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BRAINERD – On a recent sunny summer day, children and their parents playing at Brainerd’s popular Kiwanis Park seemed to be unaware of the area’s historical significance.
The East River Road Park area between the mighty Mississippi and Boom Lake was once home to a brewery and recreational ski jump. The natural channel of the Mississippi River gets its name from the way loggers collect driftwood into log booms.
The JJ Howe Lumber Company, in particular, played a key role in shaping Boom Lake and the surrounding area. On the lake south of the park, however, there is little evidence of the trade.
“By the late 1880s, JJ Howe & Co. was the most important business in Brainerd, second only to the Northern Pacific Railroad shops,” said local historian Anne M. Nelson said.
Nelson is the author of an article for the Crow Wing County Historical Society titled “From Rice Lake to Boom Lake on the Mississippi” and provides context for Howe’s place in history.
The mill is able to cut 2.5 million feet of lumber, two rotary saws, a shingle and lath saw and a separate shingle mill from logs hauled from the river, Nelson said.
According to local historian Carl Faust, it was called Boom Lake because loggers used to haul logs to the lake, but many of the large mill buildings around the lake are gone. A log boom is a buoy used to hold floating logs.
The JJ Howe Lumber Company mill had a 250-horsepower engine and a 150-horsepower engine to power the planer.
Steve Kohls/Brainerd Dispatch file photo
“A dynamo supplied power to the electric light factory so that night power could be used anywhere in the mills, yard or boom,” Nelson wrote, employing about 150 men throughout the year.
The company produced 15 million to 25 million board feet of lumber annually, which was piled in the yard and loaded by rail. But with so much firewood, a terrible accident occurs, threatening both property and people.
In the year On December 31, 1892, at 9 a.m., a fire broke out in a dry kiln. Almost before the alarm gave the warning, the fire went through the dry wooden beams, it was impossible to save the building, according to Nelson.
“The planing mill, about 15 feet from the furnace, was saved only with great difficulty,” Nelson wrote.
Working 10 hours a day, the capacity of the sawmill was 90,000 feet of lumber, 150,000 shingles, and 30,000 cents, so the wood and wood to feed the fire was enormous.
“The fire, fanned by the wind, sometimes seemed to roll over the mill, but the firemen, holding a large sliding door between themselves and the fire to protect themselves from the intense heat, continued to spray the stream. At the end of the mill he made the water well drinkable, while the other workers on the roof played with the stream on the top of the building,” Nelson wrote.
The stove and the connected wood furnace were destroyed by fire in 1892, according to historical records, and when the fire broke out, the furnace burned 100,000 – and more than 250,000 – logs of wood. The dryer cost more than $6,000, bringing the total loss to more than $18,000.
“There was $4,500 in insurance on the stove, and only $500 on the wood, making the company’s net loss very heavy,” Nelson wrote of the 1892 fire.
Fires occurred two more times, one in 2011. On August 28, 1896, and another on March 5, 1899, when the property was owned by Father Barton of Minneapolis, and the buildings were boarded up.
Nelson “The dry shed containing 40,000 feet of finish lumber, office building, warehouse and blacksmith shop was completely consumed,” he said of an 1896 fire of unknown cause. “The strong wind was blowing from the south and it didn’t take long to engulf the buildings in flames until it was impossible to get the contents out.”
The old sawmill was destroyed by an unknown fire in 1899. The mill had been out of business for at least five years, but it contained all the expensive machinery used to make a large sawmill, and it all went down in flames, Nelson said.
“The building was an old dilapidated thing and of very little value, but the mill machinery, including the mammoth engine and boilers, was a costly and total loss,” Nelson wrote.
The contents of the mill were valued at over $30,000 and at the time of the fire were estimated at $20,000. But then AB Barton of Minneapolis didn’t have property insurance.
Historical markers now located at Kiwanis Park provide information about the Boom Lake Spur line, including the downtown railroad laid in 1871 by JJ Howe’s sawmill between Boom Lake and the Mississippi River.
“The mill produced five or six railcars of lumber, shingles and lattice every day in its heyday. It was long and gradual to accommodate the 55-foot drop in elevation from Brainard to the lakefront flats,” the guide explained.
The track ended near the one-time brewery, and the speedway today is part of the park’s walking trail, which is enjoyed by walkers, runners, cyclists and outdoor enthusiasts.
Frank Lee at 218-855-5863 or at
frank.lee@brainerddispatch.com
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