River Falls journal. [volume] (River Falls, Pierce County, Wis.) 1872-2019, 1884-09-18
Earlier Accounts.

Chippewa is all right Beef Slough boom
and the mills below will round up all logs
that come down.
Earlier Accounts.
From the St Paul Pioneer Press, Sept IA
South of the Omaha railway bridge, in
West Eau Claire, from the Pioneer Lum-
Der company's mills to Westville, two miles
away, and at the extreme end of West Eau
Claire and at Westville, the damage wrought
by Thursdays flood is tremendous. Along
this section the banks of the Chippewa are
low; but notwithstanding this and the
fact that the soil is sand, the people had con-
structed their dwellings close to the waters
edge, apparently fearing no overflow. The
west side of Shawtown, a division OF
West Eau Claire, is where chaos re1gns.
The streets are filed with lumber, houses
turned and twisted in all ways, the whole
place covered with layer of black mud,
left by the food from one to three feet in
depth; bedding, household furniture. roofs,
shingles, logs, fifteen-foot piles of wood;
houses with logs driven through them; the
depot inclined at an angle of forty live de-
grees, and telegraph, telephone and electric
light wires down. The Milwaukee railroad
track ana bridge are completely uprooted;
the street car tracks are buried under the
blacklist, nastiest mud that ever was formed
The city bridges are literally distributed in
out-of-the-way places = one Understandable
mass of everything that could float The
rise of water at Shawtown was twenty
two feet six inches the most of the flood oc-
curing Wednesday night and Thurs
day morning No lives were lost
there The main damage is to the Milwau-
kee railway, its loss certainly being over
$4,000 in that locality, while the streets
of Shawtown are swept out of existence.
The estimated damage from Westy1lle TO the
Half Moon Lake canal which is the northern
boundary OF Shawtown, is over $2o, 600.
OF deaths the West side there
are not many, as near as they can be
traced now 1t seems that Mr.. Lilly, who
lives near the Madison street bridge, was
trying to save his wife from the flood Ills
body was found Friday morning. Friday
evening float passed down the chippewa
with two men on it According to the story
of the bystanders it disappeared just opposite
the Bailey house and the men were not seen
again. ilGrossly exaggerated stories are ny;
ing around about other deaths in the v1c1nl-
ty, but their truth is doubtful. OF the logs
that have broken loose, lumbermen say not
one will reach Durand, and they
can easily be recovered when the
water goes down Between Eau Claire and
Rumsey's Landing, down the river, many
farmers were found by the relief party
perched upon knobs with their families;
homes gone, fields under water, and no pro-
visions There are fears of great suffering
between here and Durand- careful estl-
mate made by parties resident there approx
mates the West Eau Claire losses about as
follows, and the figures given cannot be far
from correct:
Milwaukee road. ........................ $4,000
Lumber firms, foundry, etc............. $4,000
Municipal loss, bridges. etc. ........... 800 oo0
No outside aid will be needed. public
subscription is being taken up in the
city for aid to sufferers 1t is
believed that the total loss in all Eau
Claire will not exceed 81 900, 600. A house
passed the city Thursday half submerged,
q woman with child in her arms standing
at the upper-story window and man ON the
roof. They are supposed to have been
drowned. The river has fallen rapidly to-
day at the time of writing having gone down
from fifteen to seventeen feet. 1t is stated
drifted into the Dells reservoir from north.
ern points The Phoenix Lumber company
estimates it's damage at $1,000 The
bridges across the Eau Claire in the city
are damned into all possible shapes,
the damage to them being heavy. Reports
of a house having fioated into the Dells
pond with five dead persons in it have Just
come in Summarizing all the damage
resulting to this town up to date,
from Chippewa Falls to Eau Claire the main
damage is to the mill and numbering inter-
ests though private property in that section
has suffered considerably At Eau Claire the
city and railroads suffer; the mills are less
damaged 1t is stated that over 5000 peo-
pie have been directly injured by this flood,
ertwenty- five corporate firms damaged, one
of the principal divisions of a great railroad
almost entirely swept away, one-hfth
of large city submerged, dozen and over
smaller places more or less damaged and
great agricultural region turned into sea-
The flood is directly traceable to the cyclone
that swept St Croix and Polk counties. The
great bulk of rain did not fall though till
after the blow of last Tuesday night, when
all the small streams in Chippewa and Bar
ron counties north Of here were turned into
rivers and lakes that discharged themselves
into the Chippewa and came down its course.
No such rainfall has ever occurred in Wis
consin before since early pioneer days, and
the destruction from wind and rain is unpar-
alleled. Nearly four millions damage from
wind and over three millions from water is a
terrible record
THE LUMBER INTERESTS.
CHIPPEWA FALLS, Wis, Special Telegram
Sept 13.-Fred Weyerhauser, president OF
the Mississippi Lumber and Logging COM
pany, was here again to-day looking after
the interests of the company. He states that
there was in the Chippewa 525, 600, 900 feet
of logs belonging to his company, and above
rs, 900, 900 belonging TO other parties. Ad-
vices received from Mr.. Irvine, at Beef
Slough, are to the effect that all the logs run
in there thus far are safely cared for. Mr.
Weyerhauser thinks there is more than 10O,
900 900 there, an equal number at the Dells
reservoir and 15O, 100000 in the Paint
more above Little Falls, filing the mouth Of
Jump creek and the main river for some
distance up to the stream No adylceS nave
been received from Little Falls, but Mr.
Weyerhauser believes that everything is safe
there. The ends of the Paint Greek. dam are
washed out, as is the east end of that on the
falls here. Mr. Weyerhauser says that his
company owned improvements worth p4OO,-
900 on the river and he estimates that 1t
will cost at least 100000 to make the re-
- rxrffl h0
necessary to build the Point Greek dam. The
smaller dams above he thinks are pretty
generally gone, but has no positive informa-
nation The storm he believes to have been
MOST SEVERE ON THE EASTERN TRIBUTARIES
of the river He has heard from the West
fork and the Court d'0urelle, and everything
is all right in that direction, but the storm
seems to have been along the East fork ana
the FIambeau, where the water must have
fallen in torrents A telegram from nay
ward states that no damage is done there.
A large proportion of the logs now in the
four great reservoirs will be high and dry
when the water falls OF the 600, 00O,OOC
on the river Mr.. Weyerhauser estimates that
fully SOC, 600, 600 are so high up on the
banks that they will have to be
hauled into the river again Little, if any.
more lumber viii be cut on the Chippewa
this wear and there are enough logs from
Little Falls down to start the mills waiting
their supply from the Chippewa next year
he DeleVeS UIlaU the W1nbSI Will nave W 10
occupied in hauling the stranded logs into
the river. again. and that the lumbermen
will probably have to do their logging before
securing the stock for next year. He urges
that this work should be done before going
into the woods to get another start for next
winter With the water fallen no more than
at the present time,
LOGS ARE SCATTERED ON THE BANKS
two and three hundred feet out of the water,
and high and dry. He does not estimate
a. 1lNfarr
company's lill and buildings here at more
than 81 900, although the yard and sur
roundings present the sorriest sort of sight.
The work of repair of boiler and OF yard has
been commenced, but will occupy several
weeks The partially demolished buildings
will be repaired Some of the improvements
swept away were made on the basis of the
flood of 1880, and above the high
water mark then. Mr. Weyerhauser says
that the most serious part of the whole
affair is that it is almost impossible to pre-
pare against the recurrence of similar disas-
tiers The flood win limit the lumber pro-
duction of the Chippewa TO about 125. 000,-
600 feet on this years stock and accomplish
what it was hoped to do by the combination
to shut down The mills are all more or less
injured, but the most serious loss viii be 70
the logging company in the damage to its
improvements along the river. new dam
recently built at Pike lake. it is believed is all
right The estimate of a damage of $780,
600 is only approximate, and the actual loss,
it Is not at all unlikely viii far exceed that
amount An enumeration of the losses in
Chippewa Falls gives an aggregate of about
l1nA 000 A largo x1YfrnIpr of stores and