“Then Frontenac looms upon our vision, delightful resort of jaded summer tourists; then progressive Red Wing; and Diamond Bluff, impressive and preponderous in its lone sublimity; then Prescott and the St. Croix; and anon we see bursting upon us the domes and steeples of St. Paul, giant young chief of the North, marching with seven-league stride in the van of progress, bannerbearer of the highest and newest civilization…”

– Mark Twain, Life on the Mississippi, 1883

The small city of Prescott, Wisconsin isn’t just a river town, it’s a confluence town. The community sits on the eastern banks of both the St. Croix and Mississippi Rivers, and this position has long made it an important place: a hub for transportation, visited by many travelers, home to river people and industries.

An exhibit this summer at the Prescott Historical Society digs deep into these stories. “Steamboats, Towboats, and River History” opens May 3 and will be open on weekends through the end of August. On a recent morning, several volunteers were working to get everything ready: hanging maps on walls, organizing photos, printing placards. Historical Society president Dallas Eggers stopped what he was doing to give me a tour and tell me about the long history of Prescott and its relationship with the rivers.

Click to enlarge
A few of the many historic photos in slideshows being shown on large digital screens at the Prescott Historical Society. (Courtesy Dallas Eggers/Prescott Historical Society)

The Historical Society’s museum is located in historic buildings on Prescott’s Main Street, barely a barge length from the St. Croix River bank. A lot of people and goods have passed this spot over the centuries. The building was constructed in 1885 as the H.S. Miller Rank and used as the Prescott City Hall from 1944 to 1991. From the financial sector to government operations, today it’s home to the settlement’s stories.

River of work

Eggers, a Prescott native, worked on the river for several years as a young man, crewing towboats working the St. Croix and Upper Mississippi. He did many trips from St. Paul to the Allen S. King power plant on the St. Croix, delivering coal five days a week, before deliveries were switched to the Union Pacific railroad. He was once away for more than two months on voyages around the river network.

His story is one of a long line of river work and river workers in Prescott. Eggers says that in the early 1980s, there were 43 licensed river boat pilots living in the town.

But it was no way to live if Eggers wanted to be a husband and father, so he eventually left the river boats and began a career as a high school teacher. In retirement, he has been researching, documenting, and sharing his hometown’s history and its long connections with the major rivers that meet at its doorstep.

To Eggers, Prescott’s position as a crossroads plainly contributed to its rich history. He says that it was particularly important to the settlement of the St. Croix River Valley. The big paddleboats that came up the Mississippi — starting from St. Louis, Memphis, or even New Orleans — often couldn’t make it up the smaller and shallower St. Croix. They would discharge passengers at Prescott, who would transfer to smaller boats that would carry them the last leg of their journey up the St. Croix.

“In the 1860s and 1870s, there would often be a thousand people staying overnight in town,” Eggers says. There were hotels and other accommodations, but travelers also slept on the street, in stables, and anywhere else they could lay down.

Click to enlarge
A few of the many historic photos in slideshows being shown on large digital screens at the Prescott Historical Society. (Courtesy Dallas Eggers/Prescott Historical Society)

Window to the past

“…I went on to work and finished my house at the mouth of the St. Croix. There was no business then at that point. There was one little boat that done all the business, called the Rock River. This boat run from Galena to the fort once a week and then did not get enough to pay her expenses. I frequently piloted the boat from St. Croix to Fort Snelling. I made a little farm, but there was no market for anything and nothing to be made.”

Philander Prescott (1801-1862) re: 1839, ca. 1860; Recollections of Philander Prescott, 1966

The new exhibit Eggers has helped develop at the Historical Society puts on display unique collections and old stories. Highlights of the exhibit range from the city’s fishing industry to its popular beaches, bridges and ferries to paddlewheelers and log rafts.

One wall is dedicated to a display from the Prescott Spinner Co., a fishing lure business founded in 1893 which once produced a quarter million products per year at its factory down the street, where the popular restaurant Muddy Waters is now located. Another display features a complete set of “steel jewelry,” the heavy rigging materials used to connect tow boats and barges. There are meticulous detailed models of different kinds of river boats made by Reuben Atchinson, and a huge collection of hats for a variety of vessels.

One of the main attractions are a complete set of maps of the lower St. Croix River, stretching from Prescott to Taylors Falls. They are original prints produced in 1932 by cartographer George H. Daritz, showing the river in great detail for boat pilots to navigate its many channels, islands, and sand bars.

In addition to depicting the sinuous boat route zig-zagging across the river bottoms to follow the deep water, the maps show the locations of buoys, springs, tributaries, points of interest, and more.

George H. Daritz maps, 1932. (Courtesy Dallas Eggers/Prescott Historical Society)
Click to enlarge

The maps also show a generally shallower river, with many areas that are now submerged depicted as swamps and sloughs. They document the St. Croix River before the construction of Lock and Dam #3 at Red Wing, which has caused elevated water levels far up the St. Croix since it was built in 1938. Climate change, increased cities and agriculture, the operation of upstream dams, and other forces have also affected the river’s depth and flow.

The maps are a little like looking at a friend’s childhood photos. The whole exhibit offers a window into a rich period of time from when rivers were the main highways to now, when they are beloved and storied parts of many lives.

(Note: Prescott and the confluence area have a long and continuing connection to Native American people, including the Dakota. An important Dakota settlement was once located across the St. Croix at what is now called Point Douglas and the entire region is part of their homeland. The new exhibit focuses on stories since the city of Prescott’s founding in the 1840s as part of the United States of America.)

Learn more

“Steamboats, Towboats, and River History”
Open Saturdays and Sundays
11 a.m. to 3 p.m.
Prescott Historical Society
235 Broad Street
Prescott, WI 54021 (map)

The Prescott Historical Society is also presenting five talks this summer by experts on different aspects of river history. Dallas Eggers will close out the series with an overview of steamboat history on August 8.

Sunday, May 4 @ 1 p.m.
Dr. John Anfinson, historian
“Views on the Upper Mississippi River: The Photographs of Henry Peter Bosse”

Friday, June 6 @ 7 p.m.
Lee Hendrix
“Peep Light: Stories of a Mississippi River Boat Captain”

Friday, July 11 @ 7 p.m.
Robert Taunt
“Recollections of a Steamboat Pilot – George Byron Merrick”

Saturday, July 12 @ 11 a.m.
Kelly Johsnon and Jean Halverson
“Grandma and Grandpa’s Great Loop Adventure”

Friday, August 8 @ 7 p.m.
Dallas Eggers
“Steamboats Comin’, A History of Steamboats”