Ashland’s Waterfront

by Edith Mahnke

Let me take you back to July 5,1854. Two men, Asaph Whittlesey and George Kilborn, leave Madeline Island in a rowboat to decide the best location for a town site on the south shore of Chequamegon Bay. They scouted the shore and came to a place they adjudged a suitable place. Climbing out of the boat, they ascended the bank, looked around and out over the Bay and determined, “this is a good place for a town site.”  They proceeded to cut down the first tree. It was to become one of the logs in the first Whittlesey cabin. Three cabins were built by Whittlesey that same year, with his wife and family joining him in the first cabin.  Whittlesey pre-empted 160 acres of land, George Kilborn 160 acres of land and Martin Beaser 960 acres of land, for a total of 1280 acres.  First growth pine was in abundance. Others began to arrive. In 1855 Edwin Ellis arrived and pre-empted a site at the east end of the bay where he built a dock, a store and a home.  In between these two sites, Samuel S. Vaughn took up land. These three areas would eventually become Ashland as we know it today.   This occurred in 1872. Vaughn built a dock to receive supplies.   Others built homes and stores or set up in other businesses. Ore was being discovered on the Gogebic Range in Upper Michigan and Ashland’s harbor was where it would be shipped to ports south.  This in 1871 brought the beginnings of a railroad. The Wisconsin Central line was built from Ashland to Penoka Gap south of town. Due to the Panic of 1873 it would not be completed until 1877.  There was jubilation when the first train arrived in Ashland, beginning in Milwaukee and coming the entire way for the first time over the new rail. Now materials could be brought in more easily than by ship. Ships would still be needed but more material would come in by rail.  Mills were built to saw the white pine into lumber that lumberjacks had felled, then floated down rivers and into the Bay. They were floated to the mills that started to fill the Bay front. The Superior Lumber Company was the first at the west end of town.   In all, there would eventually be 9 mills along the Bay front. Coal docks were added. A “Pig Iron” dock where ingots of iron termed “pigs”, manufactured at the Ashland Iron & Steel Co., were shipped to ports where steel was being made. Wisconsin Central Railroad built a large dock.  In 1885 the first of 5 subsequent ore docks were built to handle the ore being brought in from the U.P. of Michigan.  The first two were built by the Milwaukee, Lake Shore & Western Ry.

The third dock was built by the Wisconsin Central Railroad. When the lumber started to dwindle, the mills started closing one by one. The ore started to dwindle also and the docks shut down, until there was just one remaining. Log booms were shipped across  the Lake from Canada to the Consolidated Lumber Co. dock into the early 60’s.  These were destined for paper making. Ashland had a Marathon Paper mill on the east end of the city.