Wisconsin Stories is a partnership of the Wisconsin Historical Society and Wisconsin Public Television.

"The Power of Water" was made possible in part by Kohler Company part of Wisconsin's proud heritage since 1873.

We don't have to tell you just how important water is to Wisconsin. It's the center of our recreation industry. Fishing, boating, water parks. It's the foundation of our agricultural industry. Field crops, cranberry bogs, trout farms. It's a key ingredient in our everyday lives. Drinking water, Saturday night bath... coffee. coffee. But you might be surprised to learn just how important water's been in the history of Wisconsin. In fact, Wisconsin was built by and made famous by its water. That's the "Power of Water," tonight on Wisconsin Stories.

Funding for Wisconsin Stories is provided in part by an advised fund of the Community Foundation of Southern Wisconsin; the Estate and family of Lois Backus; the Halbert and Alice Kadish Foundation; and Philip J. and Elizabeth B. Hendrickson encouraging you to support history on Wisconsin Public Television and to visit Wisconsin's treasured historic sites.

Billy Daniels, Jr.: The great spirit gave us three things to the Indian. He gave us water, tobacco and fire. So, we take care of the three things each time, we have ceremonies. That's why you see me here put tobacco down before I start talking to give us permission to be here. I still use this spring for ceremony. Before the sun comes up I'm out here picking up water for elders. I put 'em in quart jars so when I go around after I'm done then I pass it to the elders. So, it's like a medicine to them. It takes care of us, you know. We can't live without water. So, it's very precious to us. Anybody, animals and birds, and living things-- It's really special even to trees that's by us here. They live on water. The grass, it lives on water. Mother Earth, it lives on water.

We help to take care of Mother Earth. Her blood banks is the water, like us, we have blood banks. That's her blood banks. That's everything, it's life.

Will: For the original inhabitants of Wisconsin  water was life and a means of transportation. But when a new people came to this land water was seen as something else, as well a source of mechanical power. At the Wade House one of nine historic sites operated by the Wisconsin Historical Society an early example of that power will live again with the reconstruction of the Herrling Sawmill. Mark Knipping: You have to remember when you look around here-- We see trees growing, certainly but nothing of the scale or the magnitude that these people encountered when they arrived here in the 1850s and '60s. You have to imagine an unbroken canopy of heavy, heavy forest growth trees two and three feet in diameter everywhere you look. Betsy Wade, the wife of the Wade House builder, Sylvanus Wade had a comment that she could gather in her apron all the stars she could see. Will: What will I see here in a couple years when the project's complete? We hope to have a functioning sawmill up and running for visitors to see as an educational experience. We have, really, a very fine collection of historical photographs taken about 100 years ago which detail much of this exterior landscaping and how things worked, how things functioned. Will: Tell me a little bit about where the mill itself is going to be built. Well, we're hoping to relocate the reconstructed mill where the original mill stood just in this location, off here. You can actually see the sill timbers in the water. And there's an intact corner joint over here and one of the 20-foot timbers running in this direction. Robert Birmingham: In order to excavate and find out more about the mill site a dam was built. And then, we pumped out all of the water excavated through the bed of the stream. And to our surprise we found the entire foundation of the sawmill. How deep did you have to go for your excavation? Well, the mill itself was covered by many feet of sediment from a blow out. That is, the dam came apart during a flood in the early part of the century. And that sent all kinds of rocks-- And so, the mill was buried very much like Pompeii was buried. Birmingham: And also, in that same area we found pieces of the turbine, itself. Will: So, it wouldn't have been a water wheel mill it would've been a turbine-driven mill? Exactly. With this kind of information we confirmed that the mill source was a turbine. And the kinds of fragments that we have from it will allow us to even replicate the kind of turbine that was at the mill. You found a coin. And we like this because this dates almost exactly to when the mill began in the early 1850s. And this is an 1854 penny. So, this may have been deposited not long after the mill had been constructed. Knipping: All of this is the bottom of the old pond with a whole lot of silt laid on top of it. There is a series of old concrete fence posts that are tipped at crazy angles over in the distance, there. They really mark the pond edge as it appeared in 1905. If this was 1850, basically, we'd build a big obstruction and back up anywhere from 14 to 22 acres of water which, historically speaking was the size of the impoundment here. And we'd build us a sawmill and start going with it. Environmental concerns today, though dictate that we do things in an environmentally friendly manner. And part of this means we are not going to dam up the Mullet River. There are two species of mussel in the river which are not endangered but are thought to be threatened. We have to be cognizant of their well being in the river at all times. So, the plan is we're going to have two smaller ponds. At the same time, we're going to re-route the river around this area. During times of high water, we will be allowed to divert a certain small percentage of the river water into our mill pond. That's where you might think of the water as being stockpiled. But the river, at all times, will run free and naturally so that the mussels will be happy in their homes. Will: We're here in Wisconsin. Where else have you built mills and worked on mills? James Kricker: New York state, Maryland, Virginia, New Jersey Pennsylvania, South Carolina, Tennessee Florida, Michigan, that probably about does it. What's the interest in building mills? Why do people want that? I think a lot of people see mills as a real link to our industrial past. Pretty much every small town grew up around a mill site. That means an awful lot to a lot of people. That really was the center of the community because it provided a variety of functions-- grain and lumber, and such. What kind of joints are these? Mortise and tenon. How are you going to join the different beams together? Most of the timbers have a tenon on one end that fits into a mortise. It fits into this one. They're pegged with an oak peg. Do you cut all these with chisels? We have a mortise cutting machine that does a lot of it. A lot of it is just handwork. A lot of the tools we use are 100, 150 years old. Really? Yeah. You sharpen them up and they work as good as ever? Oh, yeah, better. Those tools were made when the people who bought them were very dependent upon them for a living. So, if you don't build a real good tool you're not going to last very long. These days, a lot of the tools that you find seem to be built to be sold. Once they're sold, they've fulfilled the purpose and they don't really have to be used, so. Different mills have distinct types of structures for the purpose of the mill. Sawmills like this are very, very heavily framed. That structure provides both a base for the machinery to be fastened to so everything is connected to everything else; and also, in the case of a sawmill you get a fair amount of vibration, and whatnot so just the mass of all this wood helps to dampen things. It's like a big Erector set except it's big oak beams. Exactly. Mark Knipping, who's the historian here on the site had collected quite a bit of information about this mill and some other local mills. He had some ideas of the shape and size of it. He had some photographs to work with. Photographs were very helpful. I spent many hours with a magnifying glass and a little scale rule pouring over those photographs. I'm sure Mark did, too. Between us, we were able to come up with a basic design for the building. I started to fill in construction details based on what we saw here the archaeological evidence, plus other mills. Knipping: I think the structure is really quite extraordinary. My grand-dad built structures similar to this in Sheboygan County. He was a timber frame builder in his younger days. And from everything I've seen, and read, and heard the workers who are doing this are completely faithful to that process. The next question is, "Is it going to work?" We have confidence that it will work. But there is always a certain amount of trepidation. Will: What's the most fun part of the whole process? Kricker: I would say, probably when we get the first log on the carriage start the thing up and start to cut wood. That will probably be the most exciting. When you've got the water and blades going-- Will you be the first one to push it through? 
( both laugh )
 We'll see. I hope so. That will be exciting to see. Oh, man alive, this is great! Congratulations! I can't believe it. Knipping: When things go, they really go. I think it's quite a project. It'll stand in comparison with any place of similar nature. Will: It's something to really be proud of. It's so beautiful. Yes. The blade works! I'm very happy with it. You should be. Thanks. Thanks, Tracy.

Kmetz: It was shortly after the Civil War in the sleepy hamlet of Waukesha that Wisconsin's water revealed another of its powers. What was at first claimed to be the power to heal turned out to be nothing more than the ongoing power of Wisconsin waters to attract visitors for recreation and renewal. Deborah Hankel: This is Bethesda Park, where it was first discovered that Waukesha's waters had miraculous healing powers. A man from New York an Irishman named Colonel Richard Dunbar had been suffering from incurable diabetes and told he only a very short time to live. He came here to see this, what was then a horse pasture that his sister-in-law had purchased. While he was here, he felt tired and the diabetes was wearing him down so he went to one of the natural springs that flowed in the park. He drank six tumblers of water and rested for a while. After that, he felt like something inside of his body was changing. When he returned to New York, he had a relapse of the diabetes and was quite ill. He came back here to the spring and began to drink again. Soon, it was announced in the newspapers that on August 27, 1868 Colonel Richard Dunbar had come here and been cured. Within a very short time people began coming from all over to take of the waters in Waukesha. Kmetz: Did he move here? Hankel: Oh, yes! He moved here. And he was quite an entrepreneur. He did a lot of improvements to the park put a pavilion over the spring, band shell, reading rooms a large, beautiful Queen Anne Hotel. There were many springs in this area so other entrepreneurs developed similar things. At one point, there were 50 commercial springs that had either bottling or resorting or some combination. It was quite the social place to be. You didn't just come here for a day or two you would come to summer in Waukesha. Kmetz: They'd just walk down here to the spring and take some of the water? Hankel: Yes, but you and I wouldn't reach in to get water from the spring ourselves. There would be a young boy employed as a dipper boy and you'd be served your water. Where did people come from? People came from all over. They came in by the trainload. At the height of the springs era 25 trainloads a day of visitors came to Waukesha. A day? A day. Waukesha water was known across such a large area and particularly the two main springs Bethesda, of course, the original source and White Rock, which had done such a tremendous marketing job with its water. There was one King of England who would not even have his dinner unless there was a bottle of White Rock water on his table. Kmetz: When we can't see a lot of the things, you know the gazebos, or the pavilions or even the springs, really is there anything else that remains maybe in terms of artifacts? Is there evidence of the springs? You will find Waukesha springs memorabilia traded on the Internet. And it carries a hefty price. And what would this memorabilia be? Advertising, water trays  tip trays from resorts post cards, bottles. Some of the bottles are very beautiful. Some of the trademarks-- White Rock spring, the trademark psyche on the White Rock spring bottle-- It was known all across the nation and outside of this country. So, many of those artifacts exist and are highly sought after. What do you have? We have all sorts of wonderful things all remnants from the springs era. Kmetz: What a beautiful bottle. You like this? This one caught my attention when we were looking at the artifacts. It had that iridescence there. And Waukesha, Wisconsin. Right. Bethesda natural spring water. Here's another one, Waukesha Imperial. And look at this. We've got some liquid in here. I don't think we're going to drink that! Here's another treasure! Look at this. Look at the color. Isn't this fantastic? This would be in Waukesha? Maybe not, look what's in the background. Hankel: Maybe that's the King of England's friends. But this picture is interesting because that shows us the spring and how the water was taken from the spring and given to the visitors. Is that one of those dippers that you were talking about? Hankel: That does look like it's some kind of a dipping device. See the wire? And it looks like there are glasses on there. There appear to be other glasses along the ledge. Kmetz: What else would say the springs-- another effect on Waukesha from the springs? Hankel: Well, it developed our downtown very rapidly. Unlike most historic downtowns where you see an old building and slightly newer, and slightly newer in Waukesha, you'll see a downtown that virtually sprang up all at once because everything happened at once.

What's happening here? Well, this is the Waukesha Hotel originally known as the National Hotel. It's the last remaining springs era hotel in our community. How does this make you feel? Very sad. But the pressures between preservation and development continue. And often, this is the result. This, of course, is happening at the same time as we're recognizing the value of the springs restoring many of our springs and plans in place to restore many others.

Hankel: This spring house is from about 1920. It is from the bottling era at a time when people were more concerned about safety of the water and the water being protected.

Oh, wow! Isn't this great? Oh, look at that! This is nice. This is going to be another spring? Yes, this is the Sotarian Spring. Where is this spring? It's right here. It's under this slab? Yes, it is. It's dark! If you look around, what you see here is a preservationist's dream. Because we had heard rumors for a long time that there was a spring in a heart-shaped basin underneath this slab. Kmetz: It is a heart-shaped basin. You can see all the way to the bottom. It's very clear. Hankel: It's even a little deeper than it appears. I had guys down in there standing on the floor. They had to step on a ladder and reach up to hand you something. Why is it a "preservationist's dream?" Because everything that existed is intact except for the wrought iron fence that surrounded the spring. So, really, removing the concrete cap and putting a new wrought iron fence around it a little tuckpointing and this spring exists as it did in 1888. Right in there, you can see it bubbling. Yeah, if you look through the sand. Kmetz: This is the original Hobo Springs? Hankel: Yes, this is the original Hobo Spring. Actually, it's not a spring that ever had a name of it's own. It's called that because of the use that it had. What was the use? We don't really know who developed this spring. We do know that with the train tracks nearby that the hobos would jump the train and come to take of clean water here. This is what Hobo Spring looked like when I first came to Waukesha. It wasn't very pretty. Kind of stagnant. A woman who lived near me came to my house and said, "Debbie, you like that old stuff. I have some pictures you might want to see." Oh, look at that! You can see the wading pool area which we really didn't realize had existed. So, one of the first things we needed to do was to determine if the wading pool still existed. Our hope was that when they had filled it in that they were lazy and hadn't bothered to fill it in completely. Were they? They were very lazy. And when we began to move the rocks in this area underneath the first layer the wading pool was completely intact. How did things change after this was restored? I find that every time I come here there are people here touching the water parents telling children about the springs in Waukesha and the history. And I think that there is a power in the water. Water has such an important place in our lives. And it really does touch people.

Kmetz: Our waters have served us well throughout our history. And now we have the power to return the favor. When a group of volunteers sought to rebuild the dam that would provide water power for their restored grist mill they were challenged by the Department of Natural Resources to add a fish passageway. But a challenge is nothing new to the friends of Beckman Mill. Kmetz: Why are people so devoted to Beckman Mill, do you think? Robert Fosler: Most of the people are from the area. And if you hear the stories most everybody's come here when they were younger and swam in the creek and the pond. Kmetz: When you started with Beckman Mill how long ago was that? About 11 years. We restored the mill. That was about a ten-year project. It took two years to build the dam. And it will take the rest of the summer to complete the fish passageway. When Beckman Mill was originally running in the 19th century and 20th century there was no fish ladder here. Because this river had some endangered small minnow species the DNR came back to us and said we had to have a fish passageway. That was one of the requirements to get the permit to build the dam. So, we worked with them and came up with a design that they would accept. Wisconsin really didn't have a design that they could give us. So, we worked out a design based on some European "rough and fishways" they call them a natural fishway. How does it work? This is just a flat drawing of the fish passageway. The water would flow down the fishway and create turbulence. The fish would feel that turbulence. They would move to this side of the dam. Why would be attracted to the turbulence? The movement of water creates conditions they would feel. And the first thing they come up to is a riffle system that allows them to raise-- swimming up the riffle, about ten inches in height then there'd be a pool to rest in. The next riffle would be about a ten-inch raise. Another pool, another riffle. So, we have seven pools; and we have eight riffles. So, they are like rungs on a ladder. Bob, are we in a pool or a riffle? We're in a pool. We're in the first pool. This is the first riffle. The steel panels are the level of the water. We'd be in about two-foot of water when they're filled. And eventually, we'll have boulders piled against the steel so you won't really see the steel. So, even though you have a lot of concrete now, and the steel you're really aiming to have a very natural feel to the fish ladder. That's what the idea of this style is to make it look more like a little stream coming through. You're an engineer. Retired. Was this something new to you a fish ladder? Oh, yeah. Was it ever discouraging? No, no. We knew eventually the DNR would give in. They kept throwing things at us and we kept coming up with answers. So, it was getting close, but we waited them out.

Will: Sometimes, it seems like the Department of Natural Resources asks a lot of people. And most of the time, it's because they know something we don't know. Like the fact that dams are very bad for fish. Mary Ellen Vollbrecht: We're on the banks of the Milwaukee River on the east side of West Bend. This was one of the first significant dam removals in Wisconsin where the dam was really the centerpiece of the community. And it was removed. How many dams were there in Wisconsin? Well, we believe and we probably haven't counted them all that there are more than 3,500 dams in Wisconsin on our 44,000 miles of rivers in this state. And a lot of them are like this one, built in the late 1800s and more than 100 years old. How big was this dam? The spillway, or where the water fell over was 125 feet wide. The dam extended from just beyond where we're standing to the opposite bank just about to the top of that embankment. When the woolen mill was no longer using it to generate power the City of West Bend took over and they were, because of the dam's age facing the repair bill and began to look at what their options were. Finally, I think after a lot of community discussion and angst I mean, you're losing a lake-- People in Wisconsin love water-- And that's a hard thing to give up. But while it was a hard decision what's the center of this community today? Where's the residential use; where's the human activity? It's along the river.

You'll frequently see a lot of people fishing right below a dam. And the fish-- They're not there because they necessarily like to be there. They're there because they can't go any further upstream. Rivers are connected, living, dynamic systems. The fish that are in them used to have free range. That's how their populations were established and sustained. Fishing has become big business $8 billion in Wisconsin alone in the last national survey. The kind of sustainable fish populations that we need to support the angling industry in this state-- We want to provide as much diversity of habitat in our rivers that we possibly can. The choice to remove a dam the original decision to build one the choice to put in a fish passage-- The best thing is we have the ability to make those choices. And every person who lives here who uses these resources has an opportunity to have a say about what happens to the waters that we collectively own.

Kmetz: Bob, this is amazing! It's just really incredible. Fosler: It's looking real nice. So, all these guys they were moving a lot of rocks this summer. A lot of rocks. There's about 350 tons of rock right in this fishway. Now you can actually see what the fishway is supposed to do. You can see the pools and the riffles. So, a fish is actually swimming right here against the current, against the flow. Right, right. And they would go fast up into here and then it has a place to rest. That's what the pools are for? Just a resting point. Do you expect people to come here to see it as an example of a fish ladder? I think they will. The DNR feels there'll be a lot of people come to see it because it's the first of its kind in Wisconsin right here, now, in operation. As you look at it, tell me how you feel. We're very happy with what turned out. When you see it on a drawing it's only in your mind. When you see it built you can see it's quite an attractive looking man-made stream, really. Are you ever going to rest? No, probably not. I'll come out and walk around. That's why we made these big, flat walkways so when we get older and we need our walker we can make it through.

So, that's how important water was and still is to Wisconsin. Thanks for joining us on Wisconsin Stories.

[Captioning services provided by Wisconsin Public Television.] www.wpt.org

Funding for Wisconsin Stories is provided in part by an advised fund of the Community Foundation of Southern Wisconsin; the Estate and family of Lois Backus; the Halbert and Alice Kadish Foundation; and Philip J. and Elizabeth B. Hendrickson encouraging you to support history on Wisconsin Public Television and to visit Wisconsin's treasured historic sites.

"The Power of Water" was made possible in part by Kohler Company part of Wisconsin's proud heritage since 1873.