| Take Hwy. 35
north to De Soto, WI |
Ferryville and Lynxville, Wisconsin |
Take Hwy 35 south to Prairie du Chien, WI Hwy 35 & 82 west to Lansing, IA |
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The
village of Ferryville was first called Humblebush. The name was given to
the Crawford County village by it's first settlers around 1858. Fifteen years later in Sept. 1873, the
town was nearly destroyed completely by the worst tornado to ever strike this region of Wisconsin. They changed the name
to Ferryville when the
ferry started running from Humblebush to Lansing,
just a short distance upstream on the opposite bank of the river in Iowa, where transfers were made from river packets from
St. Louis to St. Paul. Ferryville was well named, since people went back and forth across
the river to trade, by ferryboats in the summer and by team across the ice in the winter,
until the coming of the railroad. The earliest known white settlers were two men named Sanburn and Stillwell who were horse traders and trainers; they built a race track to train their animals as well as the first house on the site of the future village. William McAuley and his son-in-law Thomas D. Tower laid out the village in 1858. The first railroad, the Burlington and Quincy Railroad, came in 1885. In 1912 the citizens received a charter from the state incorporating the community as a village. In Ferryville, everybody meets on Main Street. Main Street here is Highway 35, which is part of the Great River Road. Except for a couple of side roads, it is the only thoroughfare in the entire village. It is more than one mile long, built on a narrow bench between the high bluffs and the broad river below. A second narrow bench directly below Main Street fronts upon the Mississippi River and carries the Burlington Railroad tracks. A few houses are perched on the hillside but most share the long Main Street frontage with business places.
Lynxville was first known as Haney's Landing, when two brothers, John and James Haney, purchased land from the government. They started a trading post to deal in wood and furs with the Indians and built the first log cabin. In 1857 a group of men hired Pizarro Cook to survey the land and the village was laid out. Mr. Cook settled here in Crawford County and became the County Surveyor. He served in the army during the Civil War, taking part in a number of important events, such as the Siege of Atlanta and Sherman's march to the sea. Lynxville was incorporated in 1889 with a census population of 313. The name Lynxville was taken from the steamboat "Lynx" which brought surveyors to the village. Lynxville had the ideal harbor - the channel of the river made a bend into the land at the point called "The Devil's Elbow" and the water good depth enabling boats, large and small, to come in for supplies and to carry on trade. Lynxville became one of the stopping places for big boats traveling from St. Paul to St. Louis. Visitors can watch barges and other boats at Lock and Dam No. 9. Fishing and clamming have always been big business in Lynxville, and fishing with nets and set lines still goes on today. Clamming boats were to be seen in any number all spring, summer and fall, especially in the Winneshiek above the Devil's Elbow. The clam meat was used to feed hogs, (which was followed by a couple weeks of corn before butchering to kill the fish taste) and for baiting fish lines. The clam shells were shipped out of town or used by button factories. The button factories made all kinds of pearl buttons large and small, there were three factories all operating at one time. Everyone looked for pearls in the clams. The largest one anyone knows of was found in some shells in Harpers Ferry, Iowa, across the river from Lynxville, which brought $6,000 the first time and was later sold for $25,000. It truly must have been a beauty. |
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