Back in the Day
The Lumbermen
In the late 1880s the lumberjacks followed with cruisers and surveyors. The first extensive survey was made in 1881 by George F. Hamilton who surveyed Township 69N, Range 21W of the 4th Meridian. This area of almost 12,000 acres takes in most of Lake Kabetogama from Tom Cod and Bohman Bay, past the Grassy Islands, to where many homes are located today.
Cutover Island was first bought in 1899, its timber rights were sold for $230,000 – you can see just how valuable timber was at the time! After the timber was cut, most land was used to pay off delinquent taxes, and the loggers moved on. All land throughout the area is covered in “second-growth” trees, trees that have grown since that early logging.
Homesteads were given in the early part of the century. The first homesteaders included such names as Ranta, Star, Fors, Stone, Wouri, Lehto, the Gappa brothers, Abel Ranta, Buntism, Manninen, and Sipi. Homesteaders had to prove they were going to live on the land, and had to build a house within a certain timeframe (estimated to be about 3 years).
Both Cutover and Wolf islands were almost bare of trees by the early 1940s. In the 1950s, wolves crossed to an island – now named for the occasion as Wolf Island. They could see a wide area of the lake, which must have helped with them finding food.