Lake Pepin: This beautiful lake is twenty-two miles long, varies in width from one to two and a half miles, and covers about thirty-eight square miles. It was caused by the delta of the Chippewa spreading across the gorge of the Mississippi at the southeastern end of the lake. Because of its steeper garde, the smaller Chippewa was able to bring in more glacial debris than the Mississippi could carry away. This delta provided a natural dam and as the water was backed up, Lake Pepin was formed. State highway 35 hugs Lake Pepin along most of its Wisconsin shore and has been called one of the most scenic drives in America. One of Lake Pepin's admirers was William Cullen Bryant. He praised its natural scenery and declared the area "ought to be visited in teh summer by every poet and painter in the land." Erected 1979

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The enormous lake stretched flat and smooth and white all the way to the edge of the gray sky. Wagon tracks went away across it, so far that you could not see where they went; they ended in nothing at all.

Pa drove the wagon out onto the ice, following those wagon tracks. The horses' hoofs clop-clopped with a dull sound, the wagon wheels went crunching. The town grew smaller and smaller behind, till even the tall store was only a dot. All around the wagon there was nothing but empty and silent space. Laura didn't like it. But Pa was on the wagon seat and Jack was under the wagon; she knew that nothing could hurt her while Pa and Jack were there.

At last the wagon was pulling up a slope of earth again, and again there were trees...

"We're across the Mississippi!" [Pa] said, hugging her joyously. "How do you like that, little half-pint of sweet cider half drunk up?"...[Laura] asked if they were in the Indian country now. But they were not; they were in Minnesota.*

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With that, the Ingalls family left behind Pepin, Wis., and their little house in the big woods, just north of town. The lake they crossed that winter on their wastward trek was Lake Pepin, a widening of the Mississippi River, spanning the border between Wisconsin and Minnesota.

Many people living in small towns near the lake today tend not to move away. Take Mike Carpenter, postmaster at Maiden Rock, Wis., on state Highway 35. Aside from a stint in the military, Carpenter, who was born in Stockholm, Wis., has worked in Lake City and Red Wing, Minn., and Pepin and Nelson, Wis., before accepting the postmaster's job in Maiden Rock. Notice a pattern here? While Red Wing is just north of Lake Pepin, the other towns border the lake.

Ellen and Lyndon Carpenter

His parents, Ellen and Lyndon Carpenter, also have strong ties to the Lake Pepin area. While they did move two years ago, it wasn't before Lyndon had lived on the same property northeast of Stockholm for 85 years. The Carpenters' property had been in the family since 1854 when Lyndon's grandparents homesteaded the former 160-acre farm.

"We saw the lake all the time," Ellen said. "We could see the lake from our driveway, especially when the leaves were off the trees. It is such a beautiful lake and makes a beautiful drive."

Lyndon's other tie to Lake Pepin history is that he, along with his brother, 91, and sister, 94, are the closest surviving relatives of Laura Ingalls Wilder. Their paternal grandmother and Laura's mother were sisters. The Ingalls children often played with their cousins at the Carpenter family homestead.

That connection to the author was not lost on Wilder's fans. Over the years, visitors from across the country and from as far away as Japan found their way to the Carpenters' farm to meet Lyndon and have their picture taken with him. "They'd come by the busload to see the museum in Pepin and the cabin built where the Ingalls' house stood in 'Little House in the Big Woods,' " Ellen said. She noted that Wilder's books are part of the school curriculum in Japan and other countries.

Before starting her writing career at age 65, Wilder wrote to Lyndon's grandmother for details about Wilder's childhood, her family and the local area. "That started her with those books," Ellen said. "I never get tired talking about the family, and about Laura and her books."

Ellen has plenty of memories of her own of the Lake Pepin area. She remembers going with friends in the late 1930s on the excursion boats that used to cruise Lake Pepin. "They left from the dock in Stockholm. It was so beautiful at night, so quiet and no mosquitoes by the time you got to the middle of the lake. When the moon was shining on the lake, it was just like you were coming alive," she said. "It was so gorgeous. I have such beautiful memories."

David Sheridan

David Sheridan is helping many people make lake memories today. Sheridan's consulting business is based in Pepin, Wis. He also teaches people how to sail.

Sheridan's core business focuses on business and staff development, coaching, team building, sales training and developing marketing programs. Being located on Lake Pepin means that clients have a scenic drive and a relatively short one, whether they are venturing from the Twin Cities, Hudson, Wis., Red Wing, Minn., La Crosse, Wis., or Rochester, Minn. The city of Pepin also offers guests a five-star restaurant and other dining venues, bed-and-breakfast lodging, hotels and shopping.

Being located on the lake also means that the water can be incorporated into hands-on training. One component of Sheridan's business is teaching leadership and team building skills to corporate employees through experiential exercises. Sheridan frequently takes a group of co-workers out on Lake Pepin and requires them to work together on the boat, a skill that can be translated to the workplace.

The team on the boat isn't always made up of grown-ups, however. Sometimes, team members include six 14-year-old "at-risk" children. Teaching them to steer a 31-foot, four and one-half ton sloop opens their eyes to the possibilities in life, Sheridan said.

Everyone who has visited Lake Pepin with Sheridan comments on the lake's beauty. "This area is like the land that time forgot," he said. "There's an older-generation charm here and a sense of industry." The industry is apparent, with trains running alongside the lake and, in shipping season, barges forging through the lake.

"When you're in Pepin, you feel like you're standing in the heart of America," Sheridan said.

The Jewel

The area's beauty is a big draw for a new housing development in Lake City called "The Jewel."

As director of sales and marketing Greg Katz described it, "It's the beauty of Lake City, it's Lake Pepin and some of the most beautiful river bluffs in the United States." He called Lake City and Lake Pepin Minnesota's best-kept secret.

The 632 acres that comprise The Jewel had been owned by Lake City's Jewell family for nearly 130 years. Dr. Phineas Jewell settled there in the 1870s. A pioneer in the field of horticulture, he established a tree farm on the property.

Twenty-five years from now, if all of the 1,650 Jewel home sites are occupied, the population of Lake City would double what it is today, Katz said. The Jewel's 18-hole, Hale Irwin-designed golf course opened in July of 2004.

Ed and Merle Sjostrom

Ed Sjostrom was born in the house where he and his wife, Merle, live today on a hill above Maiden Rock and Lake Pepin. His grandfather bought the property in 1875.

Sjostrom describes how the importance of the lake has changed over the years. In earlier times, the lake was the best way to transport people and produce. And commercial fishing was an important way to make a living. Today, large barges tote coal and grain on the waterway, people worry about the mercury content of the fish, and the lake is largely known and used for recreation.

"Before, the lake was used for the essentials," he said, "and now it's more about recreation."

Sjostrum described winters past when people drove across the lake to shop in Lake City. As a child, he often crossed the lake on ice skates. He also recalled the days when fish caught locally needed to be loaded onto trains for shipment. Anyone in Maiden Rock at the time the train pulled in was expected to help and to move fast.

Sjostrum remembers a former neighbor, Fred Johnson, a bachelor who farmed nearby. Johnson had a fascination with riverboats. Whenever he saw or heard one of the big boats approaching Maiden Rock, Johnson would run down the hillside, get into his rowboat and make his way onto Lake Pepin to take photos. The Sjostrums and others were given some of Johnson's photos when he died in the 1940s. The photos were taken in the 1920s, 1930s, and 1940s.

Another story related to the bluffs near Maiden Rock describes how the village was named. Legend has it that Maiden Rock was named for an Indian maiden who leaped to her death from one of the rocky cliffs near the village, because of a tradition that forbid her to marry the one she loved.

Maxine and Marshall Schaal

Maxine and Marshall Schaal have lived in several different houses but the retired couple made their home in Lake City 12 years ago. It's not because any of their eight children live there. They came for the beauty.

"The lake and the bluffs are just beautiful," Maxine said. "And everyone is so nice." The couple always enjoyed taking drives, and a favorite one from their previous home in West St. Paul was driving south on one side of the Mississippi River to the Lake Pepin area and returning on the other side of the river.

Not Your Typical Minnesota Lake

When most Midwesterners talk about going to their lake cabin, Lake Pepin doesn't immediately come to mind. The shores of Lake Pepin are not peppered with cabins or new, multimillion-dollar homes. They no doubt would be if the shoreline wasn't so close to highways, railroad tracks and bluffs rising about 450 feet above the lake.

But tourism is the area's big industry. Take a drive past the lake on any spring, summer or early fall day and you will see dozens of boats and sailboats, people with fishing poles, and others walking near the lake, simply enjoying the view.

Another distinction separating Pepin from other midwestern lakes is its location spang in the middle of a major thoroughfare, the Mississippi River. Its placement dictated much of its utility for hundreds of years.

Lake Pepin has always been a hub of activity, although the types of activity have varied widely. In earlier times, commerce related to Lake Pepin involved fur trading; raft boats directing tons of lumber downriver to sawmills; steamboats transporting supplies and people, and steamboat crews purchasing wood from river towns to burn on board; and multimillion-dollar operations to find clams and mussels in the lake. The shells were used for buttons while the "meat" was used for livestock feed. Pearls were another source of income and were sold for jewelry. Barge traffic on the Mississippi River and Lake Pepin started in 1930 and continues today.

Today, the lake offers year-round recreation-- cross-country skiing, skating and ice fishing in winter, and fishing, sail boating and other recreational boating in the summer. And we must not forget water skiing. The sport of water skiing was invented by Ralph Samuelson in 1922 on Lake Pepin.

        

HISTORY**

A lake is formed

So how can a lake form in the middle of the Mississippi River? Heather Anderson, glacial geologist with the Minnesota Department of Natural Resources, can explain it with ease. But a picture helps the rest of us.

The story begins in a glacial period about 12,000 years ago. As the glaciers receded, the massive flow of water slowed. Sediment carried by the faster-moving Chippewa River was deposited when it hit the slower-moving Mississippi River. The delta that formed caused a damming effect on the Mississippi, and Lake Pepin was created. Anderson calls the lake's creation in the river fairly unusual.

At one time, Lake Pepin is believed to have extended to St. Paul, but as the flow of water decreased and more and more sediment was deposited, it gradually shrunk to its present size of one and one-half to three miles wide, and 22 miles long.

EXPLORATION

In the late 1600s, the Dakota Sioux controlled the land around the lake, but the Chippewa disputed Sioux ownership at the lower end of the lake. Many battles ensued, with the last battle for ownership occurring in 1851.

During thelate 1600s, the 1700s and the early 1800s, Europeans who came to the Lake Pepin area explored it, established forts and were involved in the fur trade. The first white explorer was Fr. Louis Hennepin, who canoed through the lake in 1680. Two French explorers named the lake in honor of "Pepin the Short," Charlemagne's father and ruler of France from 740 to 768. Several French forts were constructed along the lake in the late 1600s and early 1700s. In 1763, the British took control of the land around Lake Pepin.

In the late 1830s, harvesting of white pine in northern Minnesota and Wisconsin began. Logs were floated down the St. Croix and Chippewa rivers and formed into rafts. Some rafts were so large that they could be measured in acres, containing as much as 10 million board-feet of lumber. The earliest rafts traveled with the river current and were steered with large bow and stern rudders. Steamboats were later used to guide and propel the log rafts faster and more safely.

In 1878, enough white pine floated into the Mississippi River to produce an estimated 826 million feet of lumber, 218 million shingles and 109 million laths. By the early 1900s, much of the region's timber had been harvested. The last raft left the upper Mississippi in 1915.

BUTTON, BUTTON

Another major industry along the lake--clamming-- began in the late 1800s when some clams in Lake Pepin were found with pearls inside. Pearl buyers started visiting the clammers each day to buy pearls that would be resold on the East Coast or abroad.

At first, clammers were only interested in pearls so they discarded the shells. But imaginative and industrious types soon realized that the shells could be used to make buttons, cuff links, hair clips and other items. The meat was sold for hog and chicken feed.

From the 1880s to the 1940s or 1960s [accounts vary], mussel and clam shells were used to make mother-of-pearl buttons. Thousands of people harvested and sold mussels or worked in button factories. During its heyday, button factories were located in Lake City.

Lake Pepin was an important location for the shells until overharvest and pollution reduced the mussel population, leaving today's button wearers with their choice of colored plastic.

BARGE TRAFFIC

After the "River and Harbor Act" passed in 1930 and the construction of dams along the upper Mississippi River was finished, barge traffic on the river and Lake Pepin began. Barges pushed by tugs carried farm produce, petroleum, chemicals and manufactured goods. In 2001, close to 1,200 tugs pushing barges carrying more than 12 million pounds of materials passed through Lake Pepin. Barge traffic on the lake usually begins in mid-March and stops near the end of November. The last barge of 2002 left St. Paul on its downriver route on Nov. 25.

The surface of Lake Pepin usually freezes in early December. In some sections, the ice becomes more than 25 inches thick. The lake usually opens in March, when a new season of barge traffic, fishing and sailboating begins.

EAGLE WATCHING

A drive along state Highway 61 near Lake City or on state Highway 35 on the Wisconsin side of the lake makes it hard to believe that the Bald Eagle recently was one of our nation's endangered species. While a few hundred eagles used to winter along the Mississippi River, there are now thousands. Bald Eagles were recently removed from the endangered species list, but are still considered endangered in Iowa, Wisconsin and Minnesota.

Bald Eagles flourish near Lake City and Wabasha, often seen soaring over Lake Pepin and the Mississippi River. Just south of the mouth of Lake Pepin is a major roosting site for wintering Bald Eagles-- called, what else?-- Bald Eagle Bluff. According to the Minnesota DNR, the eagles use perch trees during the day. The trees are close to food sources in open water, yet protected from the extremes of winter winds. From here they can access the different habitats provided by river, floodplain forest and bluffs south from Camp Lacupolis through Read's Landing. The eagles return in the afternoon to roost in the mature, largely oak woods.

This area is one of only four important Bald Eagle winter roost sites along Minnesota's Upper Mississippi River Valley. Weekly monitoring over the past 15 years has documented from 20 to 70 eagles wintering here daily. The greatest concentrations of Bald Eagles occur here from late fall to early spring.

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Quick Clicks

Lake City Chamber of Commerce
1-800-369-4123

Lake City Tourism Bureau
www.lakecitymn.org

Great River Birding Trail; Audobon-Upper Mississippi River Campaign
www.audubon.org/campaign/umr

Mississippi Valley Partners
Online Travel Guide
www.mississippi-river.org

On-Deck Seminars and Charters
www.on-deck.com

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*Excerpt from Little House on the Prairie by Laura Ingalls Wilder
**Historical data largely based on information from Mississippi Valley Parners Web site, www.mississippi-river.org/lakepepin.html

Steamboat photos taken by Fred Johnson, courtesy of Ed and Merle Sjostrom

By Barb Umberger

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