Eau Claire, in the years from its founding as three separate hamlets in the 1840s to the early twentieth century, was a community that faced many difficulties and tensions. Fortunately, the white pine of the Chippewa River Valley provided the new City of Eau Claire (1872) with an economic rationale that sustained it for almost forty years. Author Brian L. Blakeley explores the social and economic development of Eau Claire through the rise and fall of the lumber era. Class & ethnic divisions between Yankee (those from New England and New York) and recent immigrants from Canada, Ireland, Scandinavia, and Germany were made were more difficult by religious, national, and ward rivalries. By 1900, Eau Claire leadership realized it needed to move beyond lumbering and reinvent itself into a modern, “progressive,” industrial center.
Author: Brian L. Blakeley
Publisher: Chippewa Valley Museum Press
Year: 2017
Pages: 301
