- Female Narrator: This program is brought to you
by the combined resources
of the Wisconsin Historical Society
and PBS Wisconsin.
[jaunty piano music] [splashing]
On Wisconsin Hometown Stories ,
[rushing current] a river city in the heart of the state,
built up by the harvest of the Great Northwoods,
transformed by immigrants,
higher education,
and the power of wonderful waters,
where industry flourishes
and nature is close at hand
on Wisconsin Hometown Stories: Stevens Point .
[light upbeat piano music]
- Male Announcer: Funding for
Wisconsin Hometown Stories: Stevens Point is provided by
Sentry Insurance Foundation,
Dr. Henry Anderson and Shirley Levine,
Marshfield Clinic Health System,
the Dick Cable Family,
Mitzi and Bernie Hlavac,
Delta Dental of Wisconsin
Tina and Don Peters,
JHL Digital Direct,
the Ward and Ethel Cable Family Fund,
Judy Cable Anderson,
Dr. Henry Anderson,
Community Foundation of Central Wisconsin,
the Focus Fund for Wisconsin Programming
Friends of PBS Wisconsin,
and education funding
from the Timothy William Trout Education Fund.
[instrumental music]
- Narrator: The city of Stevens Point
lies in the middle of two ecological regions.
To the north,
a towering pine forest.
To the south,
a hardwood forest mixed with prairie.
In this area of overlap called the Tension Zone,
live an especially wide variety of plants and animals
which have drawn people to the area for thousands of years.
[Native American music]
An early map shows a network
of well-worn Native American trails
running through the Tension Zone,
and the Stevens Point area
became an early crossroads of activity.
- David Grignon: The Menominee people
were in the Stevens Point area.
Historically, was part of our ancestral territory,
and we had a historic village site
at Stevens Point.
We called it "Pasipahkihnen."
What that means is "the land that jets out into the waters."
We made use of Stevens Point, too.
Just an area that was rich in resources.
It was here that our people harvested wild rice
along the Wisconsin River.
We made maple sugar in the maple groves,
and fished, and hunted,
and were just a good area for us.
The Wisconsin River was useful to not only the Menominees,
but other tribes, too.
Using the river as a historic highway.
Using it for transportation,
for fishing, wild rice, trapping.
- Narrator: Trails also connected Native Americans
to resources throughout the region.
The trails through Stevens Point formed the groundwork
for many of today's roads and highways.
- Ray Reser: Trail systems were kind of the equivalent
to a water system.
You know, if you couldn't travel by water
or if you needed to portage somewhere
or get to a specific resource,
you used the trail system.
They might be a modern highway today,
but they could go back thousands of years.
People have been traversing that track for a very long time.
- Narrator: As Europeans began exploring the area,
word spread of immense stands of white pine
that would soon be cut along the Wisconsin River.
- Tim Siebert: It's relatively light,
so easy to transport.
Cities needed volumes of the stuff to build.
So it was just the perfect timing for the Great Northwoods.
- Ray Reser: In 1836,
the Treaty of the Cedars happened.
The Menominee negotiated with the federal government
and then Governor Dodge of Wisconsin.
- Grignon: Chief Oshkosh was the head negotiator for our tribe.
Although he didn't want to give up land,
he thought he had to because he didn't want
an army of soldiers coming on our villages
to bring harm to us,
so he and other chiefs agreed to the Treaty of the Cedars.
- Narrator: It would become known as
The Lumberman's Treaty because it included
a six-mile-wide strip of pine along the Wisconsin River.
In the middle on a point of land,
with rapids just downstream to provide water power
was the future site of Stevens Point.
- Tim Siebert: It became the perfect place to store stuff
'cause you were just around the rapids,
and the river from here north
for several miles was very calm,
and you could use boats
much more easily transported the stuff.
[rushing currents]
- Narrator: By the time the government
hired Joshua Hathaway to survey the land for settlement,
many of the water power sites in the area
were already occupied.
?
- Gene Kemmeter: He recorded the names given by early settlers
of locations.
The locals had told him
that this point jetting out into the river
was known as "Stevens Point"
because he owned the cabin that was there.
George Stevens was a lumberman from Almond, New York.
He heard about Northern Wisconsin,
so he made an expeditionary trip up
in 1838
to see where these large lumber domains were.
- Narrator: Stevens used "the point" to store materials
for a mill he was building at Big Bull Falls,
the future site of Wausau.
Despite his brief stay in the area,
Stevens connection to the point stuck.
- Tim Siebert: Stevens Point is the gateway to the pineries,
the Great Northern Pinewoods.
They begin a little further north.
- Gene Kemmeter: Towards the 1850s, 1860s,
Stevens Point area became a good place to locate sawmills.
The railroad hadn't come here yet,
and the river was the means to transport all those logs.
- Tim Siebert: They would cut the logs into rough cut lumber
and then organize them into these giant rafts
that then could be floated down river
and get it on down to oh, say, St. Louis,
where it would be planed and made into fine lumber.
And Point became important because you had
to stop here and hire what became known as a river pilot,
people around here who knew the river.
They were probably
the most highly paid men in the Northwoods
because their life expectancy was fairly short,
and that's why the town began to grow,
is because these loggers would stop here
and have to wait until the river pilot was available.
- Narrator: Men poured into Stevens Point looking for jobs
in the lumber mills and on the river.
As it grew,
the lumber town was able to incorporate as a city
and officially took the name "Stevens Point" in 1858.
The new city already featured six hotels,
ten saloons,
and three school houses.
With a growing population,
the city began to expand east of the river,
and as people bought up land,
the layout of the city took shape,
including a key feature.
- Tim Siebert: Mathias Mitchell,
who we really don't know anything about, [laughs]
came into the area and purchased
a lot of this surveyed land and platted out
a lot of what is now downtown Stevens Point.
At some point,
he then donates a fairly significant
chunk of land to the city as a square,
or what, in Europe, would have been the village green.
- Narrator: Mathias Mitchell's generous donation
would live on as the public square
would become the region's commercial center
and a focal point of the city's history
for generations to come.
[band fanfare]
[church bells ringing]
[Polish waltz music]
- Narrator: In 1976, the community of Stevens Point
welcomed a Polish cardinal to their city.
- Waclaw Soroka: This is my distinct privilege,
pleasure, and honor
to introduce to you
His Eminence, Karol Cardinal Wojtyla. [applause]
- Narrator The visit of the future Pope John Paul II
shone a spotlight on the rich Polish heritage
of the Stevens Point area,
a heritage that began in the 1800s
with the arrival of Michael and Frances Koziczkowski
and their nine children.
[Polish waltz music]
- Anton Anday: Michael Koziczkowski
was a member of the minor nobility in Poland.
He will come to the United States in 1857.
He will be the first Polish settler in Stevens Point.
- Ron Zimmerman: He spoke German well,
so he could settle with the Germans
and feel quite at home.
He wrote letters home and convinced
a number of his Polish neighbors
to move to central Wisconsin.
- Audry Somers: Wisconsin,
everything from one end to the other,
is like little Poland, in the seasons,
in the topography, and everything about it.
What they left behind, they found in Wisconsin.
- Narrator: The opportunity to own land and to find jobs
began a steady migration of families
from what is now Northwest Poland,
with a large majority of people
coming from the Kashubian region.
Many Polish tradesmen
found work in Stevens Point
and settled on the north side.
The city would eventually become home
to the largest per capita population
of Polish Americans in the country.
At the turn of the 20th century,
more than one-third of Portage County
would be of Polish descent,
creating the largest rural Polish population
in the state.
[Polish waltz music]
Most of the farmers that came
weren't able to buy land back home
and had to work for the local landowners.
But in the Stevens Point area,
they could pursue their dream
of buying a farm of their own,
even if it wasn't on the best land.
- Audrey Somers: When the Poles came here,
the Yankees or even the Germans and Irish
had already purchased or got the best land.
- Ron Zimmerman: The land was full of boulders and forested.
- Audrey Somers: To be able to make it productive
was a challenge.
The whole family would work.
They were all out in the fields.
- Anton Anday: When they came over here,
they started with potatoes.
Winter wheat was grown a lot.
You had large, large vegetable gardens
that they sold on the public square.
[upbeat waltz music]
- Audrey Somers: The market square was a place
not only to gather and sell produce,
but a social life.
So, the square was a very important part of life
for the Polish people.
- Anton Anday: They come here for new opportunities.
And at the same time,
they want to maintain their heritage.
They want to maintain their culture.
And so, they congregate
around the only institution which they trust,
the Roman Catholic Church.
[ethereal worship singing]
- Narrator: With the church at the heart
of their heritage and culture,
Polish communities devoted their time, labor, and resources
to constructing their own houses of worship.
In 1871, Father Joseph Dabrowski
moved his parish in Ellis,
away from the rowdy saloons there,
to a new site he called Polonia.
Eventually taking the name Sacred Heart,
it would grow to become the largest
rural Catholic parish in Wisconsin.
- Anton Anday: Father Dabrowski
also was very much involved in education.
He got the Felician Sisters to come over here,
newly found order in Poland, in Krakow,
and brought five nuns over here
to teach the Polish children.
- Audrey Somers: These are the sisters that taught the schools.
They were very disciplined,
very thorough in their teaching.
If you went to a Polish school, you got an education.
[ethereal worship singing]
- Narrator: In Stevens Point, a new order of Polish sisters
began training nuns to teach in Catholic schools.
The Sisters of St. Joseph
of the Third Order of Saint Francis
would go on to serve throughout the country.
[bright guitar music]
The religious devotion of Polish farm families
is also seen in the many shrines
constructed throughout the countryside.
- Anton Anday: The roadside shrines
is part of the Polish culture in Poland
that was brought to the United States.
- Audrey Somers: It was a way of connecting
with their spiritual soul.
Because the church was perhaps miles away,
they could not attend.
[mellow guitar music]
- Narrator: Craftsmanship and devotion is evident
throughout the churches of the community.
After a devastating fire destroyed St. Peter's Church,
congregants came together to raise funds and rebuild.
Local wood manufacturer John Bukolt
donated supplies and tools for his workers
to create an impressive high altar.
- Dorothy Zmuda: My pa helped build the alters.
Lullabye let them use all the tools.
They spent many hours there.
And when I went to work in Milwaukee,
and I said I lived at Stevens Point,
the people that were talking to me said,
"[gasps] Oh, have you ever been in that beautiful cathedral
on Highway 51?" [laughs]
It was very beautiful.
["The Stevens Point Polka"]
[jolly music]
- Narrator: Polish heritage is also conveyed through music,
and in Stevens Point, that means polka.
- Dorothy Zmuda: Polka was big.
It's always big.
It's always going to be big. [chuckles]
Everybody polka'd. [laughs]
- Audrey Somers: I met my husband at a polka dance.
Everybody I know, they met their spouses at a polka dance.
? When they play the polka
? From Stevens Point
? How we laughed
- Patti Wolfe: It's amazing to me
that the polkas are still so popular,
and some of the same old ones we played years ago
are still being played.
- Dorothy Zmuda: It was just fun to watch them dance.
The daddies and mamas with the little kids dancing!
And the kids would be flaying around sometimes,
and you know that those kids
were gonna be dancing to the polka forever.
- Audrey Somers: I'm Polish and proud.
I love our tradition.
I hope it never dies.
[jovial polka music]
- Band leader: Oh, yes, everybody polka!
[cheery string music]
- Narrator: With its' lumber industries
on the Wisconsin River,
Stevens Point became a bustling boomtown.
And as early lumberjacks, river rafters, and sawmill workers
would soon find out,
it was also a perfect place to brew beer.
In the mid-1850s, a brewery built on the outskirts of town
would go on to become one of the oldest breweries
in the country.
- John Harry: The brewery had different ownership
throughout the years,
and it wasn't until the 1880s with Andrew Lutz,
that he started branding his barrels
with Stevens Point Brewery.
And the name just kind of stuck then.
- Narrator: The namesake brewery grew along with the city,
although it faced competition.
In the early 1900s, the Polish Brewing Company
arrived in town.
- John Harry: But in 1908, there was this huge cyclone
that ripped through Stevens Point, right along the river,
and totally decimated the Polish Brewing Company.
They did rebuild.
But then, in about 1916,
they had a spoiled batch of beer,
and Prohibition was already kind of seen on the horizon,
and they decided to not reinvest
in opening the brewery again.
So 1917 was the last time that Point
had an in-town competitor.
[upbeat piano music]
- Narrator: Point Brewery outlasted the competition,
with a focus on only serving the local community.
A growing Stevens Point led to a thriving Point Brewery.
- John Harry: Now, that all seems to be going great
until Prohibition hits.
[music distorting]
- Art Oksuita: And that really put a strain on the brewery.
It was difficult for them to continue operating,
but they did.
They never shut down. [gentle piano music]
- Narrator: Prohibition hit breweries hard
across the nation.
And Point Brewery was no exception.
Survival meant ingenuity.
Breweries turned to soda products or near beer,
a non-alcoholic beer, to keep them afloat.
- John Harry: In 1927/28, the Stevens Point Brewing Company
came up with a new near beer,
and they decided to call it Point Special Beverage.
- Art Oksuita: It was basically taking Point Special
and boiling all the alcohol out of it.
So it was a non-alcohol beer.
- John Harry: After Prohibition, all they did to the label
was change the word "beverage" to "beer."
Throughout brewing history, breweries mainly focused on
one or two beers a year.
Point Special was the flagship beer since Prohibition.
- Art Oksuita: We've dabbled in different things over the years,
but it's still, when you think of Stevens Point Brewery,
you're thinking of Point Special.
[gentle guitar music]
- Narrator: With the challenge of Prohibition behind them,
Point Brewery faced a new threat.
Fierce competition from bigger brewers.
Wisconsin was once home to 350 breweries.
By 1973, only nine remained,
with Stevens Point the smallest and the most vulnerable.
- Art Oksuita: The competition was really getting tough.
And the biggest one is price.
A Miller or Budweiser could certainly underprice us.
And they did.
It's a good deal for the bar owner,
but it's bad for the Stevens Point Brewery
because that's our competition.
And that was really, really tough.
[upbeat funk music]
- Narrator: But in 1973, a big boost.
- Art Oksuita: There was an article by a writer in Chicago.
His name is Mike Royko.
He wrote an article basically saying
that most American beers tasted like it went through a horse.
So what he did was he had a blind taste test.
And somehow Point beer got over to him,
and we came out the number one beer in the United States,
second beer in the world.
Well, that was phenomenal for the brewery.
[upbeat funk music]
I truly believe that that kept the brewery going.
And there was an instant 20% increase in sales.
- John Harry: They got requests for beer from TWA Airlines,
as well as distributors all over.
And they knew that they would not be able to keep up
with the orders and the capacity that these places needed
to be able to have Point beer.
So they said, "No, if you want this beer,
you have to come to Stevens Point."
It was always really important that Point Brewery
could supply the people of Stevens Point
and central Wisconsin with their beer.
[gentle guitar music]
- Narrator: The newfound fame of Point Special
brought attention to an important factor
that contributed to its quality.
- John Harry: Stevens Point is known for many things.
One of them is the water quality there.
The tap water is some of the best in the country.
- Art Oksuita: The quality ingredients
that go into making beer
are hops, water, yeast, and grain.
Every one is very important.
We do an ultrafiltration on it,
but we use the water as it comes from the city.
The water here at the brewery is perfect.
It's part of that original formula.
? It's the beer
? That's light and clear
You ask any, any of the people in the surrounding area
if they remember the Point jingle,
they'll all sing it to you.
? Tastes so good ? Satisfies completely
? Like good beer should
I mean, I heard that jingle all my growing up years.
? Point Special beer
How many cities can say that they have a beer
that's actually part of the city's name?
The brewery really is integral to the city
and integral to the community.
? Point Special beer
- Announcer: Brewed in the city of wonderful water.
? Won't you make it
? A point to buy Point
[upbeat music]
[dramatic old-fashioned instrumental]
- Newsreel: This is our town, Stevens Point, Wisconsin, USA.
It's a community where industry flourishes with the help
of skilled workers, direct transportation,
cooperative utilities, and remarkably pure abundant water.
Stevens Point is the industrial, commercial,
and educational center of Portage County.
- Jim Nitka: There was a lot of industry, real industry,
in this area.
Where our house was, we had right behind us,
we had Joerns Furniture Company.
And to our south, we had Vetter's Manufacturing.
And right next door on the north, we had Bake-Right Baking.
So we could actually take fresh donuts
right off of the line.
About a block and a half away was Consolidated Papers.
You could walk through there,
and it was kind of fun as a kid to go watch
while the paper was being made.
So there was all, lots and lots, you know,
hundreds, if not thousands of jobs for factories.
- Narrator: By the mid 20th century,
growing industries and a new identity as a college town
reflected the huge changes made in Stevens Point
as the lumber boom came to an end.
- Tim Siebert: The lumber boom
began to fade in the 1880s, 1890s.
By 1910, it's pretty much done.
There was 600 billion board feet of timber
across Michigan, Wisconsin, and Minnesota.
The loggers actually thought that if they started
in Michigan, by the time they got through Minnesota,
years and years later,
the woods would have grown back again.
But these guys were so efficient that it took them
only about 40 years to cut all the way through it.
- Narrator: The driving force behind taking the city
from being a rough lumber town
to an economically diverse community
started with one event.
[train whistle blowing]
- Gene Kemmeter: The Wisconsin Central Railroad
came to Stevens Point.
- Tim Siebert: So you had a perfect situation
for Stevens Point.
You have the lumber here.
Why not ship it on the rails?
And as long as you have the lumber here,
why not develop furniture factories?
So we have several major furniture factories
beginning to develop in Stevens Point.
- Narrator: The developing industry
of furniture and wood manufacturing
included the Automatic Cradle Company.
It would grow to become
the largest manufacturer in the city,
eventually taking the name Lullabye Furniture.
- Newsreel: The well-being of young people
is reflected in the Lullabye Furniture Cooperation,
which made Stevens Point the cradle
of the juvenile furniture industry.
The oldest--
- Narrator: Lullabye got its start
when founder John Bukolt invented a unique cradle.
- Tim Siebert: Which was a self-rocking cradle
based on a huge spring.
And you'd crank the spring up,
and then the cradle would rock side to side
with a click in it, which was very comforting to the baby,
and becomes a nationally known business.
- Gene Kemmeter: It became kind of a Cadillac of baby furniture.
They were sponsors of the I Love Lucy program
around the time that Lucy was having her baby.
They had a complete line of I Love Lucy furniture.
- Narrator: The railroad allowed wood manufacturers
access to a national market.
And the city's location in the state
made it an ideal central hub for railroad lines.
- Gene Kemmeter: A big boost came when Soo Line
decided to put a area headquarters here.
It provided many jobs to local people.
So, this was a booming railroad town also.
- Narrator: The Wisconsin River
that once powered sawmills and floated lumber rafts
would now power new industries.
- Newsreel: The Whiting-Plover Paper Company,
manufacturers of high grade, all rag and rag content,
business papers, and specialties.
This is paper before it's formed into sheets.
The paper is re-wet, starched, and dried in warm air,
giving it the ripple finish
characteristic of fine rag bond paper.
[cheerful instrumental]
- Narrator: The hardworking Wisconsin River
provided the hydroelectric power and water
needed to support the new paper industry.
Three dams were built to control the river--
two from Consolidated Paper
and one from Whiting-Plover Paper Mill.
- Gene Kemmeter: They needed reservoirs
so that they had a constant flow of the river.
As a result, they hid a lot of historical landmarks.
And one of those was Stevens Point,
which was basically washed away
because the river was higher.
- Narrator: Downtown Stevens Point
was growing and thriving, too,
with the arrival of new businesses.
- Newsreel: Stevens Point makes a sizable contribution
to the world of books in products
of the Worzalla Publishing Company.
Finished books are shipped to points all over the country.
Sturdy, attractive books from Worzalla's
are good representatives of Steven Point workmanship.
- Tim Siebert: Worzalla actually starts out
as a printer of a Polish-language newspaper,
which they purchased
called Rolnik , meaning "Farmer."
And then, about 1908, they start a second newspaper
called Gwiazda Polarna , "Northern Star."
- Narrator: This paper would go on to become
America's oldest, independent Polish-language newspaper.
Worzalla later expanded into book printing and binding,
adding to their national reputation.
In addition to book publishing,
another Stevens Point business expanded nationally
by providing specialty insurance at a lower cost.
To fight high insurance rates, hardware store owner
P.J. Jacobs teamed up with other Wisconsin store owners
to form the Hardware Dealers Mutual Fire Insurance Company
in 1904.
Elected as the company director in 1912,
P.J. moved the headquarters to Stevens Point.
The Hardware Mutual Insurance building
was constructed downtown in 1922.
Under P.J.'s direction, the company grew quickly.
And in 1929, an addition was built,
tripling the size of the building.
- Tim Siebert: Carl, his son,
finally does take over the business
from his father.
He is the guy that really begins to expand it
and becomes very well-known in the community.
- Narrator: Hardware Mutual would expand
its insurance services through the years.
And remain as one of the city's major employers,
eventually changing its name to Sentry Insurance.
As diverse businesses grew in Stevens Point,
local leaders launched a campaign to make the city
a center for education.
- Newsreel: Sixty years ago,
a group of Stevens Pointers raised $50,000
to make sure the new state college would be built here.
- Narrator: As more immigrants continued to settle
in Wisconsin, the Wisconsin Board of Regents
established what were referred to as "normal schools"
to train teachers for the growing population.
In 1893, there were five of these schools,
and the Board was deciding where to locate the next one.
- Tim Siebert: There were 20 other cities competing for it.
The main one was Wausau.
And the Board of Regents picked Point.
It didn't make Wausau very happy [laughs] as you can imagine.
When the Board of Regents announced that Stevens Point
was going to get the university,
a guy by the name of G.E. McDill,
who was in Madison at the time representing Stevens Point,
announced to the city, "Boys, the world is ours."
- Narrator: Bells, whistles, and cheers rang out
in Stevens Point
at the news of being awarded the Normal School.
The school would evolve from being a teacher's college
to becoming part of the University of Wisconsin System,
and a key driver of the Stevens Point community.
- Newsreel: Stevens Point,
where people enjoy living and can work together.
Whether simply to have fun or to build a better community
and a better future.
That's our town, a wonderful town,
Stevens Point, Wisconsin, USA.
[gentle guitar]
- William Frost Jenkins: I remember going fishing with my dad
on the Tomorrow River,
which is one of the premier fishing streams in the area.
Fly-fishing in Central Wisconsin is wonderful.
[fishing rod winds]
- Chris Slusar: The same waters that were around
a hundred years ago are around today.
- Jen Ripple: What I look for in a good fly-fishing area
is good, clean, cold water,
especially when you're fishing for trout.
And, you know, Wisconsin is one of the perfect places for it.
- Narrator: The abundance of cold water streams
makes Stevens Point a perfect destination for fly-fishing.
In the early 20th-century, it was also renowned
for the quality fishing flies being made there.
It all started when schoolteacher, Carrie Frost,
took a job in Stevens Point to move closer to family,
especially her father, with whom she shared a special bond.
- William Frost Jenkins: Her father, John Clark,
was also an avid hunter and fisherman.
And he taught her to fly-fish early in her life.
- Jen Ripple: It was not common in those days for women to fish,
especially young girls.
And so it's interesting that
Carrie Frost's dad took her fishing.
- Chris Slusar: Carrie was an expert fly-fisherwoman.
Some say that Carrie could lay a fly in a calm pond
without causing a ripple.
- Jen Ripple: The flies that were around in the late 1800s
all came from Great Britain or from Europe.
The problem with them was that they were not on time.
When they finally showed up, they were sloppily made.
- Chris Slusar: In May of 1896,
after missing a shipment of flies,
her father asked her to tie some flies
for the coming fishing season.
- Jen Ripple: The locals saw that Carrie and her dad
caught the most fish.
They went over and said,
"What are you catching those fish on?"
And so, Carrie started out
by tying flies on a small scale
for the people in her neighborhood.
- William Frost Jenkins: She started tying flies
that matched more the insects in this area.
So, she essentially filled a niche.
- Jen Ripple: The fly-tying business became so busy
that she left teaching
in order to start the fly-tying business.
- Narrator: Carrie formed the C.J. Frost Fishing Tackle Manufacturing Company
in 1896.
The business began operations out of the family home,
but soon more space and more workers were needed.
- William Frost Jenkins: In five years,
she had expanded the number of employees to 45.
Ten years after starting,
she's now employing nearly a hundred women.
And in that year,
she had a new brick building built,
C.J. Frost across the top.
- Newsreel: Now, for the first time,
Americans were able to travel inexpensively
across their own country
in their own cars and see the grandeur of...
- Narrator: As more people could afford to own automobiles
and had more leisure time to hit the road,
Carrie's company supplied the needs
of a growing fishing industry.
- William Frost Jenkins: A typical employee
could tie one gross a day.
One hundred and forty-four flies per day.
So, when you add up all those numbers,
you come up with about
four and a half million pieces per year
put out by the company at its peak.
- Jen Ripley: Carrie's business was actually
the first of its kind in the United States.
No one had thought to tie flies on a commercial level.
She broke so many barriers at that time.
- Narrator: As the company grew,
Carrie's father, John, and brother, George,
came to work for her,
becoming the few men working at the company.
- Chris Slusar: Carrie's employees were women at the time
for a couple of key reasons.
One was she offered a very kind of unique opportunity
for ladies at the time to stay local
and earn a pretty decent salary.
They were actually recruiting
the young gals right out of high school
to participate in fly-tying.
I think she also, as a feminist at the time,
wanted to encourage opportunities for ladies.
But in addition to that, the ladies were great fly-tyers.
- Narrator: Carrie's flies
were mostly sold in hardware stores
and would be branded with the store's name.
Unlike her competitors,
she would also put her company's name on these products
as the manufacturer,
often including "Miss" before the name of her company.
- Chris Slusar: I believe that Carrie was selective
in when she chose to point out that she was a female.
I think she was, at times,
had to maybe be cautious for business reasons
to leave the Miss off,
but when she wanted to put the pedal to the metal
and make it clear that, "Hey, I'm a female,
and I'm running this outfit,"
she was not afraid to use the term, Miss.
- Jen Ripple: Her name started to carry so much weight.
She would put her name on the flies
because that was a way to show people
that yes, women can put out quality products
in the fly-fishing world,
and we can make a superior product.
- Narrator: In 1920,
at the height of the company's size and production,
Carrie sold her business.
At that time, the company had around 150 employees
and was the largest producer of flies in the country.
Carrie's company was only the beginning
of what would become a fly-tying empire in Stevens Point.
Her brother George would even start his own company,
G.W. Frost and Sons.
The strength of the family name
was reflected in his company's slogan:
"Fish Fight for Frost Flies."
- Chris Slusar: Stevens Point
was home to many fly-tying companies.
C.J. Frost, subsequently the Frost Fishing Tackle Company,
Weber Lifelike Fly,
G.W. Frost and Sons,
and even smaller organizations,
like A.J. Koshollek,
William Plantico and Sons.
Joe Worth originated the Worth Company
in 1940 in Stevens Point.
Worth was also tying flies at the time,
so Stevens Point has a rich history of fly-tying
and fly-tying companies.
- Narrator: With so many fly-tying companies in one city,
there was competition for the best tyers.
Businesses would install air conditioners,
upgrade their bathrooms,
and provide other amenities to keep the best fly-tyers.
- Chris Slusar: The fly-tying in Stevens Point
is said to have had its peak in early 1940s.
It's thought that there were
five to six hundred fly-tyers in the area
tying some 10 million flies annually,
so a really remarkable number.
- Jen Ripple: So, the Stevens Point area
was the perfect place for Carrie Frost
to start her business
because fly-fishing was very prominent in that area.
And so, having the business right there
was just a natural place.
Stevens Point is known as the Fly-Tying Capital of the World,
and it's all because of what Carrie had done.
She's the one who put it on the map.
[gentle guitar]
- Narrator: Stevens Point lies
in the Central Sands region of Wisconsin,
a landscape made up of sand, gravel, and boulders.
- Christine Thomas: We're a very glaciated area here.
The glaciers have defined what our topography looks like.
When the glaciers melted,
they left behind a very important water resource
and a very important soil resource.
- Justin Isherwood: They ground up northern Wisconsin and Canada
into sand, and we're sitting on what was the rummage sale
of the north end of the continent.
- Narrator: The rocky, sandy soils in the area
were low in fertility,
but immigrant farmers brought a tradition
of growing one crop that did well in sand: potatoes.
- Justin Isherwood: Stevens Point is the urban focus
of Wisconsin's potato industry.
When the railroads came in,
and they get loaded on the car and go to Chicago or wherever,
suddenly you had the world at your door.
- Patti Wolfe: Everyone was a potato farmer.
They raised potatoes as a main crop.
Schools had a potato vacation when it was harvesting time.
And you got two weeks off.
We were all supposed to help your mother and dad
with harvesting the potatoes.
Every day, we had potatoes.
Fried, baked, cooked every way.
I don't think there ever was a dinner made without potatoes.
- Narrator: To celebrate the success of potato farming,
Stevens Point had their first potato festival in 1936.
The prize-winning bushel of potatoes
was sent to President Franklin Roosevelt,
and a potato queen was crowned.
The humble potato had gone from farm table staple
to a source of community pride.
In good years, farmers on the Central Sands
grew enough food to feed their families
and sell the surplus.
But periods of drought created hard times
as the sandy soils quickly dried up
and potato yields went down.
[upbeat big band music]
After World War II,
farmers began to take advantage
of a new lightweight aluminum piping
to irrigate their crops.
- Newsreel: The whole operation is quite simple.
The sprinkler line distributes water
for about two hours or more.
Then it's disconnected,
carried over to the next location, and reassembled.
It just couldn't be much simpler.
[machinery creaks]
- Edward Okray: We started to irrigate potatoes
in the early forties,
out of a stream about a quarter of a mile away from here.
And at that time, we thought the yields,
the yield increase was dramatic.
In other words, we got up to 250, 300 bushels per acre,
which was double what we were used to getting.
- Justin Isherwood: Early irrigation
was basically out of ponds
or, specifically, they were called pits.
They were dug with steam shovels and large backhoes.
- Narrator: Portable irrigation transformed the farms
of the Central Sands area,
which now joined the agricultural revolution
sweeping across the country.
The UW-Madison Hancock Research Station,
located south of Stevens Point,
helped farmers apply the latest research and technologies.
- Christine Thomas: Their mission
is to serve the local farmers
in the kind of farming that they do
and help them figure out how to address problems.
They keep farmers up to speed
on what's the latest and greatest
with potato and vegetable production.
They basically extend their research to the local community.
- Justin Isherwood: The Hancock Field Days are almost as good
as farm auctions and funeral suppers.
You have a chance just to get together.
Then the researchers present what they've been doing,
and they cue us in to what's going on.
- Narrator: With help from the Hancock Research Center,
the farms of the Central Sands flourished.
- Justin Isherwood: It really was a bit like discovering gold
when we realized sometime in the late 40s and 50s
that down there was a big body of water, the aquifer.
[machinery hums]
- Narrator: In the late 1950s,
growers used a new drilling technique
to put in wells capable of pumping up
much larger volumes of water
for a new type of irrigation.
- Justin Isherwood: Perhaps the biggest evolution
was the invention of the center pivot,
and it has defined our part of the state.
- Christine Thomas: It's basically a set of pipes
whose center point is in the middle of a circle
that goes around in a circle
and waters your crop.
- Justin Isherwood: Irrigation brought stability.
It largely impacts the vegetables,
and that's potatoes, it's green beans,
it's peas, it's carrots,
cabbage.
And it would transform the value of the field
and its production two or three times.
About the same time, commercial fertilizer became possible.
The yields, again, from 40 hundredweights to 100, 150.
Add the water, just remarkable.
- Christine Thomas: Like everything in life,
there are pros and cons.
And the great thing about Central Sands agriculture
is that we grow wonderful crops
and these crops contribute to the Stevens Point economy.
Along the way, we have learned
when you apply fertilizer and chemicals
to sandy soil,
that some of those excess chemicals
can end up in the groundwater.
In the 1980s,
we had a professor here at Stevens Point.
His name was Byron Shaw.
His students discovered a pesticide in groundwater
that was a byproduct of potato production
in the Central Sands.
And so then the problem had to be addressed.
Well, it's 30 years later.
And we've figured out ways to grow potatoes
without this particular chemical.
[upbeat music]
- Justin Isherwood: It's all developing science.
There's new ways to deliver the product
that may be easier, simpler, cost-effective,
maybe even more ethical.
- Narrator: With irrigation, university research,
and generations of hard work,
Central Sands farmers made Wisconsin
into the largest producer of potatoes
east of the Mississippi
and one of the largest vegetable producers in the country.
- Justin Isherwood: We still have that love affair with the potato.
?
[uplifting acoustic guitar music]
- Narrator: The majestic white pine trees,
which brought the lumbermen to Stevens Point,
still tower above the city's many parks and green spaces.
To encourage the use and enjoyment
of these treasured places,
a group of civic-minded residents
pursued a new idea in 1989.
- Christine Thomas: The trail was
a relatively new idea in its day.
The idea was to take the wonderful parks
we have in Stevens Point and to connect them
so that folks could walk, bike, take their dogs,
push their strollers
over the entire greater Stevens Point, Plover, Whiting area.
[acoustic guitar music]
- Narrator: The Green Circle Trail
would string together the jewels of the city's park system,
a system that began when people complained about the quality
of the drinking water drawn from the Wisconsin River.
- Tim Siebert: The water tended to be murky,
not necessarily bad health-wise, but it was not pleasant.
It kind of smelled.
Then the city discovered the aquifer to the east of the city
and began to pump that water.
And just kinda took on the name
"The City of Wonderful Water" because of the clarity.
- Narrator: To protect the underground aquifer.
The city purchased the land around the wells,
including a section of the Plover River
with a popular swimming hole.
This ready-made recreation area soon became a city park.
In 1935, a generous gift
more than doubled the size of the park.
- Ron Zimmerman: Jules Iverson, a local businessman in town,
purchased it with the idea that it was
for the children of Portage County.
That park today bears his name.
- Narrator: As Iverson Park grew on the city's east side,
changes to the west side were occurring
along the Wisconsin River front.
- Tim Siebert: There were lumber mills all along the river.
Once those began to disappear,
then the idea began to develop of,
you know, maybe this would be good parkland.
- Ron Zimmerman: That water crisis that created Iverson Park
also created Bukolt Park because the old water plant
in what became Bukolt Park was abandoned.
So, it was excellent land right on the Wisconsin River.
It was just a natural to become a park.
[playful instrumental music]
- Narrator: Improvements to the swimming beaches
of both parks proved to be highly popular
with the children of Stevens point.
- Siebert: Swimming was pretty important back in the day.
They didn't have air conditioning.
- Dorothy Zmuda: We had lot of fun there.
We just wanted to swim.
You could go up on the dock, and there was a 15-foot scaffold
where the brave people dived off.
Not me; [chuckling]
I climbed up, but I climbed off, too. [laughs]
[playful instrumental music]
- Narrator: The Green Circle Trail
provides a journey through history,
passing by a collection of park buildings
built during the Great Depression.
The Works Progress Administration, or WPA,
employed local people and used local materials
for the construction.
- Ron Zimmerman: They used local sandstone
to create some of those beautiful buildings
that are still in use today in those parks.
Gives 'em a very timeless look.
[playful instrumental music]
- Narrator: Through the years,
more recreational opportunities were added at Iverson Park,
including a ski jump and toboggan slide.
[children laughing and screaming]
[toboggan sliding]
[happy laughter]
The anchor point of the Green Circle Trail
is the Schmeeckle Reserve,
a 280-acre conservancy on the UW-Stevens Point campus
named for Fred Schmeeckle,
a professor who came to teach in 1923.
[instrumental guitar music]
- Christine Thomas: Fred Schmeeckle was hired
to teach agriculture and science.
He decided that conservation was a really important thing
and that teachers also needed to know about that.
- Male Narrator: "Soil erosion, destruction of forests,
"pollution of water, and misuse of wildlife,
"were factors that started me thinking
"that something should be done to educate people
in the wise use of resources."
- Ron Zimmerman: He started teaching a few conservation courses,
and in 1946,
it became the first conservation education major
in the United States.
He's called "the father of conservation"
here at Stevens Point.
He really was ahead of his time.
He was really a pioneer.
[instrumental guitar music]
- Christine Thomas: The late 1960s is really the start
of the environmental movement.
And natural resources, in general,
has always been very popular in Wisconsin.
This was sort of a natural place in a natural time.
In the 1970s,
the conservation major became
the College of Natural Resources.
And so, this grew into
the largest natural resources-based undergraduate program
in the country.
- Ron Zimmerman: You can find majors
not only in the United States but all over the world.
- Christine Thomas: One thing that sets our students apart
is the hands-on nature of our program.
And that really started with Fred Schmeeckle.
He was a hands-on guy, and the university
had a parcel of land just to the north of campus
that they purchased, with the idea of
potentially expanding there.
But Schmeeckle used it as an outdoor classroom.
[acoustic guitar music]
- Narrator: The land used by Schmeeckle
would officially become a conservancy in 1977
and named in his honor.
Today, the university continues to use the land
as an outdoor laboratory and training ground
for natural restoration. [starting chainsaw engine]
- Christine Thomas: It also is a community resource.
It's a quiet, wonderful place to come,
and the community takes advantage of that.
- Ron Zimmerman: Today, people look at the reserve
as a place to get back to a more natural rhythm.
- Christine Thomas: This is also the trailhead
for the 27-mile Green Circle Trail.
- Ron Zimmerman: The trail was an inherent problem to create
because they didn't have natural public lands
that connected all of these neat parks
and all these points of interests.
And they needed to win over private landowners
because they had no money to rent land or anything.
And many, many people signed off.
[tires crunch on gravel]
You get these corridors of green
to connect the whole area.
There's been a lot of,
a lot of unity, a lotta cooperation.
- Christine Thomas: Community-minded people who got together
and found ways to make the world a better place.
?
[piano music]
- Narrator: The city's dedication
to improving their community
is evident in the Sculpture Garden
located along the Green Circle Trail.
Created in 2009,
the 20-acre park features the work
of local and national artists
in a setting that connects nature and art.
The city's commitment to the arts
is also seen in the murals in the downtown area.
Many depict the city's history and important residents.
[fountain splashing]
The Stevens Point square continues to serve
as an anchor for the community,
providing a place to gather and find refreshment
on warm summer days.
The farmers' market
still draws crowds in search of local produce.
As legacy businesses thrive and grow,
Stevens Point welcomes new industries,
creating a diverse local economy
poised for future growth.
- Ray Reser: Stevens Point is culturally and ecologically
the center of the state.
This has been a mecca
for people to come to for the last 12,000 years,
and I think that just speaks well to our shared history
in the state and what an amazing place this is.
?
[polka music]
[light piano music]
- Male Announcer: Funding for
Wisconsin Hometown Stories: Stevens Point
is provided by
Sentry Insurance Foundation,
Dr. Henry Anderson and Shirley Levine,
Marshfield Clinic Health System,
the Dick Cable Family,
Mitzi and Bernie Hlavac,
Delta Dental of Wisconsin
Tina and Don Peters,
JHL Digital Direct,
the Ward and Ethel Cable Family Fund,
Judy Cable Anderson,
Dr. Henry Anderson,
Community Foundation of Central Wisconsin,
the Focus Fund for Wisconsin Programming
Friends of PBS Wisconsin,
and education funding
from the Timothy William Trout Education Fund.