Welcome to Downtown Prentice ~ 800-269-4505 ~ www.vil.prentice.wi.gov

Downtown Prentice is home to the Prentice History Walk; a series of 17 marking buildings and sites with text and photos narrating the community’s history. Labor Day Weekend, join in the fun of Prentice Progress Days and celebrate the Northwoods logging history. You will find lodging, dining, shopping and services in this small community.

1895 - A BIT OF HISTORY

Something More About the Early Days of Prentice and Its Industrious Founders

JUMP RIVER LUMBER COMPANY

Its Early History and That of the Village Identical

In the summer of 1882 the Jump River Lumber company was incorporated at Portage, Wis., and consisted of the following gentlemen: A. Prentice, M. T. Alverson, O. D. Van Dusen, C. R. Gallett, L. L. Breese and F. H. Lewis. Early in the fall Messrs. Prentice and Van Dusen came up from Dorchester on the morning passenger with orders from the railroad company to let them off in the morning at the Jump River bridge and stop for them on the way down in the afternoon. They skirmished around all day in the brush and picked out a location for the dam and mill. They brought lunch with them and ate it on the bridge. Later in the fall, Messrs. Gallett, Lewis and Prentice came up on a freight, with a carload of lumber from Dorchester. The freight stopped while they threw off the lumber, there being no sidetracks here in those days. They had tools, provisions, carpenters and workmen, and erected on the side of the track a cook shanty, which is the building now used by the Jump River lumber company as a warehouse. They went to work clearing the site for the mill and built the “boarding house,” which has since been enlarged and improved and is now so ably conducted by Landlord Myers under the name of THE JUMP RIVER HOUSE and which is spoken of by the traveling public as one of the best hotels on the line.

About the same time they built the store. Being the first store, it controlled the bulk of the trade, and its business increased to such an extent that in 1891 it was enlarged to more than twice its former size. It is today a model store in every respect and incandescent lamps and the stock comprises absolutely everything in the line of general merchandise. The next buildings to be erected were seven or eight dwelling houses that are now occupied by Emerson Brothers. Before snow flew the dam had been completed and when winter set in logging operations were vigorously prosecuted under the direction of Mr. Lewis. Mr. Prentice took charge of the clearing and building, while Mr. Gallett looked after the business interests of the company. As soon as the ice in the pond broke the following spring, the mill, which in the meantime had been completed, was started, with George Morrow as foreman and Grant VanDusen as timekeeper. Joe Rabdeau was in charge of the shingle mill and Dick Burritt of the lath mill; Mel Robbins presided at the boarding house; Charles Alverson kept the books and John Turner conducted the store. The Wisconsin Central Railroad company was represented by Joseph Wilbur and the
SOO HAD NOT BEEN HEARD OF.

Of the next four years there is little to be said. The mill ran steadily night and day, turning out in the neighborhood of 100,000 feet of lumber every twenty-four hours, except from the time when the pond froze up in the fall until the roads were suitable for hauling. The mill employed a force of about 150 men and in the winter the company operated from four to six camps of from thirty to fifty men each. Wages were good and everybody was prosperous and happy.

Early in the summer of 1886, there began to be rumors afloat of a new railroad which was coming from the west, and when in the fall G. W. Carrington with a corps of civil engineers came here and started through the woods in search of a location for the right-of-way, the rumors became a certainty, the seeds were sown which were soon to take root, bud and blossom into an ear of prosperity hitherto undreamed of in Prentice. Corner lots were now at a premium and before spring Prentice real estate was selling by the front foot. The population now began to double every week—some weeks—hotels grew up like mushrooms, and when the road struck Prentice in the spring of 1887 she enjoyed the distinction of being the liveliest and wickedest town in all Northern Wisconsin. Up to this time the history of Prentice and of the Jump River Lumber company had been identical, but now the town, which had hitherto grown up under the wise policy and fostering care of the company, broke loose from all restraint and assumed, as it were, among the powers of earth a separate and equal station.

Events~

March - Prentice Bushbenders Snowmobile Rodeo
April - Pine Line Marathon
September - Prentice Progress Days
September - POPS Garage Sale
October - POPS Garage Sale