Talk:1886 St. Croix River log jam

The Clam River dam etc.

Kusma This caught my eye for a few reasons: The spring of 1886 was very dry, so the water level was too low to transport logs, until the rivers rose in heavy rain in June 1886, the Clam River dam was blown up and dams on several other tributaries were opened.

1. The Clam River dam was blown up?! I thought surely that must mean something I don't understand, but nope, according to the Minneapolis Tribune, a local hermit named Davidson blew up the dam with dynamite. Maybe it was because the spring had been so dry? This story doesn't say, but the logjam appears to have been an ongoing story and surely the dynamiting of a local dam received coverage so maybe it's out there. Also the Trib's article supporting the Clam River thing seems to say the other dams were opened after the Clam River dam was blown up, possibly they were opened because it was opened?

2. I think your current hook is a good one, but there's got to be another one in the Clam River dam being dynamited by the hermit, Davidson.

3. The sentence is long and contains 1886 twice, I wondered if maybe you'd intended two sentences?

"Dynamite bomb" -- I see that's what the newspapers of the time were calling it. I've never heard anyone call a dynamite charge a 'dynamite bomb'; it's possible this is obsolete language rather than American English.

In Clearing the log jam, it says 'but also released most of the water' -- from where? I think this means the explosion moved so much water that it temporarily lowered the water level in the river until rain replenished it? I can't get to that Jam of all Jams source (although OMG I know the author of that book! I'm emailing her to see if she'll come take a look.) --valereee (talk) 13:19, 3 December 2019 (UTC)

Hi Valereee, thank you so much for taking a look! As I understand it, the Clam River dam was there just for logging purposes, holding back water in order to better transport logs when it was opened. But I can check whether the Clam River Dam or the hermit Davidson occurs anywhere else. I've split the sentence in two (as a German I still have difficulties writing short sentences) and removed one 1886, thanks for that.

I'm following the sources (Curry and the newspaper she must have used as her source) in calling it a "dynamite bomb", and am wondering whether should include more of the story of the brave man who went back to re-fuse the bomb when it didn't explode at first. But perhaps using "dynamite charge" is better except in a direct quote.

Small world that you know Edna Curry -- I spent about a pound on an ebook version of the Jam of all Jams, as I couldn't get a complete version of the earlier article. She uses a Taylors Falls newspaper quite a bit that I couldn't get hold of. It would be lovely to get comments or improvements from her.

Thanks again! —Kusma (t·c) 13:43, 3 December 2019 (UTC)

Curry and I are (were, in my case) members of Romance Writers of America. I wrote a couple of Harlequin romance novels back in the 1990s, and she was at the time trying to sell to Harlequin. Dealing with Harlequin for two books killed fiction writing for me. --valereee (talk) 14:08, 3 December 2019 (UTC)

I see. My other half is busy writing a novel, but isn't at the "publishing" state yet. I have only published scientific articles... Anyway, you had the right intuition about blowing up the Clam River dam, that absolutely wasn't a normal occurrence and there was a court case about it (see sources below). —Kusma (t·c) 14:32, 3 December 2019 (UTC)

Some more newspaper sources re: start of the jam and Davidson

• "The Taylor's Falls Journal of Thursday contains the following log jam paragraphs". Stillwater messenger. 1886-06-19. Last week the lumbermen wore a dejected and lost-their-last-friend look, for the water in the rivers was steadily falling and their logs were almost inextricably jammed at Wood river, Kettle river rapids, the mouth of the Namagon and other places. Crews had been discharges, and there seemed little prospect of getting the logs to market for an indefinite time.
  But it remained for Davidson, the hermit, to strike the key-note for a change to all this, by blowing out the Clam river dam with dynamite. The water from that stream caused a slight rise, and by one of Elias McKean's "most remarkable coincidences", there seemed to be a concert of action by the elements and otherwise. Other dams were opened, heavy rain storms flooded the upper country, and there was immediately a boom in the water of the Saint Croix, and logs went booming along toward the great Stillwater boom.
  Logs from the "low-water" drives were easily floated off, and came down stream in immense rafts, almost blockading the river as they moved along.
  Reaching the famous dells of the Saint Croix, their course was interrupted. The channel was too narrow and the current too sluggish to allow their passage in such large bodies, and shortly after midnight, Sunday morning, they "hung-up" and began jamming and piling.
  Something such a catastrophe has been anticipated, and yet it came unexpectedly, for the men who had been here for weeks, building sheerbooms at the eddies in the dells, and keeping watch to prevent a jam, were asleep in their tents, and their booms were broken, and the formation of the biggest jam ever known commenced before they were aware of it.
• "Mississippi Valley lumberman and manufacturer". 1886-06-18.
• "The Clam river dam lately blown up by dynamite will probably be rebuilt by Sauntry & Tozer". Mississippi Valley lumberman and manufacturer. 1886-07-16.
• "St. Paul daily globe". 1886-07-19. Davidson, the man charged with the latest blowing up of Chase's dam on Clam river, is reported as in jail at Grantsburg for contempt of court. Mr. Chase had heretofore indulged in a great deal of fooling about the dam, and had been enjoined by the court from interfering. His last exploit really offended the Wisconsin court, and the St. Croix lumbermen are glad. Davidson has long proclaimed alleged rights to overflowed lands, but has always considered himself the court, and when felt aggrieved would resort to dynamite to blow up the corporation dam.

• HAHAHAHAHA the latest blowing up of the dam? The hooks are writing themselves here...--valereee (talk) 14:46, 3 December 2019 (UTC)

  It gets better. Earl Chapin (1973). Earl Chapin's Tales of Wisconsin. River Falls Press. Up on Clam Lake an irascible Scotchman, Robert Davidson, had been carrying on a feud with certain lumbermen who had dammed the river and flooded his land. ... He blew out the Clam River Dam with a well-placed charge of dynamite.

  "Pioneer Tales Of Burnett County". Robert Davidson, a Scotchman, came to the Siren community in 1865. He entered what is probably the first homestead in the township. He made his living chiefly by hunting and furnishing venison to the logging camps along the Clam River. He lived in a log shanty near where the Clam River bridge on 70 is now located and levied tribute from the logging companies for flooding his land when they drove their logs down the river. He lived to the ripe old age of 102 years, a living example that dirt does not kill anyone. Shortly after the first World War he became quite ill and was taken by some kind person to Webster. These people game him a bath and he died within twenty-four hours.

  William Folsom (2018). Fifty Years In The Northwest. ISBN 9785040852307. The dam on Clam River, built at a cost of $10,000, was, in 1886, blown up by dynamite and destroyed by Robert Davidson, who claimed that the flowage interfered with his meadow lands.

  May be somewhat incidental to the log jam, but there are some great stories to be found here. —Kusma (t·c) 15:18, 3 December 2019 (UTC)

OMG we need an article on this guy! A living example that dirt does not kill anyone! --valereee (talk) 16:39, 3 December 2019 (UTC)

Move to 1886 St. Croix River log jam

Per St. Croix River (Wisconsin–Minnesota)? Because we don't want it moved while it's on the main page. --valereee (talk) 16:57, 3 December 2019 (UTC)

Valereee, I think you're right, every single Foo river is "Foo River", also in article titles like I-35W Mississippi River bridge. I'll move the page. —Kusma (t·c) 17:06, 3 December 2019 (UTC)

Oh...you know, I think there's a bell ringing about not moving the DYK nom, even if the page moves...I think it might do something weird that then needs fixing or something. Vanamonde93? --valereee (talk) 17:28, 3 December 2019 (UTC)

Sorry, Vanamonde, I forgot you were probably still busy. Gatoclass? --valereee (talk) 17:29, 3 December 2019 (UTC)

Yes, you should not move the nomination page, even if you move the article, if that's what you're asking. Gatoclass (talk) 00:14, 4 December 2019 (UTC)

Gatoclass, ok, won't move it. Only reason why I'd want to move it is the following: Look at the top, where {{Did you know nominations/1886 St. Croix river log jam}} is transcluded, the intro incorrectly claims the text is transcluded from the redlinked Template:Did you know nominations/1886 St. Croix River log jam instead and features an incorrect edit link. Moving the nom page seems easier than figuring out what all of the DYK templates do... —Kusma (t·c) 17:21, 4 December 2019 (UTC)

GA Review

This review is transcluded from Talk:1886 St. Croix River log jam/GA1. The edit link for this section can be used to add comments to the review.

Reviewer: GhostRiver (talk · contribs) 16:58, 17 January 2022 (UTC)

Hello! I'll be taking a look at this article for the January 2022 GAN backlog drive. If you haven't already signed up, please feel free to join in! Although QPQ is not required, if you're feeling generous, I also have a list of GA nominations of my own right here.

• Thank you @GhostRiver for starting the review! I'd be happy to help with your articles, but I think you'd fare better with a reviewer with more knowledge of North American sports (I have watched the grand total on one baseball game, Twins versus Red Sox, but that was a long time ago). —Kusma (talk) 09:56, 27 January 2022 (UTC)

Good Article review progress box

Criteria: 1a. prose () 1b. MoS () 2a. ref layout () 2b. cites WP:RS () 2c. no WP:OR () 2d. no WP:CV () 3a. broadness () 3b. focus () 4. neutral () 5. stable () 6a. free or tagged images () 6b. pics relevant () Note: this represents where the article stands relative to the Good Article criteria. Criteria marked are unassessed

Lede

• Add a sentence about the clearing of the jam

  Done.

Background

• I don't love phrases in parentheses, and I don't think the informal name needs to be included if it's not relevant to the article itself

  Removed.

• Link logging

  Done, also added a link to log driving

• This was a winter activity, as the trees were so large that the only way to move them through the forests was by horse-drawn sleds. Slightly unclear connection; I suppose the sleds necessitate that this be done in winter, but it's not immediately clear

  Checked the source and mentioned ice, which hopefully makes it clearer.

• "or its tributaries" → "and its tributaries"

  Yup, done.

Causes and start of the 1886 log jam

• Specify somewhere in the first sentence that the river splits present-day Minnesota and Wisconsin, as just saying Interstate State Park does not make that explicit to people not familiar with the region

  Added.

• Don't love the use of the phrase "blown up", feels a little informal

  Changed one of them; the other one is close to a quote.

• could deal with and pile up, don't end sentences with prepositions

  Used other words

Clearing the log jam

• It was feared by whom?

  Rephrased.

• Using ropes, land-based steam engines and horses tried to pull out logs from the jam. Awkward sentence construction; while it shows now that the engines and horses were the ones using the ropes, a first read suggests that some unnamed force was using ropes, engines, and horses

  Rephrased, and added a mention of how much rope must have been breaking

Tourist attraction

• Replace the parentheses with a colon introducing the specific example

  Done.

• so were highly welcome events there awkward phrase construction

  Tried to improve

The end of log jams

• Section appears a little threadbare. Current sentence reads as a theoretical; was the Nevers Dam successful? Were there more major log jams after the one in 1886?

  Expanded a tiny bit. It seems the 1886 log jam was the last one.

References

• Good

General comments

• Images are properly licensed and relevant
• No stability concerns in the revision history
• The pull quote has long since gone into the public domain
• I'm conflicted on whether you should use the conversion template on many of these values, and whether the benefit of adding conversions to metric units would be worth the impeded reading flow when such large numbers are involved

  I'm not convinced it would help to convert the board feet to cubic meters. (I am metric born and bred, but I can imagine a foot-wide inch-thick and a couple foot long board, while I don't quite know how to imagine many of those piled up to a cubic meter). I have converted a newly-added 11 miles to kilometres.

Thank you for your patience as I deal with my migraine headaches. Putting on hold for now. Feel free to reach out with questions, and please let me know when you're finished. — GhostRiver 16:50, 28 January 2022 (UTC)

Thank you for the helpful feedback, all good points! I'll get to these either tonight or over the weekend. Sorry to hear about your migraines -- get some rest. Even when I'm done with the edits, no need to reply quickly if you're not feeling well. —Kusma (talk) 17:32, 28 January 2022 (UTC)

@GhostRiver, would you like to take another look? (As I said, no need to hurry). —Kusma (talk) 00:08, 29 January 2022 (UTC)

All of my comments have been sufficiently addressed, passing now. — GhostRiver 16:52, 29 January 2022 (UTC)