I'm 60 now and live in Hawaii. My family lived in Laona Wisconsin. My grandfather was in WW1. I use to visit my grandparents in the late 1960's. My father was born in Laona. He was a Korean War vet. They are all buried in Laona. My brother is a vet,he passed last year. Covid. I'm a vet, my sons a vet. Laona was a lumber town. There's still a mill there. There also a train called THE LUMBER JACK SPECIAL. It's the original train they used. You can ride the train around the mill pond. It goes to a lumberjack museum and a petting zoo. My grandfather took me for a ride on it. My father took me on it. I took my kids on it. My kids took my granddaughter on it. 5 generations of my family rode this train. There's alot of cool history in that town. I will take my grandkids on that train next summer. They all live in Colorado. It's a nice road trip to Laona. It seems like yesterday I was 7yrs and fishing in that mill pond. Watching the SOOLINE R/R trains go by and hearing the LUMBER mills whistle telling people when to start work, lunches and end of day. Things seemed so simple back then. My grandparents didn't have a TV until they were in thier 80s.
Hi JD...You seem like an historian! Perhaps check out "Sightseeing Sally" on RU-vid. She loves filming old Midwest towns, esp in WI, IL, and MI. Your narrative was so interesting & informative. A nice family story........
I've scratched the surface on the Wisconsin River, doing some panning and sluicing, in the Rapids area by Nepco and Biron dam. Lots of garnets and magnetic black sands. I prospected areas containing exposed bedrock, large boulders and deposits of heavy cobble, and gravel. It would be interesting to have some geological history on this area in regards to how much glacial till has been washed and deposited in this area on the Wisconsin River.
Checking out the old growth yearly rings, imagine some of those logs that are 200 years old and since then survived another hundred and eighty years facing the elements. It would be nice to take photos of logs and wooden ties cut ends so anyone viewing pictures later can add up collection of growth rings.
That's a good observation... the grotto in Rudolph also has an unbelievable amount of rock and stone (much of it looks like volcanic rock) that my mother also suggested had to be transported from rib mountain, which possibly could've been volcanic at one time, explain the incredible amount of rock at the grotto... but yea I'd say floated down river from wausau is a good bet!
