Beaut y beyond t he highway
STORY & PHOTOS BY Terri White
Since my family is spread across the USA, we turn our visits into vacations. This month, we drove to Eau Claire, Wisconsin, to visit my brother and sister-in-law. Interstate-35 stretches from South Texas all the way to Duluth, Minnesota, featuring fields of corn and soy as far as the eye can see. In central Oklahoma, steep hills studded with juniper and cedar trees lined the highway. Although Kansas is known for sunflowers, we never saw one. But we did travel through the treeless Flint Hills. Not a fan. I felt naked.
Rolling, lush hills and woods lined with not-yet-harvested corn fields beckoned us in Iowa. If we had traveled straight up to Duluth, Minnesota, forests, lakes, and rivers would dot the land. But instead, we turned east from the flat farmland of southern Minnesota to cross the mighty Mississippi into Wisconsin.
We feasted on the towering trees; steep, verdant, rolling hills; corn fields; scenic barns; and rivers. Every time I visit, I never tire of gazing at the pine trees. None in Texas matches their beauty— even in East Texas. I’ m ambivalent about the windmills peppered throughout the fields in each state. Regardless, the Midwest proves picturesque. If you’ ve never
18 Community Life been, put it on your bucket list. I’ ve spent 49 years traveling up and down I-35, and the scenery never gets old.
My brother and his wife enjoy a quiet life. I hoped to jazz up their week. Ha! But before I regale you with that excitement, here’ s a bit of Eau Claire history.
Eau Claire is located at the confluence of the Eau Claire and Chippewa Rivers in Eau Claire County. Once teeming with bison and other game, the Sioux and Ojibwe hotly contested the land for generations.
White pine trees dominated the area. Since they float on the water, the lumber industry exploded when European settlers arrived. By the early 1850s, about 100 people called Eau Claire home, most working at the local sawmill. Large numbers of German and Norwegian immigrants arrived in the 1860s.
After the Civil War, Eau Claire earned the nickname“ Sawdust City” for its numerous sawmills. By 1890, more than 75 sawmills and factories were producing everything from furniture to electric motors. With money flowing, the lumber barons built large homes along the river that still exist today. In the 1960s, my parents purchased one of those homes, and our family shares happy memories there. When the lumber industry collapsed at the turn of the 20th century, education and tires fueled the local economy. In 1916, a teachers’ college opened its doors, the predecessor of the University of Wisconsin-Eau Claire, where I attended and graduated in 1972. The city is also home to two other colleges, Chippewa Valley Technical College and Immanuel Lutheran College.
Raymond Gillette opened a rubber company in 1917 that produced automobile tires. From 1917-92, the tire plant, bought by U. S. Rubber in 1931 and renamed Uniroyal,