Langlade's Ormsby Pond, a fascinating little place

It seems there is neat history one can bump into in the strangest most unexpected places in Wisconsin, and lots of fun things to see. I came upon a town that no longer exists named Ormsby, northwest of Antigo, on the West Branch of the Eau Claire River. There is a small dam here on private property that has created Ormsby Pond. I found and photographed some great water fowl here, and learned some neat history about the town, now called by some a "Ghost Town," though when I was there I saw nothing resembling even that.

April 21, 2009

This might go down as one of my more crazy stories, but it's all fun. I have so much to learn, it scares me!

I was cruising around northwest Langlade County west of Deerbrook and Kempster, and northwest of Antigo, on CH C. I hooked a right to head north on Ormsby Avenue which makes its way for a short distance to CH J.

The town of Ormsby used to sit about halfway up, at the intersection of Ormsby Ave. and McEachern Rd. I've seen some refer to it now as a ghost town. I'll buy that --- I saw no evidence a town was ever here. Interestingly, the 1928 edition of the Antigo High School yearbook, the "Graduate," marking the fifth anniversary of the founding of Antigo, mentions Ormsby.

In the mid and late 19th century, pioneering entrepreneurs found excellent tracts of "straight, flawless white pine, all other timber being considered useless," in the area of present-day Antigo. The problem was that this area was a great distance from the Eau Claire and Wolf Rivers. In looking at the above aerial view, the Eau Claire seems closer, but that was only the West and East Branches, which would meet just south of Hwy 64 and just west of Antigo. The Wolf River was the preferred mode, one being used by countless lumberers bringing logs down from the north country.

Even with the Wolf preferred, because people are people, men would make their way over closer to the Eau Claire. Their first challenge was to get some dams built in order to keep the water at a height sufficient to create the pressure needed to move the logs downstream, and deep enough to handle the logs. Several were built.

Sawmill in the Village of Ormsby, Town of Peck, Langlade County, Wisconsin. Presented by rootsweb.

An outfit called the Union Lime Co. slid over to the West Branch of the Eau Claire River, built a sawmill and erected a dam there in 1893. The company did so at a place that came to be known as Ormsby. The saw mill was built by the Northern Woodland Company, partly owned by William Ormsby. The village would be named after him. A community built up around 1896. The saw mill at its peak employed about 100 men. The Northern Woodland Co. was a logging railroad, and a few miles of track were laid connecting Ormsby to something called the Honzicks Spur. The company later reorganized to be the Union Lime Co. and then the Ormsby Land & Timber Co.

Union Lime Co Kilns Grimms Manitowoc County. A reprint is available on eBay for $7 at my last look.

Union Lime's main interest was to get kiln wood out of the area for their massive lime kilns in southern Wisconsin. The one shown above was in Manitowoc south of Green Bay on Lake Michigan. Lime of course has many uses, one of which include making paper. The region of eastern Wisconsin from what is known as the Niagara Formation extending roughly from the Door Peninsula to the Illinois border is rich with lime. This is a most interesting study by itself. I don't have time right now to follow this up, but I have discovered there was, at one time, an Ormsby Lime Co. in Waukesha County in southeastern Wisconsin, close to Milwaukee. William Ormsby was from Milwaukee.

In the 1920s, a turbine was added to the dam to produce electricity for the saw mill buildings.

Unfortunately, the operation collapsed after the mill burned down. It burned down several times, but the everyone threw in the towel when it burned down in 1919. I have learned that sawmills burning down in those days was a huge hazard and did in many companies.

The community had a post office until 1922, a school, boarding house, store and cheese factory. Rootsweb has a nice set of photos and short history which I commend to you.

Well, it turns out there is a dam at Ormsby, on McEachern Rd., on a private piece of property that is now an organic farm. This dam has created what is known as the Ormsby Pond out of the West Branch of the Eau Claire River. I met the lady who runs the property, a long time American who immigrated from Poland. She was fun to talk to, but she would not let me drive close to the dam, which disappointed me because I love dams. The Department of Natural Resources (DNR) had warned her to keep people away from it as it was dangerous and she would not want to be responsible for liability suits.

I wanted to suggest to her to blow off the DNR, I was a big boy, and I could handle it, but I decided not to as she was clearly a Rule of Law American and I did not want to press her to deviate from what the DNR had told her.

I was able to drive 20-30 yards into her property, however, far away from the dam. It was a a 65 degree sunny day in April and to my eyesight, a fantastic group of all different kinds of water fowl relaxing in the little marsh area. The lady happily let me take a bunch of photos. I tried my hand to identify these fellows but got nowhere --- if you want to give it a try, holler my way. They all looked like ducks to me, but my guess is there might be some other species.

As I left the property, I came upon the Ormsby Pond and did my best to get some zoom shots of the upstream side of the dam.

I'll show you what I saw. First the water fowl, then the pond and dam.

The first thing I want to do is give you a sense for the habitat these fellows and ladies all lived in on good ol' McEachern Rd. As far as I could tell, they had it made in the shade. Now I'll zero in on all these guys.

Okay, now I'll switch gears over to the dam and Ormsby Pond.

Here you can see the Ormsby Pond and just to right of center, the area of the dam.

In a little closer.

As close as I could get. I believe that to be McEachern Rd. crossing over the dam.

This is a MapQuest aerial view. The water fowl were in the location of that first set of trees you see as I turned right onto McEachern Rd. You can see the road crossing over the dam, and below that the West Branch of the Eau Claire River pressing on to meet the East Branch just west of Antigo to form the Eau Claire River in Marathon County.

In the gee whiz category, I got a couple shots of the West Branch a little earlier. A beautiful sight to be sure.

That's it folks. Fun stuff.