The following text may have been generated by Optical Character Recognition, with varying degrees of accuracy. Reader beware!

NPS Form 10-900-a (Rev. 8-86) Wisconsin Word Processing Format (Approved 3/87) United States Department of the Interior National Park Service National Register of Historic Places Continuation Sheet Schooner-Barge NOQUEBAY Town of La Pointe Section 8 Page 2 Ashland County, Wi. availability of skilled laborers-- Irish, Scandinavian, German, and French-Canadian immigrants (Fries 1951). The Wisconsin River area was the first to be exploited on a large scale in the state (Fries 1951) . But demand had already outdistanced the Wisconsin River region's output during the 1840s, and several other regions became important lumbering areas. Included were the areas surrounding Green Bay, the Wolf River, the Black River, the St. Croix area, and the Chippewa River Valley (Lusignan 1986). For many of these regions, the greatest growth occurred from ca. 1860-1880. For instance, in 1866 the Wolf River region produced 52 million board feet, while during the 1870s, the region yielded 180 million board feet per year (Lusignan 1986). The Green Bay and St. Croix districts were producing about 300 million board feet per year in the 1870s, and in the Chippewa River Valley, there was an increase from 5.5 million board feet per year in the 1840s to 436 million board feet in 1870 (Fries 1951). One reason for such hefty increases in the lumber trade during this period was the availability of excellent water transportation opportunities. Rafts of lumber were floated on inland streams and Lake Michigan by 1850, and by 1865 some rafts on the Mississippi River contained over one million board feet per raft. After the mid-1860s, steamships were increasingly used to tow the rafts. At its peak, more than 100 ships were engaged in river towing operations (Lusignan 1986). On lakes Michigan and Superior, sailing ships and steamers were used to transport milled lumber, often between 250,000 to 1.5 million board feet (Fries 1951). Through time, steamers and bulk carriers replaced sailing ships, with many sailing ships stripped of their sails and towed by tugs as barges (Labadie and Murphy 1987) . The most important lumber shipping ports were Superior, Ashland, Marinette, Green Bay, and Sturgeon Bay (Fries 1951). During the time between 1880-1900 the lumber industry increased despite periods of depression. In 1892, 4 billion board feet were cut (Lusignan 1986) . But, through the years, the wasteful practices of the lumber industry depleted most of the white pine in the state. In 1897, forestry experts predicted that with current