Echos of theRock - History
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Tarps in the Trees |
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By Lynn Retzlaff - DOTR eNeighborhood Editor
If you have traveled Wisconsin Highway 26 between Fort Atkinson and Milton during the fall of 2009, your curiosity might have been piqued by noticeable activity on the east side of the highway near Pond Road. A dozen or so people could be seen wearing reflective vests, carrying tools and setting up tarps. Vehicles were often lined up on the side of the road and workers seen crossing the highway. Let me offer you a sneak peek at what’s going on.
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ontheRock - the River Speaks |
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A River's Life, A River's Legacy
reprinted from ontheRock magazine ~ the DOTR founding publication
I am a frequent visitor to the Rock River. I slip in quietly and let my canoe take me past communities of cliff swallows, through gaggles of fuzzy new geese, around ancient oak stumps on which a turtle dawdles. I wonder at how much life this river sustains, at the power it holds, at it's ability to endure though each of us, human and beast, draws from it continually. Sometimes, I close my eyes and imagine the river dammed only by beaver, its' banks rich with prairie forbs and tall grasses, and dotted with Native American
mounds.
It is so quiet. But it is difficult, today, to maintain my vision as the exigencies of life press in; the river, too, struggles as we crowd it with more vigor and intensity than did our predecessors, though they, too, sought the river's sustaining strength. These ancient waters that support our lives today hold the tales, tragedies, and triumphs of those who came before us. I go to the river to listen, and this is what I hear.
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Janesville, City on the Rock |
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by Michael J. Goc - hosted on Wisconsin Public Television www. Michael J. Goc is the author/editor of more Janesville owes its existence to its location at a waterpower site in the midst of one of the richest agricultural regions in North America. The nine-foot fall of the Rock River through the city gave Janesville's founders the power to run the mills that established an industrial and commercial base for the community. One pioneer described the Rock Prairie without “the mark of the plow” in 1836 as “the paradise of the West.” Just as important as the water in the Rock River was the wealth of the farmland on its banks. On the northern edge of the great Midwestern tall grass prairie, Rock County has been one of Wisconsin's leading agricultural producers since settlement. One pioneer described the Rock Prairie without “the mark of the plow” in 1836 as “the paradise of the West.” So attractive was its soil that between 1840 and 1850, county population grew from about 1,700 to nearly 21,000. It was not exactly the California gold rush, but similar in that newcomers flocked to the county to exploit the natural wealth of its soil. A good share of the prairie's original wealth was transferred to Janesville in return for the services its people supplied to the farmers. First, they milled, bought, sold and shipped prairie wheat. They imported and sold manufactured goods to the farmers and provided credit, legal, educational, entertainment, cultural and information services. Janesville the industrial city was also Janesville the farm service city and the first service delivered was at the grain mills on the Rock. It is no accident that the first Wisconsin state fair was held in Janesville in 1851. It was the ideal place to exhibit the agricultural prowess and promise of the state, much of which came from Rock County.
CLICK HERE to read the rest of the story! |
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The Song of Restoring Tractors |
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by Robert Rivers - Janesville
Remaking tractors, we are made ourselves.
The centuries’ past work
of land, thought, and metal
through the hands of the gifted mechanic
is nutted and bolted
with the weaving of our souls.
That the voice of past harvest not dim,
but that the life and humanity
of the ancestral farmer continue
through steel, recollection, and spirit. |
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Hedberg Library Digital History Collection |
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 Janesville, located in southern Wisconsin near the Illinois border, was settled in 1835, making it one of the earliest communities in the state. In 2005, it was Wisconsin's 11th largest city and one of the fastest growing in the 1990s. Its 2000 population was 60,200. Thirty-nine percent of the total Rock County population lives in Janesville. The photographs digitized on this Web site present views of Janesville from its earliest days in the 1840s to the 1980's.
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Get any news? Email DiscoverontheRock eNeighborhood any and all cool stuff you want to share! We are an eMagazine (eZine) of all folks in the Rock River Basin and we want to tell your story! Send us news, announcements, events, rambling, opinion .... anything! Send pictures too! email to: info@discoverontherock.com away! We can't wait to hear from you.
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