Through the last couple of weeks, I have been researching the Paul Bunyan Camp located in Carson Park. Before researching in the archives, I have never even heard of it. Through the archives in the library however I was able to learn quite a bit about this wonderful camp. I discovered that the camp was not always located in Carson Park, and I also figured out why it was moved to Carson Park.

I am coming near the end of my research. With my main topic question answered, I still need to figure out how the city was able to fund such a massive relocation. The problem now is trying to sum up all of my research into one exploratory essay. Trying to figure out what to include and what not to include is the real challenge. There is so much information I wish to mention in my essay that it could easily top the one hundred page mark.

I am still eager to research more into the camp. I know I have not learned all there is to learn yet. Before the end of the semester I plan to visit it. After talking to students around campus they say it’s a cool place to visit sometime, and that it would be worth my time to spend a day there. Eau Claire’s logging past offers so much to learn about and this camp won’t be the last thing I look into about this city’s past.

Searching through more of the library’s excellent archives I was thinking to myself, why did they decide to move the location of the camp, who would fund such a project, and how did they fund such a project? While looking through all the letters and news articles there was one in particular that caught my eye. A proposal letter from the Kiwanis Club to the Hobb’s Foundation.

The letter first starts out talking about the Kiwanis Club’s interest in the operation, and how they would try to fund the project. They suggested getting more clubs involved in the funding of the project. Then in the third paragraph of page one, one of my questions had finally been answered. The author writes “The Kiwanis Club has allocated $5,000 to be used in obtaining schematic drawings of the proposed layout, which is to be located next to the Chippewa Valley Museum.” I have finally found a reason to why the camp was moved to Carson Park. With the camp placed next to the Chippewa Valley Museum, it gave tourists much more convenience, but yet there are still some unanswered questions. Who and how the camp was funded for relocation.

The letter was written by the club leader, Henry Strand, and as the letter continues he describes the costs of what the project would cost. He totaled an estimate around $110,000. A considerable amount of money, but there has been more expensive projects in the area. He also states an approval list for which they have already received approval to move the camp from The Citizens Advisory Committee for Parks, Recreation and Beautification, The Board of Directors of the Chippewa Valley Museum, The Eau Claire City Council, and The Eau Claire City Planning Commission.

The final part of the letter goes on to discuss how they would try to raise some of the money they need to raise. Their first idea was a community wide raffle where they plan to give away a trip to Hawaii, a color TV, and a 10-speed bike. They also got the donation from a famous Minnesotan artist of a wonderful painting and they are hoping to run an auction on the piece.

The letter was written by the leader of the Kiwanis Club, Henry Strand, and he used very good rhetorical distance while writing his letter. By using little intimacy he made himself seem very credible and made this such a helpful source for my use. So many of my questions have been answered through this one source, it was like finding gold at the end of the rainbow, but I don’t quite have the full story yet. There is no way a painting or two, or a city wide raffle is going to fund such a large project. I still have to find an answer to how they funded this massive relocation.

While exploring through the archives of the library I had some questions in mind. What was the reasoning behind moving the Paul Bunyan Camp? Who maintained the camp? What made people interested in the camp? Well I found an artifact that helped me draw new answers.

The artifact I mentioned is a letter written by “The Paul Bunyan Committee”to the chair of the committee in 1938. In the letter the committee talks about activity revolving around the camp. The letter’s first paragraph mentions the thriving success of the camp, stating that the camp is a great attraction and schools from across the state are coming to learn about Eau Claire’s past. It goes on to thank people for donations and discuss topics of concern such as: a lack of postcards, storage for equipment, and maintenance. What was most interesting about the letter is in the fourth paragraph the committee states that no longer have to house the construction men of Carson Park. I am curious to why the Paul Bunyan Camp was providing housing to construction workers in Carson Park. Possibly the construction workers were working on the football field, it might be something to look into later.

This letter helped me get a better understanding on why the camp might have possibly been moved. With the camp becoming as busy as ever, somewhere in the future it becomes to popular for it’s size, so it must need to expand. That being said, it also could have to do with a lack of donations later in time, you can only gather so much history about one topic. I was however able to find the answer to maintained the camp, and why it was so appealing. With the help of new donations regularly and the word being spread out from school to school the camp was able to draw much attention to places of education and gain interest in kids across the state.

With questions still unanswered I am excited to go digging for more information on the camp. Hopefully within the next two or so sources of mine I will be able to figure out why the camp was located to Carson Park, and how they were able to move it there.

While digging through the archives of the library, the first interesting source I stumbled across was a pamphlet that the logging camp would handout to all it’s visitors. Inside the pamphlet it told the story of the lumber industry of Eau Claire, how it came to be, and how it came to an end. It gave a layout of the camp and what each portion of the camp represented. I chose this piece because it gives the history of the logging industry and when people would come to the camp, they would come to educate themselves about the logging industry of Eau Claire, and not just to observe cool momentos and buy souvenirs.   

I was unable to find the author of the pamphlet, but who ever constructed it used great ethos throughout the reading. He used good rhetorical distance with his readers by not using any intimacy and being strictly formal throughout the pamphlet. By using using such good rhetorical distance, this boosts his ethos.

I learned a lot from this source, including a lot about the camp, the logging industry, and why it was built. This is a very valuable source to me because it provides me with a great background on my place of interest. However this also doesn’t provide me an answer to why the camp was moved to Carson Park, and how they were able to get the money to afford to move it.

I found a great a source in this pamphlet, and it provided me with a solid foundation of why the camp was built, and the history of the logging industry of Eau Claire. I still have a lot of research to do if I’m going to find out why it was relocated in 1983. I’m looking forward to the challenge and to my next blog post.

Paul Bunyan’s Logging Camp

I will be researching the Paul Bunyan Logging Cap located in Eau Claire, Wisconsin. The research will include the impact the camp has had on the community, how the camp came to be, and why was it relocated in 1983?

This is an interesting topic and one I’m excited to research about. The camp was made to preserve the history of the logging industry in Eau Claire. Many people who have lived in the Eau Claire area know about the camp, but there are more than thousands that attend college here and have never even heard of it (myself included). So this research project gives me a great opportunity to learn about a major part of Eau Claire’s past!

There is a lot let for me to learn about it, and since the camp is only open from May 1st through September 30th, I won’t be able to go visit the camp myself. So by using the archives at the Mcyntire Library, and using secondary sources online and in books I should be able to find enough information to answer my questions at hand.