INDUSTRY OF COUNTIES. 
385 
and fifty million feet of logs a year have been pat into the different streams 
in this county, for a number of years past, and there still remains a large 
amount of pine to cut. There are quite a number of saw and grist mills 
located in the different parts of the county that are doing a prosperous 
business. Lumber is very- cheap, and it costs comparatively but little to 
build here, to what it does in most of the other counties. 
Many improvements have been made within the past five years. . Roads 
have been opened in every direction, school houses have been built, vil¬ 
lages laid out and settled. A railroad has been built, running through the * 
southwestern part of the county, with a station at Humbird, sixteen miles 
from Neillsville, the county seat. Other roads and improvements are in 
contemplation, which promise to add much to our prosperity. 
COLUMBIA COUNTY. 
BY H. S. HASKELL, PORTAGE.. 
Columbia county is one of the inland counties of the state—Portage, its 
county seat, being one hundred miles from Lake Michigan, at Milwaukee, 
about the same distance from the Mississippi river, and seventy miles from 
the southern boundary of the state. 
The Wisconsin, the principal river within the state, rising in the north, 
close up to Lake Superior, draining the great central valley of the state, 
enters this county at its northwest corner,, and runs an almost exact south¬ 
east course for about thirty miles, to near the center of the county, where, 
at the celebrated “ Portage,” it bends at almost a right angle to the south¬ 
west, and passes out of the county at its southwest corner. 
The Fox river rises in the extreme northwest corner of the county, runs a 
general southwestern course to within a mile and a half of the great bend 
of the Wisconsin, at the “ Portage,” where it turns abruptly to the north, 
and at the north line of the county turns again to the east, and with a gen¬ 
eral northeastern course for about one hundred miles, falls into lake Mich¬ 
igan at Green Bay. The Baraboo and Craw Fish rivers, with Duck, Roman 
and Lodi creeks are the principal streams in the county, and are sufficiently 
rapid to afford.numerous small water powers for grist and saw mills, 
The general surface of the county is level, yet, not flat, but sufficient¬ 
ly rolling to afford ample drainage. Along the Wisconsin river is some of 
the grandest scenery in the state. Just above Kilbourn City, at “ The Del- 
les,” the whole volume of the Wisconsin river is compressed by a bold, 
flume-like wall of rocks, on each side, into a channel of not more than 
forty feet wide for a distance of several hundred yards, through which at 
high water it pours, thundering and foaming in way to blanch the faces of 
the stout-hearted raftsman, who run the millions of feet of Wisconsin riv¬ 
er lumber through here. 
25—Ag. Tr. 
