unincorporated community
An unincorporated area is a parcel of land that is not governed by a local general-purpose municipal corporation. (At p. 178.) They may be governed or serviced by an encompassing unit (such as a county) or another branch of the state (such as th ...
located in the town of
Lake
A lake is often a naturally occurring, relatively large and fixed body of water on or near the Earth's surface. It is localized in a basin or interconnected basins surrounded by dry land. Lakes lie completely on land and are separate from ...
,
Price County, Wisconsin
Price County is a county in the U.S. state of Wisconsin. As of the 2020 census, the population was 14,054. Its county seat is Phillips.
History
Price County was created on March 3, 1879, when Wisconsin Governor William E. Smith signed legi ...
sawmill
A sawmill (saw mill, saw-mill) or lumber mill is a facility where logging, logs are cut into lumber. Modern sawmills use a motorized saw to cut logs lengthwise to make long pieces, and crosswise to length depending on standard or custom sizes ...
community during the logging boom, Kennedy is now a
ghost town
A ghost town, deserted city, extinct town, or abandoned city is an abandoned settlement, usually one that contains substantial visible remaining buildings and infrastructure such as roads. A town often becomes a ghost town because the economi ...
.
History
The village of Kennedy was
plat
In the United States, a plat ( or ) (plan) is a cadastral map, drawn to scale, showing the divisions of a piece of land. United States General Land Office surveyors drafted township plats of Public Lands Survey System, Public Lands Surveys to ...
ted in 1908, in an area near the
Price
A price is the (usually not negative) quantity of payment or compensation expected, required, or given by one party to another in return for goods or services. In some situations, especially when the product is a service rather than a ph ...
-
Sawyer
*A sawyer (occupation) is someone who saws wood.
Places in the United States
Communities
* Sawyer, Kansas
* Sawyer, Kentucky
* Sawyer, Michigan
* Sawyer, Minnesota
* Sawyer, Nebraska
* Sawyer, New York
* Sawyer, North Dakota
* Sawyer, Oklahoma
...
County border, adjacent to the Omaha Railway tracks. It may have been named after Pat Kennedy, a Fifield pioneer who kept a
tavern
A tavern is a type of business where people gather to drink alcoholic beverages and be served food such as different types of roast meats and cheese, and (mostly historically) where travelers would receive lodging. An inn is a tavern that ...
in the new village.
The land where Kennedy was located was originally owned by
Cornell University
Cornell University is a Private university, private Ivy League research university based in Ithaca, New York, United States. The university was co-founded by American philanthropist Ezra Cornell and historian and educator Andrew Dickson W ...
, who had been given the property through a university land grant. Cornell sold the property to the Sage Land Company, which owned much property in nearby
Park Falls
Park Falls is a city in Price County, Wisconsin, United States. The population was 2,410 at the 2020 United States census, 2020 census, down from 2,462 at 2010 United States census, 2010. Located in the woods of north central Wisconsin, primarily ...
. The Sage Company later sold the land to Williard Walther of the Dells Lumber and Pulp Company, for $600. The Dells Lumber and Puld Company was involved in
paper making
Papermaking is the manufacture of paper and cardboard, which are used widely for printing, writing, and packaging, among many other purposes. Today almost all paper is made using industrial machinery, while handmade paper survives as a special ...
and was based in
Eau Claire Eau Claire (French for "clear water", ''pl.'' ''eaux claires'') is the name of a number of locations and features in North America. The name is pronounced as if it were spelled "O'Clare".
Place names (Canada)
Communities
*Eau Claire, Calgary, a n ...
. The company built a headquarters and office west of Kennedy. Spur lines were built from Kennedy to seven logging camps to the north, near the Ashland County border. In 1908, Willard Walther developed the
plat
In the United States, a plat ( or ) (plan) is a cadastral map, drawn to scale, showing the divisions of a piece of land. United States General Land Office surveyors drafted township plats of Public Lands Survey System, Public Lands Surveys to ...
for the new community.
The village grew as the logging operations drew more workers, and the cut-over land was settled. A log schoolhouse was the first building built, located on the west side of the settlement.
Tavern
A tavern is a type of business where people gather to drink alcoholic beverages and be served food such as different types of roast meats and cheese, and (mostly historically) where travelers would receive lodging. An inn is a tavern that ...
s, a
boarding house
A boarding house is a house (frequently a family home) in which lodging, lodgers renting, rent one or more rooms on a nightly basis and sometimes for extended periods of weeks, months, or years. The common parts of the house are maintained, and ...
,
general store
A general merchant store (also known as general merchandise store, general dealer, village shop, or country store) is a rural or small-town store that carries a general line of merchandise. It carries a broad selection of merchandise, someti ...
, and a
train station
A train station, railroad station, or railway station is a railway facility where trains stop to load or unload passengers, freight, or both. It generally consists of at least one platform, one track, and a station building providing suc ...
also soon appeared. A frame schoolhouse and
post office
A post office is a public facility and a retailer that provides mail services, such as accepting letter (message), letters and parcel (package), parcels, providing post office boxes, and selling postage stamps, packaging, and stationery. Post o ...
were built in 1911. In time, Kennedy had some basic businesses, including a hotel.
Kennedy was the
terminus
Terminus may refer to:
Ancient Rome
*Terminus (god), a Roman deity who protected boundary markers
Transport
*Terminal train station or terminus, a railway station serving as an end destination
*Bus terminus, a bus station serving as an end des ...
of the Omaha Railway Line for two years, and settlers boarded the train there to reach Rice Lake. In 1916, a road was built that stretched east to
Kaiser
Kaiser ( ; ) is the title historically used by German and Austrian emperors. In German, the title in principle applies to rulers anywhere in the world above the rank of king (). In English, the word ''kaiser'' is mainly applied to the emperors ...
, another sawmill town. About twenty-five families lived in Kennedy during the 1920s, and thirty students attended the school.
In the mid-1920s, the Dells Company moved its headquarters 2.5 miles farther away from Kennedy, to a community named Delco. Delco was located in a clearing in the woods. A post office was established there for the mill workers, loggers and trainmen who ate and slept at the boarding house there. Delco had an office, a warehouse, a
blacksmith
A blacksmith is a metalsmith who creates objects primarily from wrought iron or steel, but sometimes from #Other metals, other metals, by forging the metal, using tools to hammer, bend, and cut (cf. tinsmith). Blacksmiths produce objects such ...
shop, and a horse barn. It existed only to handle wood, and the post office was only open between 1927 and 1929.
The Dells Company continued logging until 1933. Virtually all other logging activities in Kennedy came to a halt in 1935.
Edith Bricco, Laura Perry, and Edith Rozell followed Stanley Berg as
postmaster
A postmaster is the head of an individual post office, responsible for all postal activities in a specific post office. When a postmaster is responsible for an entire mail distribution organization (usually sponsored by a national government), ...
s until 1938, when the post office was discontinued. The school was closed in 1939 and the village of Kennedy was all but abandoned. All but four of the buildings in the village were taken down, burned, or decayed until they collapsed. The railroad tracks were removed in 1964.