Logging legacy kept alive with Rib Lake display

The village of Rib Lake is located on the north shore of its namesake lake.

It started as a logging town during the height of the timber-barren era of Wisconsin’s history where there was a race to harvest the state’s rich timber reserves.

Looking at the quiet residential community now, and it is hard to imagine the bustling industrial community of a century prior. Local historian Robert Rusch, of the Rib Lake Historical Society recently partnered with the village board to help remind people of the history of the community and its logging tradition, and especially the role railroads played in the area’s logging industry.

Rusch, with funding and support from the village, worked to get photos from the Rib Lake Historical Society’s collection blown up into large display pictures highlighting the logging history of the community. The pictures, with explanatory text, are on display in the hallways and meeting room at the Rib Lake Village Hall.

While the logging history of Northern Wisconsin often emphasizes the harvest of white pines. In the Rib Lake area hemlock played an important role in logging and the growth of the community.

Rusch described the “hemlockery” that existed in the region which had the geography and local environmental conditions to favor the generation of large stands of hemlock. In the era before the artificially produced chemicals, the tanning industry relied on the bark of hemlock trees to supply the tannin needed to tan leather.

The bark would be stripped from the harvested trees and brought in through the logging railroad cars with massive piles of hemlock bark awaiting processing at the tannery plant. The development of an artificial tannin caused the abrupt end of the commercial use of hemlock bark and was a major blow to the village at the time.

The logging mill didn’t long outlast the tannery. In 1948, the last load of trees was brought into the sawmill and within a few years, the lumber mill and its impressive series of rail lines, trams and log yards was being dismantled.

Visitors are invited to come to the Rib Lake Village Hall and explore the history of the community.