Early pioneer gave name to Truax Prairie

Barn raisings involved many men from the surrounding area. In June, 1914, this barn was raised in 10 hours on the Adolph Krizenesky farm in the Town of Bear Lake in Barron County by using wooden pins. Head carpenter on the job was Herman Richter.

As farmers turned more and more toward dairying, small creameries began businesses in the area. This one was near Haugen. In days when butter making was moved form the farm kitchen to the plant, farmers would combine to build factories, starting the cooperative movement. At one time hundreds of small creameries and cheese factories dotted the countryside.

     In an obscure little book called "Sketches of Wisconsin Pioneer Women" Mrs. Cordelia Truax, after whose family Truax Boulevard is named, tells how she and her husband came to Wisconsin.
     The former Cordelia Avery of Allegheny County, New York, was married to Peter Truax in September, 1852. Having friends in southern Wisconsin, they decided to come to the state.
     After selling their farm in New York, they packed and embarked with what she called a "breaking team" of oxen. They drove to Buffalo, N.Y., and took a boat to Sheboygan.
     The first year in Wisconsin they rented a 100-acre wheat farm in Big Foot Prairie. There they grew a crop of wheat and sold it at Kenosha in the fall of 1854. The following spring they decided to move north.
     Early in 1855 they loaded household goods and a crate of chickens in a wagon pulled by a team of horses. Mrs. Truax's brother who was with the couple drove the breaking team hitched to another wagon containing chains, ox plows and other equipment for breaking land. In tow behind the wagons were a cow and three-year-old colt.
     Mrs. Truax explained she and her husband liked the appearance of Big Foot Prairie and selected a similar plot of land when they reached the area around Eau Claire, then called Clear Water. Land they picked, consisting of about 80 acres, was later called Truax Prairie.
     So sparsely populated was they area their nearest neighbor was two miles away. Mrs. Truax said that for three months she never saw another woman. Some time passed, she added, before other settlers came.
     In later years, Mr. Truax began buying timber, eventually leading him into an extensive lumbering business. Mrs. Truax became a civic leader and contributed heavily to churches, schools, Luther Hospital and the YMCA before her death in March 18, 1909, at the age of 94.

Four hourses were used by many farmers to pull heavy equipment in the filed during harvesting. Sights similar to this were common in farming circles around here before the advent of modern machinery. These four horses are oned today by Amish farmers in the area. As settlers became more established and land was cleared, families were able to turn to the "nicer" things of life, more than basic shelter. here is a more modern farm house constructed in the Town of Bruswick following the Civil War.

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