Acknowledgements
.
2
Prologue
..3
Back In The Ice
Age
....3
Native
Times
....3
The Lumberjacks
Are
Coming
.
4
Juneau
County
.
5
Germantown and
Werner
.
6
Wisconsin
River Dam
Project
..
9
Buckhorn
Peninsula
State
Park
Proposal
...
10
Buckhorn
State
Park
Becomes
Reality
..
10
Buckhorn
Today
11
Epilogue
12
Appendix 1:
Maps
Appendix 2: Newspaper
Articles
Appendix 3: Past
Residents Remember
Appendix 4: Photo
Album
Bibliography
Acknowledgements
There are a number of people that I would like to
thank for their help with providing information for this project and helping
me compile this book by providing newspaper articles and artifacts:
Rose
Clark, Juneau County Historian, for allowing me
the use of the newspaper articles and maps of the area from the Historical
Society, and for her account of the area.
Phyllis
Moore, Maxine
Grefe and
Burton
Langendorf, for their time giving me accounts
of the
Germantown area.
Sylvia
Jaeger, for the donation of copies of the Brownell family
photographs and family accounts of the
area.
My
parents, Michael and Pamela
Zolondek, for allowing me to work on this project
during a hectic school year.
The compilers of the
Life
Before Buckhorn
Video, for all of the useful
information in the video.
The Friends of Buckhorn State
Park, for support, help, and financial donations
while working on this project.
Bev
Kendl and Jane
Schultz, for the personal time it took to help
me with this project.
My Grandparents, Gerald and Patricia
Spirek, for listening to me constantly talk about the history of the area
and for attending my history presentation. Grandpa, for canoeing those many
miles with me while searching for park landmarks
from the water while desperately trying not to get lost.
Heather
Wolf, Assistant Park Manager at Buckhorn State Park, for inspiring me
to work on this project and for providing useful information on the park
from the past park records.
Tom
Dodge, for his accounts of the history of
Buckhorn
State
Park.
Elaine
Stecker-Kochanski,
for all of her help going through old photographs and sorting out information,
and for listening to me constantly talk about every bit of new information
I discovered.
And finally, to
Joe
Stecker-Kochanski, Park Manager at Buckhorn
State Park, for allowing me the use of the park office and shop buildings
and equipment to work on this project and allowing me the time to present
the history of the park programs. Also, thank you for listening to the constant
information Id give you on the park every
time I saw you.
For those I didnt mention, thanks for your
help. For those I did mention, thank you once again.
Your help was greatly appreciated and the information you gave came to great
use. Thank You!
Julie
Zolondek
Prologue
I grew up in Necedah, Wisconsin most of my life,
while living in Adams,
Wisconsin and
Mauston,
Wisconsin for the other parts of my life.
I grew up around
Buckhorn State
Park. Its practically home to
me! I took the Junior Ranger
Program at Buckhorn when I was in seventh grade. I
remember it being the coolest summer activity ever. Four years later,
I applied for a clerical job at the park and got
it! I worked at the park in the 2004
LTE (Limited Term Employment) season. I
didnt get the job the next year but I developed
an interest in the history of the park and how Buckhorn got its name.
I spent most of my time
from late 2004 to the end of 2005 volunteering in the park to look up the
history of the
Germantown area with one goal in mind; to create this book
about the history of
Buckhorn
State
Park.
I spent hours looking at microfilm at Hatch Public Library in Mauston and
burying my head in old newspaper articles that the park kept in
its records. After a while,
I wanted to see the history of the park with my
own eyes and not just learn about it from old newspapers and books.
So, I walked the entire Buckhorn peninsula looking
for old building foundations and other interesting artifacts.
While
I worked on this project, I worked with former residents
of the land the park now occupies, the Juneau County Historical Society,
and the staff of
Buckhorn
State
Park
to make this history as complete as it could be, so it would be a great learning
tool for future generations. I hope readers of this
book will find the same enthusiasm I had and still have for
Buckhorn
State
Park,
yesterday, today, and tomorrow.
Back
In The Ice Age
A huge glacial lake, now known as
Lake
Wisconsin, was a prominent feature
in the area about 10,000+ years ago. The area where this glacial lake was
located is now known as the Central Sands Region. It extended from just north
of present day Baraboo, where one of the three ice plugs was located, to
a little bit south of Stevens
Point.
Buckhorn State
Park is forty-one miles north of the first ice
plug. The village of
Necedah is in the center of this
once-vast lake. The lake extended as far west as Tomah and as
far east as
Roche
A
Cri
State Park, Friendship,
Adams County,
Wisconsin.
As the glaciers
disappeared, the waters of
Lake
Wisconsin receded and left a sandy
soil in its place. Hence the name the Central Sands
Region. When visiting
Buckhorn
State
Park,
visit the sandblow.
Its one of the many examples of the bottom
of the former lake found in the Central Sands Region. As the waters of
Lake
Wisconsin
disappeared lakes, rivers, ponds, and the surrounding
landscape were formed.
Native
Times
One day in 1860, sawyers at
the Winser Brothers Mill in
Mauston were running virgin pine logs from up
the Lemonweir
into the blade of their
water-powered saw. The sharp blade
usually made quick work of logs
even three foot thick, but the
contents of one yard-wide log
brought the mill to a clattering halt.
When the sawyers
rolled it back down the carriage away from
the blade, they discovered
an old iron axe embedded in the heart
of the log.
Winsers crew recognized the axe as the type
French fur
traders had once exchanged with
the Indians. When they counted
the rings of pinewood that
had grown over it, the sawyers reckoned
that the axe had been stuck
in the log since the 1760s
(Juneau County: The First 100
Years).
Most of the towns in Juneau
County today were originally Indian
trading posts and Native American villages before the white settlers moved
in. Examples of towns that used to be Indian trading posts and villages include
Mauston (once called To-Kon-Nee village), Necedah,
Elroy, and
Armenia.
Although the Chippewa
and Menominee Indian tribes inhabited parts of the area, the Winnebago were
found throughout
Juneau
County and were a common sight
when fur traders passed through the area.
Lake
Decorah, Mauston, received its
name from a famous and well-respected Winnebago family in the Mauston
area.
Castle
Rock
Lake is located in the area
where the Yellow and
Wisconsin
Rivers meet. The area was given
the name
pur-kane or Buckhorn by the Winnebago
meaning unbroken wilderness. The Winnebago
also called it the land of the yellow
waters.
As settlers moved in, Native Americans were pushed west. It was said that
the Native Americans were loaded on cattle cars and taken to
Nebraska, which was to become
their new home. After a period of time, they walked
back to Wisconsin, which they
considered their true home and settled back in
Juneau
County. The Indian Homestead Act
made them exempt from property taxes since they originally owned the land.
Those who came back showed a lot of people, including the United States
Government, that home is where the heart is.
The
Lumberjacks Are Coming
The Yellow and
Wisconsin
Rivers area, at one time, was
famous for its abundance of white pine. The
book Juneau County:
The First 100 Years tells how the lumberjacks
knew there was white pine up the
Yellow
River:
Historian Arthur Kingsbury says that both the
Yellow and
Little Yellow bore
a pigment coming from the dry needles
of the pines along their
banks that tinted their waters yellow.
He said one Indian
name for the streams was
Neseda-Shing-
Waud. The Chippewa called it
Ne-Se-Da, meaning Yellow,
and the Winnebago
Pur-Kane or Buckhorn. State
Historian
Lyman Draper states
the Chippewa name was
Kwu-New-Inne
or Buckhorn. Others have
speculated Necedah is a
corruption of the Chippewa word
Nissish, meaning let
there
be three of us. Whether
Necedah means yellow or
Buckhorn
is equally unclear, but
also equally suitable. The water of the
river is tinted yellow and
fingers of marsh stretching into the
Wisconsin at
its mouth do resemble the horns of a
whitetail buck.
In the fall of 1843, John Kingston and Esquire Rice went to the mouth of
the Yellow River on the Wisconsin
River in search of pine. The dark waters of the Yellow
River, tinted with fallen pine needles, hinted that there was
an abundance of large white pine upstream on the Yellow. After traveling
up the Yellow River four to five miles and finding
no pine, Kingston and Rice headed
back to Wisconsin Rapids, where
they originally started their journey.
In the years of
1844-1845, Thomas Weston, John Werner Jr., and Joe Gill went out in search
of pine on the
Yellow
River.
They finally found it after following the
Yellow
River south from its start in southwestern
Clark
County to the northern
Juneau
County line. When word came
out that the Menominee were going to leave their land in the area, the
lumberjacks in the area immediately began to investigate the abundance of
white pine so they could plan sawmill sites on the rivers. In 1848, three
years after the rumor went around the area, the Menominee gave up their land
causing the Treaty of Poygan to become effective
that same year. The Treaty of Poygan gave Werner,
Kingston, Weston and Gill a chance
to pick the land for the sawmill and lumber sites
and to own the land they chose. The two sites they chose were at the mouth
of the
Yellow
River
and an area that would soon become Necedah.
A paragraph in
Juneau County:
The First 100 Years described Westons,
Werners,
Kingstons and Gills
trip back to Necedah:
They soon returned to Necedah, laid up three or
four rounds
of a log shanty, blazed
a tree on either bank of the river, wrote
their names and date of claim
on a sheet of paper tacked to a
tree and took formal possession
by the terms of the pre-emption
law. This simple and direct
claim to land planted the seed from
which the
village of
Necedah would
grow.
After putting their claim on this land and returning to
Wisconsin Rapids, the T. Weston
Lumber Company was formed by Weston, Werner,
Kingston, and
Eliphalet Miner (who worked out of
Wisconsin Rapids). They started
their business by rafting wood down the Wisconsin River
to the Yellow River where they erected a shanty just
below the mouth of the Yellow. The location of this shanty is significant
because the town of
Germantown was later built on
this spot.
In 1848, the first logger road in the area was built heading west from the
Wisconsin River to the Yellow
River. This logger road later became State Highway 21. Most of
the state roads were, at one time, pioneer roads. They were the main roads
traveled before the interstate system came to
Wisconsin. The T. Weston Lumber
Company cut down 2,012 trees while working on this highway and rafted the
lumber down the Yellow River. This highway project
lasted until 1849. It was the first commercial timber cutting in the Necedah
area. This began the 50-year logging era that made Necedah a popular place
to be.
John Werner Jr. later built the first steam-powered sawmill and dam on the
Yellow River at Necedah. He then sold his shares in
the T. Weston Lumber Company to E.S. Miner, who
later relocated from Wisconsin
Rapids to Necedah. Werner then moved down the
Yellow River to its mouth, where he built
a sawmill north of the mouth of the river. He left
his name on it and left for the land south of the area. This area later attracted
residents and a village was born and given the name Werner after
its founder.
Juneau
County
In 1848, Wisconsin became a
state. Almost ten years later, on
January 1, 1857,
Juneau
County became a county.
Juneau
County, the home of
Buckhorn State
Park, was named after Solomon Juneau at the
suggestion of Milton Maughs, founder of Mauston.
Solomon Juneau was the founder of
Milwaukee and a very influential
legislator. While Juneau
County was putting together a
county government, the Sauk County Board had legal control of
Juneau
County.
In March of 1848, Adams
County became a
county sharing borders with the land that was later named
Juneau
County. From 1848 to 1850,
Adams
County consisted of all of the
land south of the Lemonweir
River in present-day
Juneau
County. From 1850 to 1853,
Adams
County consisted of all of what
is now
Adams
County and the top three-quarters
of present-day Juneau
County. In 1853, the borders changed
once again and Adams
County consisted of all of present
day Juneau and
Adams
Counties. This lasted until 1857,
when Juneau
County came into existence with
the Wisconsin River splitting the two counties. It
was like this until 1950, when another dramatic change occurred: the completion
of Castle Rock and
Petenwell
Lakes.
Besides Adams and
Juneau
Counties borders being combined
until 1857, both counties were managed under joint county governments, even
though Adams and
Juneau
Counties each had their own county
boards. The joint government ended in 1857, the same year when the county
borders were split.
The Adams county seat was
Quincy for a while since the
Germantown Ferry, which ran across the Wisconsin River
from Germantown to
Quincy and back, carried county
officials to board meetings.
Quincy was known as the heart
of both Adams and
Juneau
Counties, at the time their borders
were combined. The county seat of
Adams
County was later changed to
Adams.
Juneau
County had its own battle for
the county seat. Mauston and New Lisbon feuded over this issue for the first
twenty years of Juneau
Countys existence. Mauston
won the battle. Why Mauston vs. New
Lisbon? Because New Lisbon served
as the unofficial county seat of
Juneau
County for a few years until it
was realized that all of the main roads led to Mauston, which seemed to be
and eventually was the heart of
Juneau
County.
Germantown and Werner
The land below the mouth of the Yellow River after
Weston, Werner, Kingston, and
Miner put in the log shanty, attracted a large number of German settlers.
The first settlers, Walter Gaige and Jacob
Gundlach, came in 1851. They named the area
Germantown after
the large number of German settlers that came into the area.
Germantown was incorporated as
a 30-block town on the Wisconsin River in 1855. When
its population was at its peak in the 1880s,
Germantown had four
sawmills, a church, school, dance hall, blacksmith
shop, hotel, saloon, and the first brewery in the county.
Erastus Hubbard opened a post office in 1854. The
Runkel family took control of it soon after it
opened and operated it from the Germantown Hotel until its closing in 1912.
The church in Germantown was
St. Jacobi Lutheran Church. It was organized in
1891 and served the area until 1924. When
Castle
Rock
Lake was being built, the old
church building was torn down and the wood rafted down the Wisconsin
River to build homes in nearby towns.
The school that served
Germantown was known as Germantown
District #1. It was a one-room schoolhouse like most of the other schools
in the area. The town of
Germantown ran the school until
the 1920s. In the late 1940s, the building was torn down and the lumber was
rafted down the Wisconsin River.
Besides running the post office in
Germantown, the
Runkel family also owned and ran the Germantown
Hotel, which had a dance hall and saloon in it, and the Germantown Ferry,
which crossed the Wisconsin River to
Quincy. The Germantown Hotel
operated until the 1920s, when
Germantowns population
dropped dramatically. The building was razed after
Castle
Rock
Lake started to fill with water.
The Germantown Ferry was started in 1851 and was operated until 1928, when
W.C. Runkel, owner and
operator, retired from the ferry service. The main purpose of the Germantown
Ferry was to carry county supervisors who traveled from New Lisbon, across
the Wisconsin River to
Quincy and back. Past historians
have said that the route of the ferry is unknown, but,
according to photographs and drawings from the time, the
ferry operated in front of the Germantown Hotel and was run by a cable that
ran across the river. After its closing in 1928, the Germantown Ferry
received the title of the longest-run ferry in
Juneau
County.
Just one mile north of the town of
Germantown on County Road G was
the village of
Werner. The
sawmill that John Werner built was just the beginning of the village.
In 1856, Werner was incorporated and platted as a 19-block village. When
its population was at its peak, Werner had
a sawmill, blacksmith shop, cream station, dance hall, hotel, saloon, two
schools, two churches and two cemeteries. Werner also had a post office that
operated from 1857 to 1887 in the home of H.D.
White on County Road G.
The sawmill that John Werner Jr. built would have
been located on what is now the Wisconsin River side
of the Buckhorn
Peninsula. The blacksmith shop
was owned and operated by the
Burton family and was located
on 22nd
Avenue. The cream station was owned and run by
the Shoe family and was located on the corner of what was County Road G and
33rd Avenue.
Zanoni, owned and run by
H.D. White in his home, was a combination of
businesses. The post office was operated from this residence along with a
general store. A hall located on the second floor of the building was used
for special occasions. The White family was the first family in Werner to
have a thrashing machine and a steam engine. They offered ground feed to
area farmers.
The Diamond Club, better known as Hornburg Hall,
was owned and operated by the Hornburg family.
A baseball club, operated from the Diamond Club, became a big hit with the
youngsters who lived in the area. During the Depression, the Diamond Club
had free dances every two weeks. They made their money selling beer for $.08
per eight ounce glass. During the winter, the hall
served as a roller-skating rink. Lawrence Hornburg,
past resident and author of The People of the Buckhorn Area, a recollection of the
Werner area, remembers:
In the winter, we roller-skated in the hall. There was quite
a bunch of us. Everybody brought in
a arm full of wood
for the stove. Those who
didnt skate sat in the kitchen on
the bar by the cook stove and visited.
Hornburg Hall was torn down in the 1920s because
of the poor condition of the building, but everyone will always remember
the good times they had in that building.
According to Beverly Grefe, whose family lived
in Werner and author of the PTA essay contest award
winning essay titled My Home
Town: History of Werner, Wisconsin, the Werner Hotel, which later
became the Grefe home, had many unique features.
This four-story structure had a large dining room and kitchen
on the first floor, two spacious living rooms, a
bar room and
several bedrooms on the second floor, a large dance
hall and
more bedrooms on the third floor, and a large attic
for storage
space on the fourth floor.
The Grefe home was torn down in 1950, just as the
flood waters of the newly formed
Castle
Rock
Lake met the
village of
Werner.
The two schools that operated in the Werner area were called
Lake
Juneau and Pleasant View.
Lake
Juneau was located on the corner
of 22nd Avenue
and 31st
Avenue, near the scenic
Lake
Juneau. It was,
at one time, named Zanoni but in 1922 the
name was changed to Lake
Juneau.
The Pleasant
View
School, which was located on the
corner of the former County Road G and
36th Avenue,
was the oldest country school in
Germantown
township. It was originally a log schoolhouse built
near the Swedish
Baptist
Church, located at the southern
end of Werner. When the land was being acquired by the Wisconsin River Power
Company, the old school building was moved to County Road G heading towards
Castle
Rock County
Park. It was then used as the
Germantown Town
Hall for many years, until the new town hall
was erected on County
Road A. Before it was razed in July 2005, the
old school/town hall stood dormant on what was
its final resting place on County Road G.
There were two churches in the town of
Werner. The
Evangelical
Church building was used as a
Masonic lodge before it became the
Evangelical
Church. It was the oldest building
in the county. The Evangelicals disbanded sometime before 1925. In 1925,
the building was torn down and the lumber was rafted down the
Wisconsin River to build buildings in other towns.
The other church in Werner was the
Swedish
Baptist
Church, which was organized in
1910. After services were discontinued in 1937, the building was used as
a town hall until the floodwaters from the Castle Rock Flowage overtook the
building.
According to the Germantown Cemetery Records, there were three cemeteries
in Germantown, one just outside
of the town of Germantown and
the other two just outside of the
village of
Werner. The smallest of them all
was the Burke
Farm
Cemetery, which was located on
the Burke Farm on 19th Avenue
South. It had five people buried in it, including
an unknown child. The graves in the cemetery were moved to St. Francis Catholic
Cemetery in Necedah when Castle
Rock
Lake was being built. The only
grave that was not moved to St.
Francis
Cemetery was that of the unknown child which
was moved to the Germantown
Cemetery.
Werner
Cemetery was once a pleasant-looking
cemetery. Past residents of Werner recall a white picket fence standing around
the cemetery and trees gently shading the graves. According to past
recollections, farmers cows occasionally got loose, wandered to the
cemetery, and knocked the white picket fence down. The
Werner
Cemetery, at the time the
Castle
Rock
Lake project began, was moved
to Germantown
Cemetery. According to the old-timers
of the area, bodies are still buried where the original cemetery was. They
claim that the bodies of migrant workers were buried in the cemetery and
their graves werent marked or recorded. The
bodies were not removed when the cemetery was moved. Whether
thats true or not, nobody knows.
Werner
Cemetery was located on
19th Avenue
South, one mile west of the town of
Werner. This, today, would be
at the southwestern tip of
Buckhorn
Peninsula in
Buckhorn State
Park.
Germantown
Cemetery, which still exists to
this day, was the main cemetery in the
Germantown area. The
Germantown
Cemetery, unlike the two Werner
cemeteries, escaped the floodwaters of
Castle
Rock
Lake. It is located off
Evergreen Street by Our
Lady of the Lake
Catholic Church, which is off
of County Road G heading towards the
Juneau
County Castle
Rock County
Park. This cemetery holds some
of the oldest graves in the county.
When the lumberjacks exhausted the abundance of white pine in the 1890s,
they moved out and farmers moved in. The farmers found that they
couldnt raise an abundance of profitable crops
with the exception of hay due to the sandy soil. During this time, the
farmers cows depended on the brushy habitat for food, which caused
a dramatic loss of wildlife habitat.
In 1932, a fire swept through parts of
Germantown and the northern part
of Werner. Most of the farms and crops in the area burnt to the ground. This
caused a dramatic decrease in population, as people started moving out of
the area. Their minds not only focused on the loss of their property and
belongings, but also on the rumor that was going around that would forever
change the Werner and
Germantown area.
Wisconsin
River
Dam Project
In the late 1920s, a Mr. Brockman, representing the Wisconsin River
Power Company (WRPC), Wisconsin Rapids, came to
Germantown and Werner requesting a list of names and addresses of people
living in the area. His explanation for this request was that the land along
the Yellow and Wisconsin
Rivers was being sought out so
two dams and two huge lakes could be built in the area. When the residents
of Germantown and Werner found
out about this, most of them accepted this as the future of their hometown
although there were some residents who didnt
like the thought of their land becoming the bottom of a lake or the idea
of losing the homes that their ancestors built after they immigrated to the
United
States.
This wasnt the only time a huge project like
this was going on. Germantown
and Werner werent the only towns affected
by the building of a lake and dam along the Wisconsin
River. At Council
Grounds State
Park in
Merrill,
Wisconsin, a large hydroelectric dam was
built on the Wisconsin River, forming
Alexander
Lake. An interpretive sign at
Council Grounds mentions that in the 1880s and between 1920 and 1950,
many hydroelectric dams and canals were built along the Wisconsin
River, twenty-five of which are still operating today.
Germantown and Werner became
ghost towns in the 1920s. In the late 1920s, people began selling off their
land to the WRPC. After the
Germantown fire, more people
sold their property to the WRPC. Those who disagreed
with the WRPC were forced into selling their land
and homes, which were later torn down. Most of the former residents relocated
to nearby towns such as Mauston, Necedah, and Tomah. Others moved out of
the area.
In the late 1940s, work on the two lakes and dams began.
Construction on the
Petenwell
Lake and Dam began in 1947 and was completed in 1950. Construction
on the Castle Rock Dam (then known as the Germantown Dam) began in 1948 and
was also completed in 1950. During the construction
of these two lakes and dams, trees were taken out,
homes were torn down; only memories remained.
Despite tearing apart lives, the Castle Rock and
Petenwell
Lakes and Dams opened up a new
era for both Juneau and
Adams
Counties. After the floodwaters
of Castle
Rock
Lake flooded the towns of
Germantown and Werner, the waters
formed a new and unique landform where Werner once was. This landform, known
to locals as the Buckhorn Peninsula, with its endless number of slews and
bays, was going to become a piece of land that people would argue over for
years to come.
Buckhorn
Peninsula
State
Park
Proposal
In 1949, one year after the start of the Castle Rock and
Petenwell
Lakes project, the Wisconsin
Department of Natural Resources (WDNR) proposed
to purchase 25,215 acres of Castle Rock and
Petenwell
Lake shoreline in
Adams, Wood and
Juneau
Counties to create a large state
park and recreational area. This state park and recreational area would offer
wilderness camping, miles of hiking trails and access to both Castle Rock
and
Petenwell
Lakes from numerous locations
in the park. The tri-counties didnt approve
this proposal because they thought that they should hear other proposals
for the large lakeshore area. This plan was presented in 1949, 1953, 1954,
1961, and 1962; it was rejected all five times it was presented to
Juneau
County.
In 1965, the WDNR came up with a different and
much smaller plan than the one previously presented. The plan called for
the peninsula jutting into Castle
Rock
Lake, at the time known as
Buckhorn
Peninsula, becoming a state park.
This state park would consist of 3,970 acres and include wilderness camping,
a horse trail area, three beach and day use areas, two different boating
areas in the top half of the peninsula, a state natural area, and wildlife
habitat restoration area in the bottom half of the peninsula. The name of
this proposed state park would be
Buckhorn
Peninsula State
Park.
The Juneau County Board and residents were not happy with the thought of
the peninsula becoming a state park. The Board shot down the plan numerous
times saying that if the land was used as a state
park, it would ruin the tax base which would ruin
any chance for a good economy for
Juneau
County.
Also a state park would prevent any tax raises so
the county could earn money off of taxes.
Juneau
Countys idea for the land
included a large developmental plan consisting of a large subdivision. The
county hired a subdivider to draw out plans of
the proposed subdivision that would have consisted of half of
Buckhorn
Peninsula. Even though
Juneau
County already had these plans
set out, they werent expecting what came next.
Buckhorn
State
Park Becomes
Reality
In 1971, the WDNR bought
Buckhorn
Peninsula from
WRPC. The first thing they did was change the name
to Buckhorn State
Park so that
Buckhorn
Peninsula could not get confused
with Peninsula State
Park,
Door
County.
Immediately after the sale of
Buckhorn
Peninsula to the
WDNR, work on the master plan for
Buckhorn State
Park began. In 1975, the
WDNR board approved the master plan for
Buckhorn State
Park. The plan included a picnic ground, a boat
landing, a playground area with equipment, a parking lot, landscaping and
seeding, and construction of benches and signs for the park.
Construction of Buckhorn
State Park began in 1975. The
construction of the park was split into three phases. The first phase consisted
of a new entrance road from County Road G to
36th Avenue
in the park, the fixing and building of other park
roads, the construction of park buildings (the park office and visitor station,
and various toilet buildings) and the construction of day use areas in the
park. The second phase of park construction included the clearing of campsites
and the creation of hiking trails (mainly the nature trail with interpretive
signs, which was known at that time as the Buckhorn Trail). The third phase
of the park construction was the creation of a 500
foot sandy beach, the blacktopping of main park roads and the construction
of a shop/maintenance building near the park office.
In 1982, the construction of
Buckhorn State
Park was complete and ready for visitors to enjoy
the amenities that the park offered. In August of 1982, the dedication ceremony,
a tradition to introduce new state parks in the Wisconsin State Park System,
was held at the beach at Buckhorn
State Park. A flagpole that was
donated to the park stood at the beach; it was later moved to the park entrance
area near the office.
Buckhorn had many amenities to offer to visitors. These amenities included
two picnic areas with shelters, picnic tables and grills; a beach area with
pit toilet facilities and changing stalls; a boat launch area and a canoe
launch area. The trails included Buckhorn Trail and trails to the wilderness
campsites. The campsites included family campsites and wilderness campsites,
which were quite a walk from the parking lots.
Buckhorn
Today
Today, Buckhorn State
Park totals 4,500-acres, managed as a state park,
wildlife area, and natural area. Buckhorn now consists of the
Buckhorn
Peninsula, the land along the
Yellow River up to Whistling Wings Subdivision and
back down the other side of the Yellow River to the
boat launch on the other side of the
Buckhorn
Bridge, which was later purchased
by the WDNR. The park offers many amenities such
as swimming, boating, fishing, hiking, camping, canoeing, picnicking, hunting,
cross-country skiing, and snowmobiling. The park currently has fifty-six
campsites, six of which are non-reservable. The
park offers 5.6 miles of hiking trails including the Partridge Trail, the
Turkey Vulture Trail, the Savannah Trail and the
Nature Trail. The park also added a canoe interpretation trail that routes
along the shoreline of the park and an island.
Buckhorn State
Park has an active Friends group that was established
in 1996. Since that time, the Friends of Buckhorn State Park assisted with
the building of the handicapped accessible cabin known as the Cabin of the
Setting Sun. It is one of five such cabins in the state park system. The
Friends are currently working on plans for an amphitheater in the park. The
Friends of Buckhorn State Park plan and hold Spring Fling, an event held
every May. They help with the Youth Deer Hunt held the first weekend in November.
The time and effort of the Friends of Buckhorn State Park along with the
effort of the park staff has made the park what it is today.
Epilogue
Buckhorn State
Park will constantly change to meet the needs
of the public. These changes could include additions of roads and the rebuilding
or remodeling of the park office.
Buckhorn State
Park is truly one of many natural gems that
Juneau
County holds within her boundaries,
whether it is county parks or state parks. With the help of park staff, park
volunteers, and park friends, visitors can have an enjoyable time in
Buckhorn State
Park. Because of Buckhorns scenic location
on Castle
Rock
Lake, the park beckons visitors
to take in the natural resources native to the area. One could go on a hike
or ski on scenic nature trails, spend a few nights camping in the wilderness
living as the first settlers lived, or take a nice cool swim in the lake
on a hot day or try to catch a couple of panfish,
walleyes or a northern pike off of the fishing pier or boat. Whatever the
activity chosen, Buckhorn
State Park has something for everyone
and it lives up to its name, Buckhorn: Unbroken Wilderness.
Bibliography
Bieder, Robert E., Native
American Communities in
Wisconsin
1600-1960.
University of
Wisconsin Press,
1995.
Buckhorn
State
Park Appraisal
Report,
1961.
Buckhorn
State
Park
Interpretive
Signs.
Buckhorn
State
Park
Maps.
Buckhorn
State
Park
Visitor,
1996,
2001.
Castle
Rock
Land Use
Maps.
Castle
Rock and
Petenwell
Lakes Area
Visitors Guides, 1998,
2005.
Council
Grounds
State
Park
Interpretive
Sign.
Germantown
Cemetery
Records.
Germantown Plat,
1855, 1920s.
Germantown
School
Records.
Grefe,
Beverly,
My
Home
Town:
Werner,
Wisconsin.
Hornburg, Lawrence, People
of the Buckhorn Area.
Juneau
County
Chronicle.
Juneau
County Historical Society,
Juneau
County: First 100
Years.
Juneau
County
Plat,
1878.
Juneau County
Star-Times.
Life Before
Buckhorn.
Lobenstein, Conrad,
The History of the
Lobenstien Farm.
Madison
State
Journal.
Mauston
Star.
Milwaukee
Sentinal.
Necedah
Republic.
New
Lisbon
Times.
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