Bio: Calway, Forrest D. (Cranberry Project)

Contact: Dolores (Mohr) Kenyon

Email: dolores@wiclarkcountyhistory.org

Surnames: Calway, Rodiger, Johns

----Source: Unknown; December 1943

Calway, Forrest D. (Cranberry Project)

Calway Cranberry Marsh

The Calway Cranberry development, in the Town of Hewett, has been sold to Leonard Rodiger and Edward Johns of the Wisconsin Rapids area.  The young men are in possession and are proceeding with plans to carry on the development, which was started by the late Forrest D. Calway.

This transaction is one of the most important transfers in the recent history of Clark County, involving an opportunity to develop a project that may well attain high value. The beds already planted extend over about 11 acres, but the opportunity is there to developing seven or eight times the present area of cranberries. That means it is an important project with very substantial potential.

The cranberry project, in the Town of Hewett, became the chief interest and life work of Forrest D. Calway, who in the Depression years turned to it in preference to exclusive devotion to the practice of law.  Mr. Calway felt that such a development, in the lean years of the Depression, would grow with recovery to an important investment.

In developing this idea, Mr. Calway purchase about 640 acres of land and possessed himself of water rights needed for the development and perpetual care of the cranberry beds.  He had first investigated the possibilities of that particular area and had satisfied himself that the correct elements were present in land and water for the growth of cranberries. He retained all of the water rights and all of the land, about 320 acres needed for the cranberry project.

Having collected the necessary land and rights, Mr. Calway did such construction work by way of dams, ditches, ponds and flumes as would provide for the cranberry beds.  He made considerable plantings and had brought some of the first beds to bearing.  It was in the company’s pickup truck, which he used for his work at the cranberry marsh, that his seizure came, not quite two years ago, which brought Mr. Calway’s efforts summarily to an end.

This left the responsibility of the marsh to Mrs. Calway, who has managed it for two seasons, but who at no time intended to attempt its further development and permanent ownership and management.  With the sale now concluded , she is relieved of the burden.