A Photo Album of the Past : Pioneer - McMillan Memorial Library

FOREWORD
A Photo Album of The Past is concentrated
mainly on Portage, Waupaca and Marathon counties
of central Wisconsin. Many of the pictures in the
album are on exhibit at the Rosholt Pioneer Museum
and may be viewed during the Labor Day weekend of
the Free Community Fair held every year.
Since many visitors have expressed an interest in
obtaining copies of pictures identified with their own
families, publication of this album will make it
possible to "take home" nearly all the pictures on
exhibit and also to assure their preservation.
Considerable effort has been made to identify not
only the time and place of the pictures, but also the
names of the people. HIad this task been undertaken
fifty years ago it would have been much easier, but
today the number of people who can be identified is
limited, particularly among the lumberjacks and
woodsmen. They and their companions who worked
in the woods, in the sawmills, and on the rivers are all
gone, and most of their names have been forgotten.
But the pictures show they were here, and that they
were part of the great movement of people from
Europe and the eastern states to the Wisconsin
"Pinery" who came to find work in the logging
camps, or to build homes and farms on the cut-over
lands.
Many of the pictures were faded. Luttrell Studio
of Eau Claire, Wisconsin had done an admirable job
of restoring most of them. Only a few pictures have
been lifted from glass plates. Most were taken from
portraits preserved in private collections and old
family albums.
In addition to the professional studio portraits,
quite a few pictures were reproduced from
commercial postcards, most of them taken by James
Parfitt and C.J. Ruppenthal of Tigerton and
Wittenberg, Wisconsin. This will explain why some of
the pictures have writing on them.
The majority of the pictures in the album were
taken between 1890 and 1915. The majority depict
the early history of Rosholt and the townships of
Franzen and Elderon in Marathon county. After the
railway came down from Elderon to Rosholt in 1903,
via Galloway, these three communities became, if not
homogeneous, at least a community with common
interests, church and family affiliations.
A diversion was made from central Wisconsin to
include the composite picture of the sawmill at Star
Lake in Vilas county. We are grateful to Hazel and
Edith Fredrickson of Star Lake for the loan of the
picture. It is included in the album because it is the
most complete picture of a "company town" we have
ever seen. It also has something to do with a big
muskie lurking off the weedbed.
But there are many others who have contributed
to the album. We are bound to leave out some,
inadvertently, but here are most of the contributors,
living and dead:
Dagney Westren, Louis Sinski, Pernilla Edminister,
Mabel Lockery, Maren Erickson, Syndey Johnson of
Scandinavia, Dr. & Mrs. Ovid Mever of Madison,
Lester Peterson, Mary Ann Anderson, T.J. Tronson,
Edward J. Dobbe, Basil Lean, George Lee, Joseph
Gruna, Barton Plowman, Mrs. Lawrence Christianson,
P. Oliver Olson, Harry Hanson of east Alban, The
Felician Sisters of Polonia, Father Joseph Schulist of
Ellis, Willie Wrolstad of Peru, Mrs. John Gilmeister,
George Lien, Mrs. John Esidor, Ruth Olson, Mrs.
Vernon Rosholt, Jeffrey Wrolstad, William Klope,
Mrs. Leander Van Hecke of Belgium, Wisconsin, Mrs.
Russell Krogwold, Glenn McKenzie, Laura Schlyyter,
Mrs. E.J. Stevens, Dr. Jens Rosholt, Mildred Paulson,
Agnes Halverson and Rufus Faulks of Iola, Mrs. Carl
Peterson of Scandinavia, Allen Strand of New Hope,
and Roy Swanke of Tigerton Lumber Company.
The pictures from Stevens Point are mainly from
the Stevens Point Daily Journal, the Portage County
Historical Society, Howard Wells, Mrs. Mabel Badten,
Mrs. W.E. Atwell Sr., Fern Altenburg, Mr. & Mrs. Win
Rothman, Ralph Cook, Ramona Maslowski and K.B.
Willett.
The air views of villages, the photos of Mrs. Liebe
and the Opperman Sugar Bush were taken by
Malcolm Rosholt, and the aerial view of the Lions
Lake by Bird's Eye Aviation of Clintonville,
Wisconsin.
The photo album is a small contribution to the
American Bicentennial. It reminds us that
two-hundred years ago when this nation was founded,
Wisconsin was inhabited by several Indian nations. We
have found their projectile points and clay pottery
along our river banks and around our lakes. But there
are no pictures of them.
More than one-hundred years ago Yankees from
Vermont and New York and Massachusetts, and
emigrants from Europe, came here and dispossessed
the Indian nations. It will be a tribute to our
generation if people a century from now will say of
us that we loved the land the way the Indians did.
The Indians had established a harmony with the
authority of nature. We must respect this same
authority or we stand to lose our identity with the
past and our order and beauty in the present.
Malcolm & Margaret Rosholt
One River Drive
Rosholt, WI 54473

A Photo Album of the Past : Pioneer Scenes and Portraits from Central Wisconsin -
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