'Land office business' rings true here

     Early historians and folk story writers preferred tales of Indians and loggers to hum-drum business of the land office.
     However, the land office was where basic business was transacted that affected lumbermen, agents and, in the future, farmers of the area.
     Hundreds of thousands of acres were purchased and claimed through the land office here. The district here was called the Chippewa District, but was more commonly known as the Eau Claire District because the land office was located here. Other land districts covered the St. Croix and Black Rivers, also key logging streams. Offices were at Willow River (Hudson) and La Crosse.

Government saw value

     When the Indians relinquished rights to lands in 137, the government hastened to survey logger-infested regions in hopes lumbermen would purchase timberlands. Some were already infringing on timberlands.
     When the Eau Claire office was opened in 1857, there were three ways of acquiring federal land. One was exercising a preemptive right under the act of 1841, which enabled a settler on unsurveyed land to claim up to 160 acres, and purchase it within 180 days after the land was surveyed and placed on sale. this protected the settler from competitive bidding at public auctions.
     The second was to buy land at public auctions during the two weeks each year when land was offered for sale. It was sold to the highest bidder over the minimum price of $1.25 an acre.
     A third method was called "private entry." After offering public land at auctions, unsold land was subject to sale at any time thereafter at $1.25 an acre.

First sale in 1848

     The first sale in this area was recorded Sept. 1, 1848, at La Crosse when Isaac S. Mason, who operated a little mill on Cunningham Creek about two miles south of Neillsville, purchased 80 acres at $1.25 an acre. Hiram S. Allen, and early lumberman, claimed 138.74 acres along the river to protect his investment.
     Mexican War veterans were assigned frontier land as bounties for serving in the war. However, many of the sod the "warrents" for less than $1.25 and acre to land speculators.
     Some others made purchases after 1850 in the area along the Black River and started to raft out timber.
     Most of the land was purchased by "private entry" as lumbermen and speculators had no interest in competitive bidding at auctions.
     Lumbermen from Maine saw the value of timber in this region and formed groups to purchase holdings. In 1854, 103 persons purchased land in what would become the Eau Claire district, compared to 33 the previous year.
     Among purchases were 5,000 acres by Samuel Weston astride the Black River and middle fork of the Eau Claire River north and west of Withee.
     More and more bounty warrants began to pour into the Willow River and La Crosse offices and most of the finest timberlands in the Chippewa, Eau Claire and Black River valleys were gobbled up. Military warrents ranged from $1 to $1.17 an acre.
     In 1856 Congress halted all land sales pending selection of land by agents of the railroad companies upon whom the State of Wisconsin conveyed its grants. When the Eau Claire office opened its doors in 1857, it had little land to sell.
     Most of the preemptors were farmers and purchases of land were in smaller lots during this period, showing an increased interest in agriculture lands.
     Major buyers of the period were speculators.
     The term "land office business" came to light in Eau Claire in the late 1850s when railroads had completed their land grant selections.

Civil War slows business

     However, a depression slowed business and the unsettling advent of the Civil War interrupted activities of speculators and lumbermen far more than migration to the land of hard pioneers. During the early war years land sales dropped from 230,000 acres in the first six months of 1856 to 7,421 acres in 1862.
     However, the big timber names such as Knapp, Stout & Co. Company , J. G. Thorp and N. C. Chapman of Eau Claire purchased large tracts on speculation.
     Some lumbermen such as O. H. Ingram refused to invest in speculative timberlands despite urging from his partner at the time, A. M. Dole.
     Also, low prices because of bank failures and currency shortages depressed lumber market prices.

College scrip follows

     Agriculture college scrip was the principal medium of exchange used in the land boom of 1866-67. About the same period, Ezra Cornell, for whom Cornell is named, acquired nearly 500,000 acres in northern Wisconsin. He was to remain a key figure in timber sales for 30 years.
     The supply of military warrants was dwindling in the late 1860s and more and more local lumbermen were bidding in timberland. Thorp and Chapman, for instance, purchased 18,000 acres in 1868, second only to 23,000 purchased by Knapp-Stout.
     Land was being sold at prices from $3.05 and acre to $5 in some locations near where the logs would not have to be hauled so far.

Competition fierce in 1871

H. C. Putnam

     In 1871 fierce competition for timberlands made Henry C. Putnam's position as clerk in the Eau Claire land office quite valuable. He had gained the position in 1864.
     Putnam settled in Eau Claire in 1857 and applied his talent as a timber scout and land agent for outside capitalists. He soon gained a reputation as a shrewd judge of timber. Since he received either cash remuneration, or and interest in timber, he soon accumulated considerable valuable investments.
     To help convert speculators' money into quick profits, he handled sale of timber or timberlands for loggers and sometimes joined logging partnerships which purchased timberlands and marketed logs. It is said he came to Eau Claire with a "stake" of $2,000, which he ultimately developed into a huge fortune.
     Putnam held several jobs, but it was in his position as deputy register and deputy receiver that he performed his greatest services for eastern capitalists and himself.
     
     

Connected with Cornell

     Putnam later managed the vast holdings of Ezra Cornell. Putnam, being on good terms with officials in neighboring districts, was able to make entries for Cornell in the Hudson, Stevens Point and Bayfield districts. In all, he entered 412,000 acres for Cornell in Wisconsin, of which about 374 were within the Eau Claire District.
     Almost before local loggers and mill owners realized it, Putnam had converted the Chippewa Valley from an area which cheap government pine was plentiful to an area in which the pine was guarded by a corporation.
     For his services for Cornell and others, Putnam usually received one-eighth or one-fourth interest in the lands. Thus, it was to his interest to quickly transfer government pine to speculators' hands and force up the price of stumpage to loggers and millmen.
     Putnam survived a shakeup in the land office when complaints were received.
     Putnam recommended that Cornell drop his local representative, Francis Woodward; Woodward then tried to enter lands of his own, but Putnam said the locations had already been entered.
     Woodward, familiar with Putnam's mode of operations, sought evidence of Putnam's operations and the General Land Office started an investigation. Records of the Eau Claire office were impounded.
     Putnam was found guilty of misconduct by the investigators and Commissioner Willis Drummond ordered his removal at once.
     During the decade of the 1890s sales amounted to only 7,000 acres and in 1905 the Eau Claire Land Office was closed.
     Despite the fact the preponderance of federal land was in private hands by 1900, considerable settlement took place thereafter. Pine lumbering peaked in the late 1880s and declined thereafter, although railroads did carry out hardwoods which were too heavy to be floated to mills or markets.
     As the hardwood was removed, landowners began to promote colonization or sold the cutovers to colonization companies.
     Thus many areas were settled after 1900, but all too often the new settlement was on marginal land; the agricultural depression of the 1920s halted the movement and many farms were abandoned.

- Duane Fischer, UW-EC Dept. of History

Extracted from the Eau Claire Leader Telegram
Special Publication, Our Story 'The Chippewa Valley and Beyond', published 1976
Used with permission.