Cut Down Ridge, Close Old Feud Between Towns
Indian Trail Over Wood Hill Gap to Become Trunk Highway; Cost Set at
$18,000
The Milwaukee Journal, 19 Nov 1922
The old Indian trail over the Dividing Ridge in Juneau county known as the Wood hill gap, after 40 years of agitation is to come into its own as a county trunk highway.
A big force of workers is engaged in cutting down the hill, making a grade 2,400 feet long with a percentage ranging from 5 to 7 per cent. The work will cost about $18,000 and with good weather, will be completed this fall.
The cutting down of Wood hill will provide a short cut from highway 33 over highway 94 and the new route between Union Center and New Lisbon and will enable travelers going into the north and northeast parts of the state to cut over highways 12 and 21.
The Dividing Ridge, which runs in an eastern and westerly direction through Juneau and Monroe counties, is one of the most prominent elevations in the state. Its summit is 125 feet high and the ridge is so sharp that in the early days it could be crossed only at the gaps or breaks in it. The railroads when they went through this section tunneled the ridge.
TOWN RIVALRY ARISES
More than 70 years ago the state legislature passed a law providing for a
highway from Mineral Point up the Wisconsin River valley to Wisconsin Rapids.
The surveyors located the Wood hill gap and ran the road through it.
A little grading was done then but the hill remained so steep as almost
to destroy the usefulness of this highway.
Then when the state highway system was begun a rivalry sprang up between the faction backing the Goodenough hill gap to the east and the faction advocating that the state highway be made over the Wood hill. The question became one of the burning issues in Juneau county and was mixed up with the rivalry between Mauston, the present county seat, and New Lisbon, which has long had aspirations to be the county town.
The Goodenough hill group won and highway 12 was made through that gap. More than $50,000, it is said, has been spent in cutting down Goodenough hill and the work is not yet completed.
But the advocates of the Wood Hill route did not rest. They were headed by W. H. Cash, New Lisbon, railroad builder, and one of the best known men in this section.
MAY OPEN BUS LINE
"Although I am 80," said Mr. Cash, "I swore that I would live to see the
Wood hill route put through. The gap that was good enough for the Indians
and for our forefathers is good enough for us. So we got an appropriation
of $8,000 made to the township of Plymouth and a year later another appropriation
of $6,000. I then had my son, Fred Cash, a railroad engineer, survey
the route and finally we got the work started. Nothing will add so
greatly to the road facilities in this section and the convenience of travelers
coming through here as the making of the Wood hill route."
Mr. Cash, according to reports, is planning a bus line as soon as the route
is completed to run north and south from Necedah to Elroy and east and west
from Mauston to Camp Douglas. This line will center at New Lisbon.