Letter to the - Editor

Letter to the Editor

A historic milestone:

Dear editor, This year marks the 150th anniversary of the Town of Colby. To distinguish a town from city, a town is defined as a populated area with fixed boundaries and a local government, whereas a city is independent of a town and is a larger municipality. So even though there is a city on Google Maps called Colby, there also exists the first-established Town of Colby.

The name “Colby” was declared onApril 15th 1873 for a construction camp, where the crew stayed for two years finishing a section of track that connected Menasha and Stevens Point to the great northern territory of virgin timber. Gardiner Colby and his company, the Philips-Colby Construction Company, invested a massive $9 million into constructing the railroad line that would link Menasha to Ashland (1871-1877). To put this into perspective, that is $229 million in today’s inflated money. The site was given the name “Colby” in honor of the Boston entrepreneur ‘s son, Charles. Charles was a financial backer of the Philips-Colby Const. Co., and a director on the Wisconsin Central Railroad. Soon after the Town of Colby was organized and established they conducted its first town board meeting in April 1874 (which Larry Oehmichen was NOT born yet to be present).

For nearly two decades, the thick stands of virgin White Pine and hardwoods gave economic gain for our developing community. The local logging mill called A. Lamont employed 50 people and had a production of 15,000 feet of cut lumber per day in 1875. Once all the trees were gone, boom turned into bust, with businesses moving on, leaving behind homesteaders in uncertainty of what to do next. Brushing the sawdust off their shoulders and rolling up their sleeves they began to clear the land of stumps to sow new opportunities in agriculture by planting wheat, Wisconsin’s first cash crop. In the mid to late 1800s Wisconsin was a top producer. By 1890, when more and more land was cleared of trees and replaced with amber waves of oats, barley, rye, and wheat, Wisconsin was the largest producer of small grains. With all this available tillable land, excellent small grain yield/straw, and more farmers, dairy farming found opportunities and a welcoming embrace from rural communities, like Colby. It wouldn’t take long for a cheesy entrepreneur to settle in a developing community with a strong rural economy built on quality forage production and dairy farming to soon create the cheese that made Wisconsin, and changed the world: Colby cheese (Ambrose Steinwand, 1885).

Our township was there since the beginning, from rail cars to cheese baskets, even for the formation of the city of Colby. It was officially incorporated as a city April 23rd 1891, but unintentionally. When the community filed paperwork they intended to be titled a Village, but the State found that the paperwork submitted was to form a city, which the State accepted, making Colby the smallest city in Wisconsin at the time. This earned the city the nickname “Midget City.” Midget City even showed up at the local fire department briefly. But Colby wasn’t the last city the Town helped establish. Before it was called Abbotsford it was known as Colby Junction, which was part of the Town of Colby up until 1894 where it became a Village. It wouldn’t be until 1965 that Abbotsford would become a city.

So this year we celebrate a century and a half of history, community, and progress from the Town of Colby, and cheers to another century more. Our next, and 150th, annual town board meeting is on April 16 at 7:30 p.m. and all residents of the township are encouraged to attend.

Matthew Oehmichen Colby