Wausau pilot. [volume] (Wausau, Wis.) 1896-1940, 1901-01-22
DOES NOT WANT 1T ''PLATo."
Judge Cate Writes Good Letter on
the Subject.

The following is an extract from a
letter written by Judge Cate, of Stevens
Point, and published in the journal
protesting against the changing of the
name of that city to ''Plato." The his
torical part will be very interesting to
many of our readers
George Stevens, long since in his
grave, was pioneer in his day in the
wild west, not for the pleasures of hunt
| ing or as mere wanderer, but to spy
out the land, to learn its productions
and devise means to. utilize the same.
He had learned of its lumber values
along the Wisconsin, and its abundant
water power, and he knew of Big Bull
Falls and that the waters there might
easily be turned into the manufacture
of pine lumber He determined to un-
dertake the enterprise and to man of
his giant frame and undaunted courage,
to undertake was to accomplish He
planned a road over which teams could
draw supplies through roadless coun-
| try, to terminate on the bank of the
river where this city now stands He
landed his teams at the river bank,
about where Main street strikes the
| river, built his warehouse there, housed
his supplies and sent his teams back for
more. He at once improvised freight
line of dugouts and canoes to Big Bull
Falls by the river, portaging at Little
Bull Falls (Mosinee) and the great prob
lem of manufacturing lumber where
Wausau now stands was solved Now
what followed rapidly is a matter of
history
''The business of numbering north of
this city increased with indescribable
rapidity, requiring immense supplies
from below which came mainly, until
184S, from south of this state and by the
Stevens route to Stevens Point; and
lumber coming down in RATS as early as
1916 filled the river full of RATS for six
miles above here. Now for nearly
80 years, or until the advent of rail
roads, IS per cent. of all that business
was transacted here. Necessarily the
enterprise of Stevens furnished name
for the locality. There were no govern
mental organizations of territory where
by names could be applied. The place
occupied by Stevens was the one place
to be reached with teams loaded fcT the
upper country; the one place, sought by
laborers for the winter, or the river in
the spring, coming FROM western Ohio,
northern Illinois and Missouri Ninety
nine of every hundred men met on the
road north of Portage were going to
Stevens Point The lumber was sold |
in all the cities of the Mississippi river
north of the Ohio, and the drafts large |
ly collected here. Is it any wonder,
then, that when the organization of |
town or city came to be talked that |
business had so entwined itself with the |
name of Stevens Point that the adop- |
ton of such name was in manner a
necessity? So you can see that the |
present name has been so intimately a |
part of the early history of the city as
to seem quite inseparable from the To-
calitY itself, and as it seems to me many |
years of its history would practically be
lost to the near future by striking out
the present name and replacing it with |
Plato But desire to say this with
out the slightest disrespect to Mr.. Plato.
think the change would be mistake
and soon be regretted by the people |
who would be slow to accommodate
themselves to the new name"