Sawdust City: Stillwater and the Lumber Boom
Near Stillwater, Minnesota
For half a century, Stillwater ran on white pine. When settlers founded the town in the eighteen forties, the Saint Croix valley held one of the great pineries of North America, and the river was a perfect highway to float logs down to the mills. In eighteen fifty four, the lumberman Isaac Staples built one of the first major sawmills here, and dozens more soon lined the riverfront, their saws screaming from dawn to dusk.
By the eighteen eighties, boosters claimed Stillwater was the largest lumber producing town in the world. The wealth was staggering for such a small place. In eighteen eighty eight, Stillwater lit some of the first electric street lights west of Chicago, and the population swelled past eleven thousand people.
In eighteen eighty nine, the empire of Frederick Weyerhaeuser leased a controlling interest in the local log business, tying this town to one of the greatest timber fortunes in American history. But a forest is not endless. As the pine ran out, the mills fell silent one by one, and by the time the last log came down the river the boom that built Stillwater had passed into memory, leaving behind a downtown of brick and stone that the lumber money paid for.
