Holt & Balcom Logging Camp Museum

History of Holt & Balcom Logging Camp No. 1

On the banks of the McCauslin Brook, near Lakewood, Wisconsin, surrounded by a beautiful golf course and country club, the Holt & Balcom Logging Camp Museum stands today as a memorial to the White Pine logging era of Wisconsin. As we open the doors to the log cabin, we find the cook shack table set with blue porcelain tableware and furnishings of the period. The camp is in readiness for the loggers to return at dusk from the forest. After a hearty meal, they will retire to the adjoining bunkhouse where they will once again hear the call, “Roll Out, It’s Daylight in the Swamp” well before dawn the next morning.
 
The life of the logger was one of hard and demanding labor. He burned many calories and the thought of food was never far from his mind. Good food was one of his few simple pleasures and a good cook was the secret to keeping the loggers contented and on the job.
 
Most of the big white pines were cut between 1840 and 1890. This was the time of the building of cities in the Midwest. It was the time of stretching railroads across the continent. It was a time of need for great quantities of timber for the building of young America. Wisconsin had the resources that the young country needed and the young men from the cities and the farms of Wisconsin were the loggers of the era.      
 
The Holt & Balcom Logging Camp was built in 1880, during the peak of the White Pine era of Wisconsin logging history. It was used until 1929 and was a depot camp that supplied many satellite camps in the area. The logs were transported by stream and river and later by railroad to the sawmill in Oconto.
 
After 1929 the logging camp remained idle and fell into disrepair from lack of use. In 1949, it was donated by the Holt Lumber Company to the Oconto County Historical Society. In 1976 the Historical Society deeded the property to the McCaslin Lions Club of Lakewood, on the condition that the property be restored and preserved as a Historical site and be made available to the public.
 
The members of the Lions Club spent the next seven years restoring and refurbishing the property. Countless hours of volunteer labor were involved. Many white pine logs were brought in from the forest to replace the lower logs of the building. The building was elevated to permit the replacement of these logs and then it was reset on a ground-level foundation. White pine, the timber of the era, was used throughout the restoration. It was used for floor boards, four inches thick and for roof boards, as much as twenty-two inches wide.
 
The logging camp was then furnished with tables, benches, tools, and kitchen equipment, heating stoves, dishes, lanterns and other materials. All furnishings were from the period of the logging camp use, with a few pieces probably even used in this camp.
 
Logging camps were built with a short life expectancy. Few of the camps from the Wisconsin White Pine era still exist. Since this was a depot camp, it had a longer useful life than most. To the best of our knowledge, it is the oldest logging camp in the United States that is still on its original foundation.
 
In 2013 the roof began to leak, and the Lions decided to deed the camp back to the Oconto County Historical Society.  The Society then proceeded to raise $130,000 to replace the roof, raise the buildings in order to place them on a five-course frost wall to prevent log rot, and fill in and pave the root cellars under the floors of both buildings in order to prevent floorboard rot.  In order to keep it in condition for future generations, annual maintenance is necessary.
 
Historical Society members volunteer their time to keep the logging camp museum available to visitors. It is open during the summer on Saturdays from 10:00 AM to 3:00 PM and is available for tours on request. In May and early June the Camp hosts fourth grade school children from the area, who are at that time studying Wisconsin history.  The students enjoy a reenactor playing the camp cook and a volunteer in the bunkhouse telling them about the life of a logger and about the tools the loggers used.  The students then go outside and mark the end of a log with a stamp hammer and cut off a piece of the log to take home as a souvenir.