Ladysmith news-budget. [volume] (Ladysmith, Rusk County, Wis.) 1907-1927, 1915-09-17
LAID FOUNDATIONS FOR THE
RYDRO-ELECTRlC POWER
DEVELOPMENT
four MEN WHO BUILDED WELL
The Gathering of Water Rights fol
Lumber Purposes Served Later
Day Industry.

ness at Eau Claire, must be given the
credit for having been the earliest to
realize the industrial possibilities OF
the water powers of the Chippewa
Valley of Wisconsin. All four were
eastern men, two of them natives OF
New York, one of Vermont, and one OF
Massachusetts.
Two Of them were associated to-
gcther in business, one was Whaf
might be called a lone hand player,
the fourth, tho survivor, being man
who had q splendid training in the
milling and numbering business before
be came to Wisconsin at all.
One Of them, as far back as 1887,
had worked in one of the earliest
vator-driyen mills ever constructed on
the Chippewa. Another, the survivor,
saw the water-driven mills pass out OF
usefulness, and had hand in convert
fng the powers which actuated them
into sources of electric energy. Two
OF them were pioneers and &dventurers
by inheritance, as well as by actual
experience. The other two seem to
have been pioneers by instinct, with
cut known hereditary tendencies in
that direction.
The quartet, between them, made a
greater impress upon the Chippewa
Valley than any other four men who
have lived within its limits, and the
careers of each Of them had to do-in
The cases of three ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS
tho development Of the water-powers
st the Valley which is now assuming
Is modern stage, and upon which the
f .uro industrial welfare OF the Valley
Is almost surely bound to be based.
These four men were Hiram S. Al
len, Andrew fainter, John Hiram
Knapp and Orrin Henry Ingram.
though they came to the Chippewa
g=arly a hundred and fifty years after
Father Honnepin and his companions,
AiChacl Accau and Antoine Auguel,
1oy were much more practical mod
ern pioneers Of the river than had
been their French predecessors.
Allen was the earliest on the scene.
He came 81 years ago, in 1884.
EIo was a Vormonter, who had learned
the numbering business, accumulated
come capital, and at 27 years of age,
st"clI out to the virgin forests of the
vest. The following year he bought
the first mill ever built in the Valley
from Street and Lockwood, Of Will
I9I's Greek, its owners, laid out the
fifty Of Chippewa Falls in 1856,
5-uCht an interest in the mill and
p1Wcr at Chippewa Falls, and was
futarostad in ether mill sites and
operations Of magnitude Floods
: 2ahCd out his dams, wasted and dis
Inrsed his logs, confidential employees
! h5oj him, and all manner of bad
clI came his way, but he was per-
! ,cnt man and an enterprising one
|, I finally got into operation the
l@hor plant which, after many
; anGos Of ownership, became that
q tho Chippewa Lumber & Boom
t3mGany, This prOpertyAconstituted
tic FIRST really great water power
.yoj0pment in the Chippewa Valley,
to great mill al Chippewa Falls being
ID2cratod by the largest water wheels
Known 8. the time Of their installa-
| TON TIL" early SOS, being 500 horse
Vowcr units.
Hiram Allen was the Tone hand
IDnyor Of the quartet which had so
eiuoh to do with the initiation Of the
use cf water power in the Chippewa
Valley He was a kindly, easy-going
pan. a natural born optimist, and
gDo who tried to do it all himself. He
gas orc of the most liberal of men,
| tut his ventures did not seem to turn
Dat as splondidly as did those Of tho
sast lie died in 1886.
| While Hiram Allen was making
gde f0uudat.ao., OF lumber industry
| at Chippewa Falls and struggling
| with storm and food, two men came
| into the Valley who were destined
to have a great deal to do with th&
| development Of it's water power
| These were John Hiram Knapp and
| ANDREW fainter. John Hiram
Knapp's father was true pioneer,
| A New Yorker by birth, he had drift
ed off to New Orleans, back to New
York, where he operated gold and
coal mines, into the Black Hawk wa,
as a general Of New York militia, and
finally out to Iowa, where he laid oul
the City of Fort Madison in 1885.
| His son, the Chippewa Valley pioneer.
I was the protege of Black Hawk and
Keokuk, the Indian chiefs, was given
fair schooling, and came into the VAL
ley with $1,000, settling at what was
to be Menomonie, in 1916, entering
into the lumber business. Four years
later Andrew fainter joined him in
business.
Andrew fainter had a deal of pio-