Flambeau Trail – Manitowish
Iron County Heritage Area
Main streets developed at the cross roads of resources, transportation, and people. The town of Manitowish grew up on timber and the railroad.
By the turn of the century, the “inexhaustible” stands of white pine had been cut from northern Wisconsin and floated to sawmills down waterways like the Manitowish River.
Lumberman William Henry Roddis was one of the first to recognize the value of the area’s untouched virgin stands of hardwood timber. But hardwood timber, unlike pine, did not float. It could not be “driven” downriver to mills.
Roddis pioneered the use of railroads to transport logs rather than rivers. By 1903, his “Roddis Line” logging railroad was a growing network of mainline track and spur routes that connected logging camps deep in the forest to lumber mills.
Roddis established a logging mill here that operated through the mid-1930’s and established Manitowish as a shipping point for timber.
Marker is at the intersection of Manitowish Road and U.S. 51, on the right when traveling north on Manitowish Road.
Courtesy hmdb.org
