THE REPUBLICAN

January 15, 1886

 

ICE GORGE.

 

It Chokes Up The River and Stops Baldwin and Bailey’s Mill.

 

            A glance out of the office window on Saturday revealed the fact that the Waupaca River, always wont to float serenely in its swift and sure channel, was apparently rising but nothing was thought of the matter until Monday the REPUBLICAN scribe was told that the water was still rising and freezing as it rose; and later it was learned that there was three feet of water in the basement of Messrs. Baldwin and Bailey’s Roller Flouring Mills. We saw Mr. Baldwin and he said the trouble commenced upon them last Friday; while they were running all at one the elevator cups brought up water, so that business since that time has been practically at a stand-still except exchange, as they fortunately had a good supply of flour on hand and they have been running on feed by delivering it on the floor of the mill above the basement instead of using he elevator.  Once or twice it was thought the water was receding, but up to this writing (Thursday) it is about as bad as ever.  On Wednesday a charge of dynamite was placed down in the anchor ice by Alf. Poll just below the mill bridge but it only loosened a small space owing to the soft condition of the slush.

            “Since the Waupaca Star Mills were first built over twenty-five years ago,” said Winthrop Lord, “I never saw the like of it.”

HOW IT HAPPENED.

            The river usually freezes over in December and the ice holds the snow and when the channel opens it opens gradually letting off all the surplus.  But this year the whole river opened the first of January and was as clear as in April.  Then there came that rain, hail and snow storm, and together with the anchor ice that forms at the rapids above the mill came down filling the channel below the mill, which was caught in the cold snap of Sunday, Monday and Tuesday and it all congealed together and was “hung up” in the stream, from the mill beyond the foot bridge near Rosche’s foundry.  It has so arrested the flow of the river as to form back-water, and for the first time in the history of Waupaca the flats where stands Jens Hansen’s stable and wagon and cutter storehouse are all submerged.  Mr. Baldwin consoles himself by saying that it is not so bad as it has been in some places where the mills and houses are all swept away by flood, for said he:  “Our mill is built on solid rock and this state of things can’t last always.”

            Although Mr. B. looks on the bright side, it is quite a loss to this firm as now is just the commencement of the millers’ harvest in shipping flour and feed up the line.

            The signal service predicts a thaw.  We hope it will come – enough to let out the obstructions in the river, for Baldwin & Bailey’s sake anyway.

LATER.

            A crew of men are busy cutting a channel through the ice from the pond near Roberts & Oborn’s mill up the stream to the mill of Messrs. Baldwin & Bailey.  If the weather don’t open  the stream within the next twenty-four hours these men will.  The ice is just 19 inches thick besides the slush-ice in the river at the different points.