Flambeau Trail – Two Ways to Go
Iron County Heritage Area
In days of yesteryear, traveling south on the Flambeau Trail, you arrived at Big Turtle Lake (now Echo Lake) and Little Turtle Lake (now called either Grand Portage Lake or Tank Lake) to what is now Mercer. At Echo Lake you had a choice depending on the mission of your travel.
You could continue south, following the ancient Native American and voyageur route making a portage from Echo Lake to Grand Portage Lake across to Mercer Lake and then a four mile portage to the Manitowish River.
You could also continue on the Turtle River. From the late 1800s to the early 1900s loggers used this as a water highway to float pine logs down river past Lake of the Falls, to the booming lumber towns of Park Falls, Chippewa Falls, Eau Claire, and on to the mighty Mississippi River.
From this point a traveler using these water highways had access to the Gulf of Mexico, New Orleans, and the Atlantic Ocean. This water highway became a major transportation link and opened the region to international trade early in its history.
Marker can be reached from County Route FF 4 miles west of U.S. 51.
Courtesy hmdb.org
