Holt & Balcom Sawmill - Oconto, Wisconsin,  1878

(Rita's notes)  Looking carefully at this drawing, many old aspects of the city of Oconto can be seen.

  1 The"bateaux" an early French adaptation of the North American canoe used for hauling large loads during the fur trade in the late 1600's and into the 1800's, can be see in the river just right of center picture. The city of Oconto was built on higher ground "up river" from the mouth of the Oconto River. 
  2 In the upper right corner the meandering mouth of the river is seen running through the low, wide marsh where earlier Menominee Native Americans gathered wild rice, caught fish, and hunted ducks, geese and swans, all of which were expertly prepared for the extensive inter-tribal trade system that existed before the time of European settlement. 
  3 At the very top of the picture, along the horizon, commercial sailing boats are seen on Lake Michigan's Green Bay. These ships hauled milled lumber to large ports such as Milwaukee and Chicago, and returned with goods and supplies for Oconto County residents and businesses. 
  4  The Park Street bridge crossing the Oconto River was then known as Section Street bridge . It was built on the section survey line.
  5  The site of the Empire House. This was first built in the 1850's by Samuel Gilkey as a hotel for travelers and later a stagecoach inn.
  6  Across the road from the hotel was the original site of the Menominee American Indian settlement that had existed for hundreds and perhaps thousands of years prior to European settlement.
  7  The first school and shop/saloon originally occupied this site beside the river. Later it became the first site of the Holt & Balcom Mill seen in this picture.
  8  The Second Presbyterian Church building on main street was one of the first churches built in this section of the city. It was burned in a major Main Street fire in 1890.
  9  Holt Hall, the fire station, was where the Main Street fire of 1890 began. Since most of the equipment was destroyed, there was little to be done to save the many nearby buildings that caught fire from the sparks that blew over them. Sawdust, an early waste product of the lumber milling process, was originally dumped into the river. It eventually formed thick mats  that completely clogged the river's mouth, preventing ships from coming up river to the city and forcing early settlers, as related by Mrs. Lindsey who arrived in 1847, to  transfer all their possessions to small boats in order to come ashore. By the 1860's, large, cone shaped "burners" were built on the island in the river and the city  residents entertained themselves on summer evenings  watching the bright orange flames and red glow of these burners from their front porches. The dense yearend smoke produced by the burners was considered a fact of life. Sawdust later became important to "paving" the dirt roads of cities and settlements. It was churned into the mud by horse and wagon traffic, making an improved surface for travel in wet times.  The sawdust also blew around considerably and piled against the foundations of closely built wooden buildings, adding considerably to the risk of extensive fires. 
  A  Floating booms in the Oconto River were used to corral the cut logs that had been marked at cutting and sent down-stream to the mills.  These logs were separated at each mill according to the markings and placed within the booms until they were pulled out for sawing into lumber.
  B  This was the site of the original American Fur Trade Company's "Jackknife" trading post. The company was owned by the J.J. Astor family in New York and made a fortune on buying fur pelts for the fashion industry. There were two types of trading posts. One was a "Settlement" or permanent post with year-round homes and occupants. The other was "Jackknife" which was close up during the coldest months each year with the occupants moving into the settlement posts of their families. Women were equally important as trading post agents, since in the Native American culture of this area, women were the primary manufacturers and goods traders for hundreds of years. The women of trading post families were usually either full blooded Native Americans, Metis; mixed Native American and French Canadian, or Creole; of mixed Native American and other European or British bloodlines
  C  The Kemp Fort.
  D  Trinity Lutheran Church.
  E  The corner of Section Street and Main Street was the main intersection of this part of the city of Oconto. There was also "Frenchtown" farther west and that was primarily a large and prosperous settlement of French Canadian and Metis citizens.
  F  The Richard House hotel was build next to the original Empire house some years later, and boasted of being the "complete" hostelry of the day.
  G Fires were such an ever present danger that a close look at the top ridge of this building's roof will show the line of large water-filled barrels placed closely together there. These were set atop most mills and kept full for use by bucket brigades of mill-worker to keep the roof wet while there was fire in nearby buildings. Regardless of where the man worked in the mill, it was his first duty in a fire to save the mill, day or night. The mill was the sources of income for the community and considered vitally important. The women were left to protect the families and homes.