The Schroeder mill in Ashland

A medium-sized Lake Superior lumber operation

This morning I read Cutting Across Time by Mary Bell, an interesting account of a medium-sized Lake Superior lumber operation headquartered in Ashland, Wisconsin. It was begun by John Schroeder, who was born in Hanover Germany in 1827 and emigrated to St. Louis with parents in 1837. Schroeder moved to Milwaukee in 1846 and in 1866 at age 39 became a junior partner to Martin Seyfried. When Seyfried retired in 1872, John Schroeder & company was established. Schroeder bought an existing lumber mill in Ashland (built in 1884 by a Mr. Barber but by 1900 it was bankrupt) in 1901 to supply his Milwaukee operation (which sold about 18 million feet per year). The Ashland mill grew to employ about 500 people and produced about 75 million board feet annually. 

(Distances from Ashland: Bayfield WI, 17 miles, Two Harbors MN, 71 miles, Cross River (Schroeder), 70 miles, Duluth, 93 miles, Isle Royale MI, 115 miles, Port Arthur Ontario, 164 miles, Sault Sainte Marie, 348 miles)

Schroeder logged about 18,000 acres of pine in Michigan and about 150 square miles of pinelands around Thunder Bay Ontario. The company also expanded into Florida and Oregon. But its main source was the Cross River, which drains 91 square miles on the north shore of Lake Superior. A town called Redmyer, established in the 1880s by Norwegians, became Schroeder in 1904.

Schroeder built a total of seven dams on the Cross River and its tributaries, beginning in 1895. The largest, 6.5 miles upstream, was 100 feet long and 14 feet high with three gates. Schroeder also dynamited the falls at the end of the river, where it drops about 200 feet into the lake. 

(The Cross River system today)

The 1902 spring drive consisted of about 35,000 logs scaling about 20 million feet of lumber. After 1897, they used a battery-operated telephone to time the opening of dams along the route. Schroeder sold the Cross River operation to Alger Smith (Duluth) in 1905 and shifted his lumbering to the Apostle Islands.

Logs from Cross River were rafted and towed across the lake to Schroeder’s mill in Ashland. The steam-powered tugs that pulled rafts traveled about 1 mile per hour, so the trip from Cross River to Ashland took three days. Early spring was usually the best time to raft logs; two-to five-foot waves were considered calm water. Of course, some years the ice on Lake Superior took longer to melt than others. As the summer progressed the lake got rougher. 

Apparently there were labor issues in Ashland beginning in May, 1903, when the Setters and Carriage Riders Unions struck for pay increases. The Setters wanted a fifty-cent raise per day, from $2.50 to $3.00; Carriage Riders wanted a twenty-five-cent boost from $2 to $2.25. All the other mill unions honored the strike (Ashland Daily Press, May 28, 1903). This will be interesting to learn more about.