National Register Listing

Copper Falls State Park

WI 169, 1.8 mi. NE of Mellen, Morse, WI

The period of significance, 1929-1953, for Copper Falls State Park begins with the year the state acquired land for the park, officially opening up the area for recreation and protecting the land from future development. In 1936, the State purchased additional land bringing the total to 1,160 acres prior to the assignment of a CCC camp. 1953 is the last year of development on the original 1,160-acre parcel of land being nominated to the National Register. The park is nominated at the local level for its fine Rustic style architecture and in the areas of Conservation and Entertainment/Recreation. The acreage of the 29 original quarter sections in 1935 is the nominated parcel.

Historical Background

Pioneer Settlement of Mellen and Copper Falls Pioneers gradually populated the nearby community of Mellen in 1886, after the Wisconsin Central Railroad connected the route between Milwaukee and Ashland. The railroad provided an opportunity to transport equipment and horses to harvest the abundance of pine timber surrounding Mellen.

To reach vast amounts of valuable timber located in difficult terrain, portable sawmills emerged to cut timber at the logging site. Lumberman in the Mellen area moved logs only short distances to a sawmill by using portions of the Bad and Tyler Forks rivers, and Krause, Scott-Taylor, and Devil's creeks. The deep ravines and jagged cliffs surrounding Copper Falls hindered the removal of timber by a team of horses. It was not until the arrival of the railroad in 1886 that timber could be efficiently removed from the woods and transported to market.

During the late 1800s and early 1900s, the town of Mellen heavily relied upon its timber supply to support its economy. Lumber companies, sawmills, shingle mills, as well as veneer and flooring companies, a woodenware factory, and a tannery became primary sources of employment. In 1897, the Fayette-Saw Tannery ran two shifts of workers and claimed they had a daily capacity of 1,400 hides, making it one of the largest tanneries in the country. In 1898, the FosterLatimer Lumber Company employed 485 men, with 350 in the woods cutting timber. By 1902, the population of Mellen grew to 1,875 people, with a corresponding lack of suitable housing for its population. As a result, 60 percent of Mellen residents lived in rented or company-owned homes, lumber camps, or boarding houses. According to a 1920 census, the town of Mellen sustained a population of 1,986 people.

All of Ashland County became known as "the cutover" during the early part of the last century when every pine and hardwood had been clear-cut during the logging boom. Excessive logging stripped Ashland County of all timber between 1886 and 1920.

Advertisements in European newspapers enticed immigrants to purchase inexpensive farmland in the cutover. However, soil that once supported an assortment of conifers had very acidic soil consistency where crops refused to grow without heavy doses of lime. Abandoned farms and cabins became a common sight in the 1920s and 1930s when farmers could not support themselves. Vacant stump prairies quickly became vulnerable to wind and soil erosion, and forest fires, or became overgrown with unsightly brush.

Land History Of Copper Falls

A landscape of mountains, lakes, creeks, and rivers naturally and distinctly separated Copper Falls from the forest and farmland surrounding it. Iron ore and copper miners along with realtors became the first landowners of Copper Falls and Brownstone Falls. By the early 1860s, exploratory copper mining was taking place in the Bad River Canyon between Copper Falls and Brownstone Falls. At the turn of the twentieth century, Wells M. Ruggles ran a mining crew within what is now the boundaries of the park.

Investors and developers of hydroelectric power also became interested in this land. Due to 100-foot canyon walls, deep ravines, and lack of adequate roads, the land where the Bad and Tyler Forks rivers meet remained relatively untouched by the timber barons. During the early 1900s, numerous attempts had been made to reach the waterfalls from every direction where people were forced to walk at least a mile on foot. As a result, both waterfall areas remained thickly wooded with first-growth pines and hardwoods that died of natural causes.

Some of the earliest recorded land histories came from the Mellen Weekly-Record on February 21, 1907:

"When Mellenites learned Copper Falls was sold to a group of St. Louis capitalists by its former owners, the Ashland County Land Company, of which Wells Ruggles was a major stockholder. No one knew for sure what the people from St. Louis planned to do with their newly acquired 130 acres, but the rumors and the hopes were that the new concern planned to develop the falls into a power water system.”

Local significance of the site:
Listed in National Register of Historic Places in 2005.