• A Supposed Exhaustible Supply of Lumber
• Real Estate & the Cutover
• The End of an Era

*Cutover Land in Medford, Wi. Courtesy of the Chippewa County Historical Society.

A Supposed Exhaustible Supply of Lumber

In the middle of the 19th century, lumber was the dominant factor in Northern Wisconsin, and the many sawmills on the Chippewa River were busy sawing the products of boundless forests above them. Northern Wisconsin was practically covered with what seemed like an exhaustible supply of pine trees. The early lumbermen barely ever concerned themselves with the question of lumber depletion. The great question in the forests was that of getting to the market the merchantable product in such a manner to permit the logger to pay his labor and supply bills with the hope of a reasonable return upon his investment. The forest products were used to supply the needs of growing railroads, cities and towns and for the manifold requirements of the treeless prairie states.75

In the Chippewa Lumber and Boom’s early lumbering a large percentage of the timber was left in the woods for the reason that the cost of delivering low grade logs at the mills exceeded by far the value of the product. In the early seventies they put in good logs, taking only the perfects trees and leaving ones that showed defect. As the years went by, and the lumber supply depleted, the C. L. & B. went back for lower quality timber. North Western Wisconsin became a land filled with stumps which the Chippewa Lumber and Boom had no use for any more. 76