that's just about all I would say is to that. The FBI took over, the police took over, the sheriffs were here, and undersheriffs, and everybody that had a gun [unintelligible] was over here. But they took over, and I am still alive, and very happy to tell you about this.

SCHMIDT: Well there's the story of Public Enemy No. 1, as he affected Vilas County. Call it tourist attraction unclassified. And when did the people start coming, Mr. Wanatka?

WANATKA: Well, right after it naturally was on the radio, and it was all over in the papers, people started to come in. And finally we got all the clothes from the government, we got the clothes here, and I got John Dillinger's father, who was a very nice man, and John Dillinger's sister here, and the old man would make a kind of a speech that crime don't pay, and the donations we used to get from this museum, as we call it, is to send to Father Flannigan, which we still 00:44:00do, at Boys Town.

SCHMIDT: And in what numbers did they come?

WANATKA: You even can't count them. It's unbelievable.

[organ music]

SCHMIDT: Now near the end of our story, near the time when the fisherman returns with his fish or his fish story, let's look back over the Vilas County profile for a summary of the Vilas County character; the Vilas County attitude. It comes from three people: first, Glenn Roberts, resort owner.

ROBERTS: One thing about this business, you get acquainted with a lot of people, swell people. We look forward to the spring, because so many of them come up. We are interested in seeing them enjoy themselves, because we know that they have looked forward to this vacation for a whole year. We don't want them to be disappointed. We like them to have good fishing and good weather, and everything 00:45:00that we can do to make their vacation enjoyable. And that's true of all the resort owners up here in this neck of the woods.

SCHMIDT: Next, Walter Gander, a printer by profession who came here from England forty years ago. This is in answer to the question: how long have you been here? 

GANDER: Well I have been trying it out for the past forty-six years and I believe that I am going to stay a little while longer.

SCHMIDT: Finally an anecdote told by Joyce Larkin, newspaper editor.

LARKIN: I think perhaps, maybe the best way to sum up Vilas County is the way a man summed it up when he came in in the fall to change his paper. He said, I am now leaving Vilas County. I cease to live and begin to exist.

[organ music]

[sounds of motor boats]

MAN #1: Well did you see the big fella?

MAN #2: Did I see him! Why, I saw the whites of--

MAN #1: Hey, you look kind of wet! Did you fall in?

MAN #2: Fall in! Man, I jumped in. I told you--I saw him didn't I? Well, it's like this. I'm casting for hours and nothing happens. I'm reeling in fast and disgusted once, when I see this thing after my plug. Biggest fish I ever saw. Scares me, so I yank the plug out of the water for fear he'll get it. Well sir, he comes right out after it, right over the side of the boat. And I jumps out the other side. I'm not going to be in the same boat with that thing. The water brings me back to my senses, and I am getting ready to crawl back in and tackle him, when he gives one big flip and he's back in the lake. Believe me, I got back in that boat quick.

[organ music]

ANNOUNCER: That was the Vilas County Profile. Another recorded program in an experimental series entitled "Wisconsin Communities." Production and narration by Carl Schmidt, with technical assistance by Ben Rosse. The script was written by Russ Nelson. Our special thanks to Joyce Larkin for her assistance in the preparation of this program. This is the Wisconsin College of the Air.