Columbia, Wisconsin

The End of A Realtor's Great Deception

Transcribed by Crystal Wendt

February 1954

The year of 1953 marked the end of Clark County’s first century in its history. That year also marked the end of Columbia, as a municipality in Clark County.

This dream of a great urban center found visual expression in pictures upon the walls of a real estate office in Chicago. Those pictures were once seen by Charles Farnum, associate of W. J. Marsh, Neillsville merchant, who viewed the enthusiasms of Columbia with the eye of doubt. Speeding Mr. Farnum upon his way to Chicago, Mr. Marsh asked him to visit the realty office in Chicago and see what was at the business end of the great Columbia promotion. Farnum did as asked and made a report to Mr. Marsh upon his return. He found, he said, an atmosphere of extravagant optimism and promotion, with wonderful pictures upon the wall. Those pictures showed, for instance, an oil derrick piercing and sky and steamer lying alongside a wharf. There were other things in the pictures, also, but these two stick in mind of Mr. Marsh through the years until 1953, when The Press sought his help for this story.

The report of them confirmed the longtime judgment of Mr. Marsh that the promotion of Columbia lacked a solid foundation. He knew, as did all the old-timers of Clark County, that the waters which flowed through Columbia would have difficulty to float anything larger than a row boat and that the oil there available was pumped only from a barrel.

It appears that there was gold also in them "thar" plans, there being near at hand no hills in which gold might hide. The gold was the vision of C. S. Graves and possibly of others, but certainly of Mr. Graves, first of all. The gold dream seems to have grown out of the oil dreams.

Frank Lockman believes that he knows where the oil boom originated. He thinks that it came from oil in a can, which rested on the curb of a well on the Elliot O. Bliss farm, neighboring the Lockman place. Mr. Lockman had a definite recollection of that occasion, for he cared for the stock on the Bliss farm while the Blisses went off for a trip. When they returned, he remembers, Jr. Bliss came over to the Lockman place all excited, declaring that water from his well bore strong evidence of oil, both in appearance and in smell. After telling Mr. Lockman of this, Mr. Bliss hurried on to C.S. Graves and thereafter a great furor developed about the oil boom at Columbia.

Mr. Graves was the head and foot of the Graves Land Co., one of the various companies, which worked hard upon the land project. He also ran a store at Columbia. With this oil discovery as a basis, he quickly organized an oil project and got a driller in to go after the oil. The drilling was done, not on the Bliss farm, where the original "discovery" was made, but about a mile away, on land now that property of William Sollberger, at the east end of the old Columbia plat. In later years, William Sollberger came upon the hole of this drilling and filled it sufficiently to prevent any harm coming of it.

The hole, found by Mr. Sollberger, was close to the bank of a creek, a site which may have been selected because of the need of the driller for water conveniently at hand. The driller encountered hard rock very soon in his operations, he drill bringing out a solid rock core. John Sollberger recalls seeing some of these cores in a showcase in the Graves store. They were there to demonstrated the presence of gold in Columbia, since they contained particles, which shone as gold shines. This was advanced as ample evidence of gold and not at all like mica. The gold was good for a boom and for the sale of stock in a gold mining adventure, whereas the mica would have been utterly worthless for promotion purposes.

Frank Lockman believes that during the absence of the Blisses, somebody came along needing water. That person went to the Bliss pump, which needed priming. Seeing a can on the curb with colorless floating on top, they quickly picked up the can and poured from it into the pump. After realizing their mistake, they hurriedly left.

Much glamour was thrown about the sale of land in the around Columbia, as has been partially shown here. Those who generated this glamour have been largely lost in the dimness of the years.

The great incentive for the promotion of Columbia was the wish to dispose of cutover lands. Active in this endeavor was James L. Gates, who was the man behind on of the various land companies operating in the Columbia area. One local surmise is that of Jim Gates, as he was usually called, was the first and perhaps the most glamorous, of those to push the Columbia area. He was the grandson of Daniel Gates, a pioneer and he had the necessary imagination to carry on projects of limitless possibilities. Evidence of his active mind many still be found at that Neillsville city cemetery, where two of his wives are buried.

Mr. Graves did not stop with the usual trite words upon the tombstones of his wives, but rather gave plat to a poetic genius.

Local tradition is that Mr. Gates married a third time, but that experience did not inspire his muse. She was said to have been a good businesswoman and possibly would have had some relation to the financial vicissitudes of Mr. Gates, who really had his ups and downs.

Whatever his experience in his third marriage, his memory deserves well of the ladies, for he originated the name "Ladysmith" and attached it to the city to the north, county seat of Rusk County. Mr. Gates had a high estimated of good woman and is said to have had great and proper regard for one of the many women bearing the name of Smith. Hence is the name, Ladysmith.

The county, of which Ladysmith is the seat, was once known as Gates County, named for this same James L. Gates. His name was to be attached to the county for all time, the condition being that he was to build the court house at his own costs. But when the courthouse was to have been built, Jim Gates was in one of his cyclical depressions and lacked the money. Hence the name was changed to "Rusk" and the memory of Jim Gates was left to such memorials as this story and to the eroding letters engraved upon a tombstone.

Now it might seem at first glance as though this is a long way around to point to James L. Gates as probably the originator of the great promotion of Columbia, but the trip around the verbal side road demonstrated that at least he had the necessary ambition and imagination. Also, if Jim Gates and his associates or competitors had what it took, their prospects also had what it took, plenty of nothing. There were the victims of the great Depression of the 1890s, mostly persons of the Chicago area who had lost their jobs and were grasping at straws. Some of them had a little capital upon the line without even seeing the Columbia country.

Even the name of the great city-to-be had its power of promotion, a name of patriotic grandeur. Where did it come from? Local history does not say. A look back at the times and the circumstances may tell. The days of the great promotion were the days of great Columbian celebrations, 400 years from the discovery of America by Christopher Columbus. It was then that Chicago launched the Columbian exposition. What more logical than that promoters should hitch their wagons to this popular star? Certainly Columbia, Clark County, Wisconsin, had a come-hitcher sound, with its promise of soil and oil and gold and jobs in the factories of dreamland, another discovery in the land of Columbia.