The Schroeder Lumber Company Bunkhouse is the last remaining structure of a logging camp in

Schroeder, Minnesota Schroeder is an unincorporated community in Schroeder Township, Cook County, Minnesota, United States. The community is located on the North Shore of Lake Superior. The Cross River flows through the center, or middle of Schroeder. Schroeder ...

, United States, on the North Shore of

Lake Superior Lake Superior in central North America is the largest freshwater lake in the world by surface areaThe Caspian Sea is the largest lake, but is saline, not freshwater. and the third-largest by volume, holding 10% of the world's surface fresh wa ...

. The Schroeder Lumber Company from

Milwaukee, Wisconsin Milwaukee ( ), officially the City of Milwaukee, is both the most populous and most densely populated city in the U.S. state of Wisconsin and the county seat of Milwaukee County, Wisconsin, Milwaukee County. With a population of 577,222 at th ...

, established a camp there in 1895, on the Cross River. The loggers had plenty of

white pine ''Pinus'', the pines, is a genus of approximately 111 extant tree and shrub species. The genus is currently split into two subgenera: subgenus ''Pinus'' (hard pines), and subgenus ''Strobus'' (soft pines). Each of the subgenera have been further ...

balsam fir ''Abies balsamea'' or balsam fir is a North American fir, native to most of eastern and central Canada (Newfoundland west to central Alberta) and the northeastern United States (Minnesota east to Maine, and south in the Appalachian Mountains to ...

, and

spruce A spruce is a tree of the genus ''Picea'' (), a genus of about 35 species of coniferous evergreen trees in the family Pinaceae, found in the northern temperate and boreal (taiga) regions of the Earth. ''Picea'' is the sole genus in the subfami ...

trees to cut. Loggers also

dynamite Dynamite is an explosive made of nitroglycerin, sorbents (such as powdered shells or clay), and Stabilizer (chemistry), stabilizers. It was invented by the Swedish people, Swedish chemist and engineer Alfred Nobel in Geesthacht, Northern Germa ...

d the top of the Cross River waterfall to widen the river and built a series of dams to hold water in reserve. This enabled the loggers to move the logs down the river and into Lake Superior, where they were collected into a "holding boom" that kept the logs from floating away. The camp operated until 1905, when crews left to log the

Apostle Islands The Apostle Islands are a group of 22 islands in Lake Superior, off the Bayfield Peninsula in northern Wisconsin. The majority of the islands are located in Ashland County—only Sand, York, Eagle, and Raspberry Islands are located in Ba ...

. The camp had a reputation for good living conditions, fair wages, and good food. Lumberjacks ate a lot, and if the food wasn't to their liking, they would leave and seek employment with a different company. The sleeping accommodations were spartan, with rows of wooden bunk beds topped with mattresses stuffed with straw, hay, or evergreen boughs, along with pillows stuffed with grain and straw. Author

Cathy Wurzer Cathy Wurzer is an American journalist and author. She and Eric Eskola are the longtime hosts of ''Almanac (American TV series), Almanac'' on Twin Cities Public Television. She also hosts the regional portion of ''Morning Edition'' on Minnesota Pu ...

speculates that the smell in the bunkhouse was rather "ripe", given the smell of wet woolen clothes being hung up to dry and the housing of sweaty workers living in close quarters. For a time, the Schroeder Lumber Company was one of the largest

lumber retailer Lumber is wood that has been processed into dimensional lumber, including beams and planks or boards, a stage in the process of wood production. Lumber is mainly used for construction framing, as well as finishing (floors, wall panels, wi ...

s in the United States. The company owned and operated every step in the lumber supply chain, from cutting down trees to shipping the logs to milling and manufacturing wood products. Its owner, John Schroeder, had logging operations in Lake County and

Cook County Cook County is the most populous county in the U.S. state of Illinois and the second-most-populous county in the United States, after Los Angeles County, California. More than 40% of all residents of Illinois live within Cook County. As of 20 ...

in Minnesota, as well as northern

Wisconsin Wisconsin () is a state in the upper Midwestern United States. Wisconsin is the 25th-largest state by total area and the 20th-most populous. It is bordered by Minnesota to the west, Iowa to the southwest, Illinois to the south, Lake M ...

and the

Upper Peninsula of Michigan The Upper Peninsula of Michigan – also known as Upper Michigan or colloquially the U.P. – is the northern and more elevated of the two major landmasses that make up the U.S. state of Michigan; it is separated from the Lower Peninsula by t ...

. Owner John Schroeder died in 1905, and although his sons ran the firm for several decades afterward, the company went out of business in 1939 and the Milwaukee lumberyard was closed.

References

{{National Register of Historic Places Residential buildings completed in 1900 Buildings and structures in Cook County, Minnesota Logging in the United States Residential buildings on the National Register of Historic Places in Minnesota National Register of Historic Places in Cook County, Minnesota 1900 establishments in Minnesota Log buildings and structures on the National Register of Historic Places in Minnesota Company housing