The Rock River Runs Though Us
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CIhe Vs Waupun Mayville Horicon Hustisford Upper and Lower Rock River Basins WASHINGTON CO. Map showing the Rock River as ir winds through the Upper and Lower Rock River Basins, from Waupun to Beloit, Wisconsin (DNR image) Cover: Horicon Marsh Main Ditch, South ofO ne Mile Island, October 1991. - The Rock River Runs Through Us - Introduction Introduction We all grow up some place. We come of age some place. And we live our lives, raise our children and finish our own story some place. In thls book, we have attempted to document our "sense of place" explorations at the headwaters of the Rock River including the four communities as they touch and relate to the River and the Horicon Marsh. The goal is to share our experiences to motivate all of us to take action to protect our special place. This book represents the efforts of volunteers from Waupun, Mayville, Horicon and Hustisford. Our Marsh Commu nities project, involving Waupun, Hustisford, Horicon and Mayville, was modeled on the first area Sense of Place Project in Mayville, in 2003. Then, beginning in 2005, Waupun, Horicon and Hustiford each hosted their own Sense of Place events. Our purpose, to examine and record in one place, aspects of the cultural histories and environmental realities of the Horicon Marsh communities and relate them to the overall flow of the Rock River and the Horicon Marsh, was a daunting task. Some activities were successful and others floundered. Some were never in the original plan at all! So... welcome to our place among the cattails and ponds, the panoply of nature, and the lessons dearly learned at the beginnings of one of America's historic rivers. ~ NATIONAL WILDLIFE WISCONSIN REFUGE DEPT. OF NATURAL RESOURCES SYSTEM Ho1ioon Ate• roundcalion FRIENDS The NATIONAL BANK of Waupun -~HORICON NATIONAL HORICON BANK WJLDLIPE :REFUGE 3 Table of Contents Pg3 .. .. ............... INTRO DUCTION Pg 4 ................... TABLE OF CONTENTS Pg 6 .. ............................ The Power of Place by Molly Stoddard Pg9 ............ .. ..... OUR STORIES Pg I 0 ............................ Yesterday's Story Pg 13 ................. WAUPUN Pg 14 ............................ Then and ow Pg 15 ............................ It Feels Like Mc - Song by Waupun Sense of Place Students & Ken Lonquist Pg 16 ............................ Musings about the Horicon Marsh by Joann Goodlaxson Pg 18 ............................ Living on the Edge of History by Joann Goodlaxson Pg 20 ............................ What's Happening to Our Marsh by Joann Goodlaxson Pg23 ................. MAYVILLE Pg 24 ............................ Then and Now Pg 25 ................. .. ......... Now and Then - Song by Mayville Sense of Place Students Pg 26 ............................ Growing Up on the River by Loyal Villwock Pg 27 ................. ........... One of Many of God's Blessings by Harlan Binder Pg 28 ................. ........... A Footbridge on the River by Jane Murray Pg 29 ............................ A Place of Bounty and Blazes by Franny Pieper Pg 29 ............................ The Fury of U1c River by Sally Kahlhamer Pg3 1 ................. HORICON Pg 32 ............................ Then and Now Pg 33 ............................ The Colors of the River - Song by Mayville Sense of Place students Pg 34 ............................ Horicon Story Teller"s Workshop Pg41 ............................ Diana Shooting Club by Don Miescke Pg 43 ............................ Tales of Trapping by Don Miescke Pg44 ............................ Water - The Life Blood ofU1c Land by Bill Volkert Waupun Area School District 5th Graders with teache1; Dave Imhoff in DNR Voyager canoe. Waup un Mill Pond by Shaler Memorial Park, 2004 4 - The Rock River Runs Through Us - Pg 47 ................. HUSTISFORD Pg 48 ............................ Then and Now Pg 49 ............................ Tales of Us - Song by Mayville Sense of Place students Pg 50 ........ .. ........ .. ........ Hustisford Story Teller's Workshop Pg 55 ............................ Short Stories by Herb Neuenschwander Pg 57 .. ....... .. ..... .. .. ...... .. Rock River Refl ections by Mel Grulke Pg61 ... .............. TOMORROW'S STORI ES Pg 62 ............................ Kids Can Lead the Way by Dave lmhotf Pg 63 ................... ......... Children of the River - Song by Mayville Sense of Place students Pg 63 ............................ Drip Drop by Thomas Lechner, Waupun Middle School Pg 63 ................. ........... The Rock River - Season to Season by Tiffany Wiedmeyer Pg 64 ... ..... .. ....... .. .. ..... .. My Sense of Place by Jarid Pfalzgraf, Waupun High School Pg 65 .. .. ......... ............... The Horicon Marsh Poems by Caleb Hagy, Carissa Kriehn, Brittany Buchholz, & Zach Churchill Pg 65 ............................ Rock River Seasons by Renee Lechner, Waupun Elementary School Pg67 ................. OUR FUTURE Pg 68 .................... ........ The Rock River Runs Through Us by Ruth Johnson & Laura Reynolds Pg 69 .......... ... ..... .. ........ The Same Mistake - Song by Mayville Sense of Place students Pg 70 ................... ......... What You Can Do Pg 72 .... .. .... ... .... .. ...... ... Lists of Organizations Pg 74 ........................ .... Acknowledgements Pg 75 ............................ Photograph Credits Pg 76 ............................ Editorial Committee Pg 78 . ............... fNDEX Husti~ford 's Old Wooden Dam. Downtown Hustisford in the background, boathouses on riverbank, 1932 5 The <.RJuer of Place By Molly Stoddard Range1; U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service We become connected to places where we deeply experience 1.ife, places where our senses take hold, our fee lings stake a cla im, and where our humanity is sustained. We need a place from which to tell our stories. Whether you believe it or not, each of us does have unique and mteresting stories to tell abo ut our place. Each of us is a voice for our place. Do you remember the fi rst time you stepped into Horicon Marsh? I do. I was alone. I stood next to my car before contmui ng on, stunned by two simp le things: the qui et and the vastness of this wetland. I have traveled in Germany's Black Forest, Iceland's lava fi elds, Costa Rica's rain forests, Australia's outback, Canada's Quetico, as well as our desert southwest, redwood forests, ocean beaches, coastal wetlands, prairie potholes, Great Lakes, and southern swamps. As far as I can tell, there is no place on Earth that looks, feels, smells, sounds, and yes, even tastes like Horicon Marsh. I remember th e first time 1 came back to work after a three month maternity leave. A bit ambivalent, at a crossroads of smis, I might have stayed home, but I needed the job. I drove across the marsh on Highway 49 at about 7:00 am through what seemed to be a tunnel, a continuous and dizzymg kaleidoscope of birds in flight all around me, seemingly synchronized to beautifu l music playing in my car. A grand congratulations and welcome back. A reminder that I also need the wildlife and spiritual connection my job at the marsh helped to provide. I' ll never fo rget helping with the winter carp treatment out on the ice ... the smell of a prescribed fire and the billowing black smoke of burning cattails ... helpmg with the waterfow l surveys fr om the air boat ... band mg mallards at the crack of dawn ... discovering the long-hidden location of our third bald eagle nest. .. Our hope is to rekindl e a sense of place by re-examin ing the envi ronment and human history of the headwaters of the Rock River. We hope that it will inspire you to tell your own story, so that future generations might care enough about the Rock River to protect it from harm and improve its ecology. l believe we all want to live in a place th at is safe, clean, beautifu l, and interesting. The reality is, though, only by taking action will we guarantee the health of our river, marsh, and communities. Another reason for fostering a sense of place is that our Rock R.iver is shared by many others down river, to the Mississippi and then the Gulf of Mexico. There is a dead zone in the Gulf of Mexico where the Mississippi River flows into it. There's no oxygen and nothing living in the water in this dead zone because of pollution coming down river. Some of that pollution comes from the Rock River, and some of that comes from us, here. The main reason you should care then is that, fo r better or for worse, what we do to the land and the river makes a difference to the people and animals living down river from us, whether it be as close as Horicon Marsh and the wi ldlife refuge or as far away as the Gulf of Mexico. We are all connected. We are al l collectively responsible. We are all a fami ly under one sky. /, ~ - The Marsh King. drawing by Anne Karsten, Waupun 6 - The Rock River Runs Through Us - lnt1;oduction Drive aloug Rock R iv<>r. :Jfayville, Wis. Looking North along Mayville's River Road, Present day State Road 67, c. 1900 Mill Pond, Waupun, 2007 7 Canada geese take flight Farmland at the east edge ofthe Horicon Marsh, 2004 Trappers skinning and stretching muskrat pelts, early 1900s 8 ~ The Rock River Runs Through Us ~ Our Stories Our Stories Canoeing the Rock River USFWS Ranger Molly Stoddard with school group on Horicon Marsh. 9 Yesterday's Story By Don Miescke Project Historian Jim Laird President, Waupun Historical Society Laura Reynolds Project Manager The area presently known as the Horicon Marsh sits The Rock River/Horicon Marsh/Lake Sinissippi astride the headwaters of the Rock River, which stretches system has formed a backdrop and the spirit for Life along from its source in southeastern Wisconsin to its entry into its path. Waupun was built by European immigrants who the Mississippi River at Moline, Illinois. Previously called found the area along the Rock's west branch to resemble the Winnebago Marsh, the upper Rock River is located in the rivers and marshes of their homes in northern Europe. the center of the Green Bay lobe of the last glacial period They farmed wheat, potatoes, onions and marsh hay, and on the eastern edge of the Mississippi River watershed established mills and orchards, and built fine stone barns area.