Interview with Harry D. Baker, January 17, 1950, St. Croix Falls, Wisconsin

GLOVER: This recording is of Mr. Harry D. Baker, made on January the 17th, 1950, in St. Croix Falls. The recording is by W. H. Glover.

BAKER: About the year 1854, according to statements of my father, Mr. J. S. Baker, who became the agent of the Cushing lands at this place in 1874, there was opened here an office to represent the considerable Cushing interests in this part of Wisconsin, comprising the water power at St. Croix Falls and practically the entire town plat, and 36,000 acres of agricultural land, mostly 00:01:00in the northern part of Polk County. This office, known as Cushing's Land Agency, was in charge of several agents appointed by Mr. Cushing, who were, according to my father, political appointees, who didn't look too well after the Cushing interests, including the prevention of timber trespass and the collection of the rentals for wild hay stumpage and picking cranberries, and also keeping the assessment for taxation at the minimum.

In the fall of 1874, through the good offices of Colonel John C. Spooner, who 00:02:00was a law partner of my father's brother, Henry C. Baker of Hudson, my father received the appointment as a local agent here for the Cushing interests, and opened his office in the old three-story frame hotel known as the Cushing House, which also housed the offices of the United States Land Office, which existed here for some years thereafter. This hotel burned to the ground in the latter 1870s, and after my father had had his office at his residence here for some 00:03:00years, he built the present building, now occupied by the Baker Land and Title Company.

Caleb Cushing had acquired, under the Morrill Act, some 36,000 acres of unimproved timber lands known as agricultural college lands, paying or contracting to pay $50 per forty, or $1.25 per acre, paying $13 down on each agricultural college land certificate with a balance of $37 bearing seven percent interest. When these certificates were paid up, the state land 00:04:00commissioners would issue a state patent to the purchaser. These certificates were signed and delivered without abstracts of title or any other evidence of the title, as they were considered entirely good to convey valid and legal title. The settlers who came in to take these lands and improve them were mostly Scandinavians, many of them coming directly from the old countries, the largest number coming at one time probably being the Count Taube Swedish Colony in 1869, 00:05:00a rather full account of which is contained in the article which appeared in the Wisconsin History Magazine of September, 1944, under title, "Caleb Cushing's Investments in the St. Croix Valley." Although the promoter of this colony was unscrupulous and deceived and even defrauded these Swedish settlers, Caleb Cushing, through his representatives, made good their payments, and they all found land outlying from St. Croix Falls, and many of them developed fine farms.

Later, a considerable Danish colony, led by M. C. Pedersen, P-E-D-E-R-S-E-N, 00:06:00located near what is now the village of Luck at a settlement called West Denmark, and there was a considerable number of these Danish settlers occupying about three townships for the most part, and they built several Danish Lutheran Churches. And in 1884, they established and began the operation of what is believed to be--believed to have been the first cooperative creamery in the state of Wisconsin. These hardy Scandinavian settlers were, for the most part, very thrifty and industrious, only seeking to get homes and willing to go into 00:07:00the wilderness and cut down the heavy hardwood timber, and build their log houses, and clear small patches of land from which to raise crops for the necessities of life. Many of these people couldn't speak a word of English, and many of them came with very little money, but they had character and industry and thrift, and for the most part were very substantial people, and were a wonderful asset in the development of the heavy--this heavy hardwood timbered country. The so-called Cushing Lands were sold, and finally passed into the hands of Mr. William J. Starr of Eau Claire, and the heavy hardwood timber was 00:08:00logged off and cut into lumber, and these lands were settled, and many of them are now parts of fine well-developed dairy farms.

In 1889, or about that time, Isaac Staples, a millionaire of Stillwater, Minnesota, whom my father, Major J. S. Baker, had represented as a local agent, bought the water power at St. Croix Falls and the village property connected with it, and after his death, this property passed into the hands of Stone and Webster of Boston, Massachusetts, a firm of hydraulic engineers, who built a 00:09:00large hydroelectric development with about sixty-five feet of fall on the St. Croix River, which operates a hydroelectric plant furnishing electric current to a considerable area, including the cities of St. Paul and Minneapolis. The land business of my father, which after the sale of the Cushing Lands he operated on his own account, gradually grew until 1902, when it was incorporated as Cushing Land Agency under the joint management of my father and myself. Previous to this 00:10:00time, as a result of his Civil War experience, my father had become totally deaf, and consequently, the active management and direct contacts in the business fell very largely upon me, although my father's wide acquaintance, his very good judgment, and the confidence that he had inspired in the people by his intelligence and his fair dealings was a very valuable asset to the business.

At that time, my oldest brother, Ray Stannard Baker, who wrote under his own name and under the name David Grayson for various magazines including McClure's 00:11:00Magazine, and the American Magazine, and also wrote a considerable number of books, including The Authoritative Life of Woodrow Wilson, became associated with us in the business, and continued this association until about the time of his death in 1946. In 1911, the articles of incorporation of the company were amended, the authorized capital considerably increased, and the name changed to Baker Land and Title Company, transacting a general real estate business in several counties.

My father came here in the fall of 1874, when there was no transportation to this frontier hamlet, excepting by the river--St. Croix River steamboats in the season, summer and fall, and by stage from Hudson in the winter. And he brought his family here in April 1875, by stage from Hudson, and it took, so my parents have told me, all day to cover the forty miles from Hudson to St. Croix Falls. The family arriving here in the evening, and there being only one bedroom fitted 00:13:00for occupancy in the big old house known as the Agent's Residence, which afterwards became the family home, the older--my older two brothers, Ray Stannard Baker, who afterwards became a writer of some note, and Charles Fuller Baker, who after became a field scientist and dean of the College of Agriculture in the Philippine Islands, were taken by a maid over to the St. Croix House, a big old lumberman's hotel operated by C. C. Fisk, a State of Maine Yankee who came here in the early day. I was placed in a bureau drawer where I slept my 00:14:00first night in St. Croix Falls.

Until the Soo Railroad was built into this village, about 1887 or 1888, transportation was entirely by stage or by team, excepting the transportation on the St. Croix River by steamboat, which was possible through the spring, summer, and early fall, but very uncertain. Those old St. Croix River steamboats were small and very light draft, but the stage of water was uncertain on the river, 00:15:00and sometimes it took a whole day or longer to get down the river from St. Croix Falls to Stillwater, which was the end of their route. In making trips to St. Paul, which was the principal large city within reasonable distance from us, we had to take a river steamboat to Stillwater, which usually took about one day. And generally, we stayed overnight at the old Sawyer House there, and took the train in in the morning from Stillwater to St. Paul, and back again from St. Paul to Stillwater in the evening, staying over the second night at the Sawyer House, and then up the river the third day in one of the small river steamboats--the George B. Knapp, or the Jenny Hayes, or the Nellie Kent--these 00:16:00were small wood-burning river steamboats carrying both freight and passengers, and were for many years the principal means of travel, and the transportation of freight to and from this place.

Up until the development of the dairying industry--through small farmers' cooperative creameries in the 1890s--the principal income even of farmers was from pine timber logged in the pineries north of here, and where the farmers 00:17:00were employed through the winter at very low wages, generally from $15 to $20 per month, and their board, and the pine timber was cut by hand, skidded generally by oxen, and then hauled to the banks of the driving streams, and when the snow went off in the spring and the water was at the right stage, the logs were rolled into those streams and taken down to the main St. Croix River, and then taken there in charge of drives of lumberjacks with wannigans--small houseboats on barges, in which they ate and slept--down the St. Croix River 00:18:00through the dalles at this place, and on down to Stillwater, where they were boomed and sold. Frequently, there were serious log jams at this place, because of the sharp turn in the St. Croix River in the dalles with rock walls on either side of the river, making a narrow caisson through which the logs had to be driven. These jams often lasted for many months and were very expensive to break, and oftentimes the water in the river would be entirely covered for miles by these jams of pine logs. [telephone rings] Stop, please.

[tape begins] My father, Major J. S. Baker, who attended Oberlin College for one year, teaching school and undergoing considerable hardship to maintain himself there, and finally entering the University of Wisconsin, where he was in--where he was attending when the Civil War broke out in the spring of 1861, was a very unusual person, a man of strong individuality. After a very hard experience, including months in Libby Prison during the Civil War, he finally came here, as I have already related, into this wilderness in the fall of 1874, and became 00:20:00very much interested in the development of the heavy hardwood lands of this county. He was a fairly good surveyor, and he did much of the surveying himself, and took levels of streams because he was interested in waterpower, and after he became totally deaf in 1893, he became greatly interested in reforestation, as he saw so much of the fine timber being cut off from the lands in this county, which had originally had very fine heavy hardwood growth. He planted mostly on 00:21:00some land that he owned on Deer Lake, six miles east of here, and around his home here in St. Croix Falls village, 30,000 trees, mostly conifers, over a period of about 8-10 years. And some interesting things grew out of that.

One spring at Deer Lake, when he was very busy getting his small seedlings out of the nursery and having them planted in the woods where the timber--the original timber had been cut, he had a call from an old Swedish neighbor who was very curious as to why my father would spend the time and money to plant these trees in a timbered country. So, knowing that my father was deaf and that I 00:22:00could hear, he addressed me something like this: "I wonder if your father think that he will ever live to see these trees grow up?" which was a very natural and reasonable question, since my father was past seventy years of age at that time. I wrote this question down on a slip of paper and handed it to my father, and with a characteristic clearing of his throat, he said, "Some people in this world want big white monuments; I will take a green one." And his green monument in the beautiful pine and spruce trees on the lands that he formerly owned at Deer Lake is there today as his green monument, some of them twelve, fourteen, and sixteen inches through, and from thirty to forty feet tall--a thing of 00:23:00beauty that will be his lasting monument. He read omnivorously and was greatly interested in building, and he greatly improved his home at St. Croix Falls, finally building a greenhouse and engaging an old English gardener, and he landscaped the grounds very attractively.

We had an old Swedish neighbor, Olaf Strandberg, who came with the County Taube Colony in 1969, who was not only an expert ironworker, but a real philosopher. Coming up to my father's home early one morning, when my brother Ray Stannard Baker was at home, and had gotten out early to see some of Father's new 00:24:00plantings around the place, Olaf Strandberg addressed my brother Ray something like this: "I's better off than your father." And my brother, knowing some of his wise sayings, replied to Mr. Strandberg, "Well, Mr. Strandberg, that may be true, but how do you make that out?" "Well," he said, "your father, he spend a great deal of money planting and improving his home here, and setting out trees and shrubbery and flowers, and all he can do when he have got it done is to look at it. And I's so good friends with your father that I can come up here anytime and walk all around his grounds and look at it all I want to, and it doesn't cost me anything. So I is better off than your father." This old gunsmith and 00:25:00philosopher, Olaf Strandberg, was one of the unique characters of this community, and my brother, Ray Stannard Baker, in writing about him in some of his recent books, has attempted to tell some of his wise sayings and in his book, Native American, which was the story of his early life here, he relates some of the stories that Olaf Strandberg told, all of which were very meaningful with a good moral for everyone.

My father was much interested in having a church in the little churchless hamlet to which he came. He and my mother were among the founders of the First 00:26:00Presbyterian Church, and Father was on the board of trustees, and an elder in this church, until the time of his death. He was much interested in this church long after he became totally deaf, and his family of six boys, even after my mother's invalidism and death, were required to go with him to church every Sunday morning, although he couldn't hear a word of the sermon. He was superintendent of the first Sunday school, and carried on a Sunday school here for years in the little white schoolhouse, where the only religious service was an occasional Presbyterian--was held by an occasional Presbyterian missionary. He was a man of strong convictions, and deeply religious. He read the hero 00:27:00stories of the Old Testament to his sons, generally on the floor of the old home on Sunday afternoons. And having a vivid imagination and being an excellent reader, he explained the Old Testament stories to his sons. I remember one story in particular, the story of the wrestling of the, of Jacob, the patriarch Jacob, with the angel at the brook Jabbok, and how he wrestled until the dawn of the day, and wouldn't let the angel go without his blessing. My father, with characteristic vigor, addressed his sons something like this: "My sons, if you 00:28:00ever get hold of any great and good cause in life, never let it go until it blesses you." I cannot be too grateful for all the fine teachings and example of this outstanding man, who meant so much to us in our home life.

Because of the fact that the early settlers, including the farmers in this country, couldn't get any money excepting from the pine timber in the pineries north of here, farming was very poorly development--very poorly developed, with small clearings, log houses, little production, only a few cattle, and a very 00:29:00meager living, which was supplemented by the work of the head of family--heads of families in the lumberwoods in the winter, and by shooting deer for meat, and by fishing and berry picking, and making maple syrup and maple sugar. Not until the development of the dairying industry in the '90s was--did farming become really at all profitable, and the settlers, most of whom were Scandinavians, had a very bitter struggle for the most part.

I recall distinctly a little short farmer born in Sweden by the name of Charlie 00:30:00Carlson, who had bought eighty acres of land through our company, and owed $100 mortgage on that land, on which he was paying ten percent interest. In the summer of 1894, Carlson came into our office and addressed me somewhat in this way: "Well, now I come to pay the rent." And I knew that he meant interest, because the Swedish word for interest is renta, so I said, "Very well, Charlie, the interest will be $10." He got out a little Bull Durham tobacco sack with ten silver dollars, and emptied it on my desk, and I gave him a receipt for this amount. He stopped a few minutes, looked at me, and I said, "Well, Charlie, is 00:31:00there anything further?" "Ja," he said, "I think now I will pay the capital," which is the Swedish word for principal. And he got out another little Bull Durham tobacco sack and emptied five twenty dollar gold pieces on my desk, which was very big money in those days. And I looked up at him and I said, "Charlie, where in the world did you get so much money?" "Well," he said, "I sold my cattle upriver," meaning of course his oxen, for I knew that he had two fine big red oxen, which were the only draft animals that he had [for farm] work, and I couldn't believe that he had sold the only means he had of plowing and dragging 00:32:00and planting his fields in order to pay this debt on his farm, but I found that to be the case. So I said to him, "Well, Charlie, how in the world will you do your farm work now, since you have sold your oxen upriver?" "Well," he replied, "You know that a man so much in debt is a slave, and I going to be out of debt."

This good, hardworking farmer later became quite prosperous, and many years later, I saw him in the back seat of his automobile on the streets in our village, and went out to speak to him and reminded him of the day that he sold his oxen up into the pineries for the necessary $100 to pay off the mortgage on 00:33:00his farm. "Well," he said, "We have a pretty hard time in those days, then it is better now." He was only one of the many thrifty Scandinavian farmers who did so much to develop this country into the prosperous dairying community that now exists. There were many others about of the same caliber who worked excessively hard, struggling to get homes. Many of them came on foot with red bandanna handkerchiefs with a little lunch wrapped up, because they couldn't afford to 00:34:00buy a meal, and they would have a lunch in these handkerchiefs of rye bread and cheese, or perhaps sausage. Because many of them couldn't talk a word of English, some of them would address me as they came into the office about in this manner: "Jag vill fråga, hår du inte lite stycke billig landet, som en fattig man kånske?" And I would reply, "Ja, vi har platta landet, och jag ska göra en karta för dig, skar går se att det landet, och kommer tillbaka [untranscribed]." Meaning, translated meaning: "Haven't you a little piece of cheap land that a poor man can buy?" and my reply was, "Yes, we have plenty of 00:35:00land, and I will make a map for you, showing this land, and you can go and look it up, and then come back and see us."

These settlers would take these small maps and go on foot many miles to locate the land indicated on the maps, and I might not see them again for weeks or months thereafter. Finally, one day, one of them would come into the office with a little map I had given him, all mussed up and perhaps dirty, but he would know what piece of land he wanted, and he would address me something like this: "Ja, [untranscribed]" which, translated, means, "I would like to hear the lowest 00:36:00price on this piece of land here, and the best terms of payment also." And so perhaps a bargain would be made, and he would pay perhaps fifty or a hundred dollars down, and get a contract for deed. Then with his wife, who was as hardy and thrifty as he, would go onto the land and build a log house and make a small clearing, and start the farm home of the future.

As a small boy riding in my father's old Concord buggy, I have seen those early settlers, men and women, with straps and ropes around their shoulders, down pulling the logs together that they had cut down because they didn't have any 00:37:00beast of burden, any draft animal to do this work, so they had to do it themselves, doing work that people nowadays wouldn't think possible. They dragged these logs together in piles and set fire to them, burning up sometimes much good hardwood timber in this way, for which there was no market, but determined to get a little piece of land opened so that they could raise some crops to feed their families and pay their other expenses, including a doubtless sum, indebtedness on the land.

I recall distinctly one old Danish farmer who couldn't speak a word of English coming into the office when my father was still alive to get an extension on a 00:38:00fifty dollar payment of principal on his land contract. And through his--through me, I understood--through me, he explained to my father, and I wrote it down to him, because my father was totally deaf and couldn't hear, I wrote down his reason for wishing an extension, namely that he had some cattle to sell, but they were not ready for market yet, but that as soon as he could sell these cattle, he would pay--he would make the payment. And my father replied, "I know this man very well. He is more anxious about his indebtedness than we are, so tell him that it will be all right, we are sure that he will pay it just as soon as he can and he must not worry about it." And when I explained this to this old Danish farmer, tears came to his eyes, and he grasped my hand with both of his, 00:39:00saying with much emphasis, "Du var så [untranscribed]," meaning, "You are so very kind, you are so very kind." These people were really wonderful people for the struggles that were necessary to open and develop the heavy hardwood timber that existed here when they came. Stop, please.

[tape begins] My connection with my father's land business here began actively, although I had had some experience in his office as a young lad and made many trips with him up country, because of his deafness, my active connection with his business began in November, 1893, when, as he stated to me on the first morning when I went down to the office to begin work, he was heavily in debt and 00:40:00thought that he might even be bankrupt. But I told him that he was probably land poor, and the only thing we could do would be to sell enough of his land to get him out of debt. But he said that he had been here nineteen years, and that everybody up and down the St. Croix Valley was well acquainted with him, and if they wanted any land, they would come and see him. But I told him that the people here were most of them already landowners, and that we would have to look outside to get land buyers. And rather reluctantly, he consented to my beginning some advertising, and, as a result, in 1898, we had sold enough of his land so that his debts were paid in full. And at that time, he began his interest in the 00:41:00reforestation of some of his own lands, which were so-called cutover lands, with the valuable native timber cut off.

Most of these lands--most of the lands that he had acquired at that time were by means of tax deeds under so-called tax titles, which my father had begun buying in 1876. These had ripened into tax deeds, and he had acquired full title to these lands--thousands of acres--in that way. And at the time I came into his business, he had thousands of acres scattered over about three counties, some of 00:42:00them pretty good farming lands, and some of them valuable only for the pine timber. These lands were generally sold on land contracts on small payments down, sometimes as little as twenty-five to fifty dollars, with annual payments thereafter with interest at six percent, these land contracts providing for the delivery of warranty deeds when the purchase price and interest had been fully paid. Gradually, as the country developed, these land contracts went out of common use, and most farm lands were sold on deed and mortgage, particularly 00:43:00after farms were developed and our business developed into a general real estate brokerage business.

In the early 1890s, the Interstate Park at this place in the Dalles of the St. Croix River, a very picturesque and scenic area, was begun and gradually developed, it being the first state park in Wisconsin. But it didn't attract many visitors until the automobile came into use in the 1900s, which brought many people from other parts of the state and from adjoining states, 00:44:00particularly the nearby state of Minnesota. The beautiful lakes outlying from this place and extending north and northeast from here, many of them very attractively wooded, with attractively wooded shores and well stocked with game fish, attracted sportsmen and finally summer residents from outside.

And so, to meet this demand, our business developed into--quite largely into investments in lake frontage lands, which we subdivided and platted and sold off 00:45:00in lots of suitable sizes to people from the Twin Cities of St. Paul-Minneapolis, and even from Chicago and more distant places. So that today, there are literally hundreds of cottages and summer homes on these lakes, and we are continuing our lake frontage business as an important adjunct to our general farmland business, which is now very largely in the listing and selling of improved farms in six counties, including our county of Polk. These farms, varying greatly in size and price and the buyers being principally from older 00:46:00farming countries such as southern Wisconsin, southern Minnesota, Iowa, Illinois, and more distant states. These farms are generally selling from about $40 per acre up to perhaps $75 or $80 per acre, with good buildings and ample fields for the production of feed for the dairy herds. The creamery industry became quite highly developed in this and adjoining counties, our own county of Polk having some thirty-eight or forty creameries and cheese factories until recent years, when the big dairy cooperative, the Land O'Lakes from Minneapolis, has built two large milk plants, which process the milk from quite a number of creameries.

GLOVER: [tape begins] All right.

BAKER: There has never been, so far as I know, any considerable promotion of colonization schemes or programs worked out in this county, the settlement being largely through the natural influx of farmers from older and higher priced farming countries, and through the efforts of relatives and friends living here, who interested people from nearby cities, many of them who had had farm backgrounds and were working in the cities only temporarily, hoping 00:48:00gradually--hoping eventually to have farm homes of their own. At the present time, and for some years past, our company has obtained its buyers for farmlands, and also for lake frontage properties through advertising in the Twin Cities of St. Paul-Minneapolis, Des Moines, and Chicago, and in the leading agricultural papers and in local newspapers. In this way, getting in touch with people from outside who might be interested in either buying farms or acquiring summer homes on our beautiful lakes. This method of conducting our business has 00:49:00been carried on through the years. Our principal asset, in my humble opinion, has been the fine, sound, wholesome business principles of my father for reliable dealing and truthful representations in all of our business. The fact that we have been able to sell as much as a million dollars' worth of real estate in one year as we have done in some years past, although not recently, is evidence that even a small concern like ours may have--may establish a very satisfactory and enduring business. That's enough, I think.

[tape begins] There were many interesting characters here in the early days, one of whom lived right next door to my father's home, and while he was a college graduate and a man of considerable intelligence, he had very little practical ability to meet the common problems of life. One day, he came over to our home and asked of my father about gathering rainwater for washing in his home, because there was no water supply here at that time, and wells were hard to get on our hillside. And Father said to him, "Well, Judge Barron, you better buy a kerosene barrel"--for kerosene came in barrels in those days--"and have the 00:51:00water--rainwater spouted from your roof down into the rainwater barrel." And Judge Barron replied, "Well, how do you get the kerosene out of the inside of the barrel? The water will be spoiled with the kerosene that was in the barrel." And Father said, "Oh, that's easily done; you burn the kerosene out of the barrel." So we were interested to see Judge Barron out in his yard with kerosene barrel, scratching matches and dropping them down into the barrel, and the matches would go out and kerosene didn't ignite. So he came over to my father and said, "Baker, how do you burn the kerosene out of the barrel?" And Father said, "Well, you crumple up some newspapers and put them in the bottom of the 00:52:00barrel, and then light the newspapers." Well, he did so, and there was apparently a little more kerosene in this barrel than ordinary. So we looked across to his yard and could see him, as he had lit the newspapers in the kerosene barrel, dancing around the barrel and black smoke pouring up in a great column, and he jumped up and down and shouted as loud as he could, "Baker, Baker, what do I do now?" And Father vaulted over the fence and tipped the kerosene barrel upside down and put the fire out. "Oh," he said, "you do it that way, do you?" "Yes," my father said, "that's the way we do it."

Judge Barron was, as I've said, an educated man. He came here in the early day to practice law, and for a time was an agent for the Cushing land interests here. He was a politician and went to the state legislature. And in his later 00:53:00years, having become quite addicted to liquor, he was in poor health; and although he became very prominent in this part of Wisconsin, having, the adjoining county of Barron having been named after him and its county seat, the city of Barron, he died here in poor financial circumstances and having quite--been quite disillusioned with all of life.

We had many other interesting characters, including one whom I very well remember, an old logger, by the name of Daniel F. Smith, from Chautauqua County in New York, a very profane man, an old logger, strong personality. And my 00:54:00father, who wore an ear trumpet, used to say that the only profanity he heard from one year's end to the other through his ear trumpet was when Uncle Dan Smith called on him, because other people were just a little awed by talking into that ear trumpet, but Uncle Dan, nothing awed him, and he swore as usual. He used to say that he had drank enough whiskey to float a steamboat, and he had eaten enough cornbread to bridge the Mississippi. In his later years, he got into very poor circumstances financially, and one time it was related of him that he went down to the office of the surveyor general of logs and lumber at Stillwater, where log marks were recorded, and wanted to get the surveyor general to enter his mark as no mark. When this was objected to, he said, "Well, 00:55:00there is a lot of logs scattered all up the St. Croix River that have no mark on them, lying around the shores and the bottom of the river," he said, "and I just need some money, and I figured that if I could enter no mark at all," he said, "I could get those logs up and drive them down to the Stillwater boom and get the money that I need." He died in poverty, cared for by a very devoted daughter. He was one of the outstanding men of his time who did much in the way of the opening of roads and the developing of new territory.

The Interstate Park, as I have already related, was established here in the early '90s by a local--by an active state legislature of Wisconsin, it being the first state park in this state. Appropriations for the purchase of the necessary 00:56:00lands within the park limits were very difficult to obtain from Wisconsin legislatures, because so few members of the legislature at that time knew anything about this part of the state. And when people went down from here with photographs of the magnificent scenery, and the Dalles of the St. Croix, and scheme for establishing a state park here, they were very incredulous, and many of them not at all interested. However, the enthusiasm and the initiative of George H. Hazard, who lived for a good many years in Taylors Falls, Minnesota, and was really the father of the park movement on the Minnesota side of the St. 00:57:00Croix River, was very largely instrumental in getting the Interstate Park on the Wisconsin side underway, and getting the necessary appropriations.

I recall distinctly one interesting occasion, when a delegation from here went down to appear before the Joint Finance Committee of the Legislature at Madison to try to get their approval of an appropriation to buy lands for the Interstate Park. George H. Hazard, who lived in Minnesota, was influential in obtaining passes for himself on the railroad, but he couldn't get any passes for us. So we had to circulate subscription lists in our village to get the necessary money to 00:58:00pay the railroad fare of the delegation down to Madison and return, while Mr. Hazard went down on a pass from St. Paul, and was right there with his lap full of papers and pamphlets and books relating to his activities in connection with the promotion of the Interstate Park. I recall that John M. True, a state senator from Baraboo, was chairman of the Joint Committee, and he heard us quite patiently for some time in our pleas for the necessary appropriation for the park, until it got along--quite well along in the evening and the whole committee were getting a little tired, and finally Mr. Hazard jumped up and 00:59:00threw his lap full of books in the middle of the table, and began to harangue the committee about the park movement. And old Senator True beckoned to me, and as I came up close to him, he leaned over and whispered to me, "If you don't call off that old billy goat with the white whiskers, you won't get a damn cent."

And there I was, just a young fellow, and charged with the responsibility of shutting off a speaker who had just begun to talk, and was fairly erupting with enthusiasm and interest in the park movement. But I slipped around behind Mr. Hazard, held out my watch, and said, "Mr. Hazard, we have to make the train, and you can't speak for more than five minutes longer." Finally, he ceased, and we 01:00:00got an appropriation.

This went on for quite a number of years, getting only perhaps five or ten thousand dollars at each session of the legislature, and possibly at some sessions nothing at all, and some of the lands had to be condemned by court action because they couldn't be purchased, but today the Interstate Park is a great attraction for tourists from many different states, and has been highly developed with walks and drives, and some very nice stone lodges. And throughout the tourist season, it is generally crowded with people, particularly on Sundays 01:01:00and holidays, and is very much used and very much appreciated; a monument to the energy and the enthusiasm and the foresight not only of George H. Hazard, who was really the father of the park movement, but to those men who had vision enough to see the possibilities of this picturesque and scenic area as the park that it has now become. A state fish hatchery was established in the park some twenty-five or thirty years ago, and brook trout are reared there, and this has become quite an important source of supply for stocking of the many trout 01:02:00streams outlying.