uch a nave point of view. Unfortunately for our nation’s forests, they acted upon this belief by cutting into these forests leading to an amazing rate of deforestation. And, as Wisconsin gained in population, it became a glaring example of this trend.The Wisconsin Lumber Industry According to Quaife, nearly all of the early Wisconsin territory was covered in forest. He states that “the upper 20,000,000 acres [was] a forest predominantly of white pine, interspersed with lesser stands of hemlock, hard maple, basswood, birch, and Norway pine. The remaining 15,000,000 acres was largely covered with a hardwood forest in which oak formed 75% of the stand, but which contained in commercial quantities such valuable species as black walnut, black cherry, basswood, hard maple, and elm.” Simply put, Wisconsin was covered with a vast amount of land filled with pristine forests that were targeted to fuel the westward expansion. However, not all of the lumber cut was used towards fueling American expansion. Many people considered the forests a nuisance in the way of progress to be cut down, removed, and burned. It was the search for good farmlands that drove the early Wisconsin pioneer. In the northern regions, though, where the forest were much more thick and filled with white pine—by far the most important Wisconsin lumber commodity in its early days—lumbering became one of the primary methods of survival and employment. Entire villages and towns could spring up around lumbering areas, with many of these towns still in existence today. The lumber industry of northern Wisconsin looked upon the forest with only one thing in mind, a speedy harvest of as much as possible. The techniques used are considered highly wasteful by today’s standards and even those practiced in Europe at the time. Virtually the only method used by these loggers was to cut every tree within sight. This meant that all...
