July-August, 1969 - Milwaukee Road Archive

An early picture of a rowboat fleet cruising through the Upper Dells. (Photo by H. H. Bennett)
The Wisconsin Dells - A Tourist Attraction for 100 Years
The opening of the 1969 vacation season
marked the beginning of the second century
of tourism at the Wisconsin Dells,
the popular Midwestern recreation area
served by the Milwaukee Road.
According to local history, the industry
was "born" in 1869 when the operators
of a vacation resort known as the
Tanner House hitched up a horse and
buggy and drove their guests to the head
of the Dells for a rowboat ride seven
miles downriver through the gorges of
the majestic Wisconsin. Along the way
the sightseers were fascinated by· the
panorama of towering cliffs, table rocks
and wild ravines that tell the story of an
old detour while primeval forces carved
out the present river bed.
At that time the town was named Kilbourn
City as a tribute to Byron Kilbourn,
president of the La Crosse & Milwaukee
Railroad (a predecessor line of the Milwaukee
Road), which had built north
and crossed the Wisconsin at this point
in 1857. The name endured until 1931,
when it was changed to the more descriptive
Wisconsin Dells.
Before the influx of white settlers, the
region was the home of the Winnebago
tribe, and the area abounded with Indian
lore. Legend has it that the Dells were
formed by a giant serpent that battered
14
its way through subterreanean rock, leaving
a massive trail of unique geological
formations.
The catalyst of tourism in this primitive
wilderness-the first person to appreciate
its potential as a scenic empirewas
a young Milwaukee Road telegrapher,
George Humphrey Crandall. Upon
arriving in Kilbourn City, Crandall
courted and married a daughter of H. H.
Bennett, a pioneer in scenic photography
who had established a studio there in
The launch Chief of
the modern sightseeing
fleet passes Chimney
Rock in the Upper
Dells. Today's
fleet consists of 22
launches ranging in
passenger capacity
from 80 to 300 persons.
1865. (The Bennett studio is reputed to
be the oldest in the United States.)
Abetted by his father-in-law, Crandall
obtained from the Southern Wisconsin
Power Company a long-range lease on
numerous tracts of land adjoining the
river. He also took over the company's
river equipment, including a stern-wheel
passenger steamer. Gradually he began
acquiring other property along the river
for the purpose of preserving the virgin
timber lining its banks. Later, as his
The Milwaukee Road Magazine