Baraboo

By Sauk County Historical Society

Like many small Midwestern cities, Baraboo has had the usual share of postcards printed featuring its buildings and landscapes. However, Baraboo's unique place in Wisconsin history provided for a much richer array of subject matter. As the original winter quarters of the Ringling Brothers Circus, along with its proximity to Devil's Lake and its place as a division headquarters for the Chicago & North Western railroad, Baraboo has always provided an interesting setting for postcard images.

• Language: English
• Publisher: Arcadia Publishing
• Release date: Jun 5, 2017
• ISBN: 9781439660782

Sauk County Historical Society

Since its inception in 1905, the Sauk County Historical Society has been collecting items related to Baraboo area history. The society's collection was mined for this book along with the postcards of two private collectors, Ralph Pierce and John McNabb. Pierce has been collecting postcards for nearly 50 years after beginning with auctions and private sellers. McNabb started collecting after finding old postcards in the stockroom of a local bookstore where he worked as a teenager more than 55 years ago.

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Wolter.

INTRODUCTION

Baraboo, Wisconsin, has a history as unique as its name. The name is a corruption of the surname of French-Canadian voyageur Francois Barbeau, who established a fur-trading post at the mouth of the river during the winter of 1749 and again in 1752. Though here for only a short time, his name became associated with the river and, ultimately, the city that would be started nearly 100 years later.

Although officially platted in 1847, the community started eight years earlier when the first settlers of European descent arrived, sometimes meeting Ho-Chunk Indians who had been coerced to give up their ancestral lands. About 1,000 years before that, earlier native peoples left their mark on the area through the creation of earthen burial mounds, many of which were created in animal shapes. All these groups were drawn to the area by the river, which winds its way through the bluffs from west to east and drops over 45 feet from one side of the city to the other. The shallow rapids were a good place to cross the river, and to the discerning pioneer, the drop in elevation meant that waterpower could be developed through the construction of dams. Ultimately, five dams were built along the river in the Baraboo area, giving rise to sawmills, flour mills, and factories.

Eventually, a settlement developed around the dams and mills, and the prospects for the area were enhanced when it was chosen to become the new county seat in 1846. In the spring of 1847, the Sauk County surveyor laid out a village on the north side of the river, arranging streets around a public square. The plat was named Adams after the two US presidents of that name. At the same time, a plat was laid out for George Brown for a village named Baraboo mostly on the south side of the river. Only a few years later, both plats were named Baraboo due to the prevalence of other communities named Adams.

With a strong industrial base and the advantage of being the county seat, Baraboo grew quickly in its first two decades. Further growth, though, was hampered by the lack of a railroad connection. This problem was finally remedied when the Chicago & North Western line conquered the Baraboo bluffs and reached the city in the fall of 1871. The city doubled in size during the next nine years, partially due to the fact that it had not only become a rail town, but also was chosen to be a division headquarters for the railroad. More than 400 railroad employees and their families called Baraboo home at the height of the railroad’s influence, and the entire city benefitted as a result.

With a rail connection, industry increased and goods and services became more readily available, resulting in vibrant commercial districts and grand new homes, schools, and churches. Wooden commercial buildings downtown and on the south side gave way to brick replacements, and schools and churches were built in the latest styles in ever-increasing size and complexity. New homes were also a result of Baraboo’s growth and increasingly affluent citizens.

The railroad was also instrumental to the growth of Baraboo’s greatest claim to fame, the Ringling Brothers Circus. In 1884, the Ringling brothers—Al., Otto, Alf. T., Charles, and John—started an overland wagon show that became a railroad circus in 1890. (Al. and Alf. T. always spelled their names with a period, to avoid confusion.) The Ringling winter quarters were developed along the river and remained in Baraboo until 1918. Not to be forgotten are the Ringlings’ first cousins, the Gollmar brothers—Charles, Jacob, Ben, Fred, and Walter—who also started a circus in Baraboo in 1891. Their operation also had winter quarters along the river until 1916.

Baraboo’s proximity to the natural wonder of what came to be known as Devil’s Lake was also a benefit to the city. The rocky bluffs surrounding the lake were revered by native peoples and pioneers, albeit for different reasons. Homes, hotels, and cottages were built around the lake where the terrain allowed, only to be removed after the area became a state park in 1911. Tourist accommodations then moved outside of the park’s boundaries and ultimately to well-traveled corridors.

The pictures in this volume represent three major collections of area postcards and decades of collecting. The Sauk County Historical Society was established in 1905 and immediately began collecting local historical material. It is not known which was the first postcard donated to the society, but the collection has grown over the years to include thousands of cards from across the county. To provide a more complete book, two local collectors, John McNabb and Ralph Pierce, have graciously loaned their collections for use in this publication.

McNabb was born and raised in Baraboo during the 1940s and 1950s. When he was 16, he started an after-school and summertime job at Taylor’s Bookstore downtown, where he was occasionally sent to an upstairs stockroom to fetch an item. Boxes of out-of-date postcards caught his attention, and one day, he asked his boss if he could buy some of the vintage cards. After being told he could take whatever he liked, McNabb pulled out a few dozen cards, and his collection was started. Today, the collection consists of over 600 postcards of Baraboo and Sauk County.

Pierce also was born and raised in Baraboo and began attending auctions as soon as he could drive. Soon, historical postcards caught his eye, and he began his collection. His interest in local history stems from his family’s deep roots in the area and business operations that included grocery stores, restaurants, and orchards. His collection now includes hundreds of cards with a special emphasis on Baraboo and its circus heritage.

The result of combining these three collections is a never-before-seen compilation of postcards of the Baraboo area. Each collection contains one-of-a-kind postcards; combining them provides a unique opportunity for a more complete picture. This presentation of the best of these three collections features images ranging from the 1860s to the 1960s arranged in nine categories. Captions have been carefully researched with the help of the resources of the Sauk County Historical Society, Lake States Railway Historical Association, Circus World Museum, and local historians.

One

RIVER AND INDUSTRY

The Baraboo River drops over 40 feet in the area now known as Baraboo. Early settlers took advantage of the situation by ultimately