By Madeline Heim, Milwaukee Journal Sentinel
A new collection of historic documents highlights the unique history of the “Driftless region,” an
area that encompasses southwestern Wisconsin, southeastern Minnesota, northeastern Iowa,
and a tiny sliver of northwestern Illinois. This beautiful hilly area is geologically unique, as it was
untouched by glaciers that descended from Canada tens of thousands of years ago.
The University of Wisconsin-La Crosse library has amassed an informal holding place for
photos, maps, journals and field notes telling the story of the upper Mississippi River river and
the Driftless region that surrounds it. It made sense for the university, which isn’t far from the
banks of the river.
In 1920, a local newspaper publisher turned politician donated his private library to the
university, containing numerous historical works that detailed the development of the upper
Mississippi River valley.
After a while, digital collections librarian David Mindel thought there needed to be a way to tie
the materials together — to harness their potential for a scientific, economic, cultural and
historical accounting of one of America’s great rivers and raise the library’s profile for soliciting
more.
In July, library staff announced the Driftless River Initiative, meant to do just that.
“I think the potential is endless in terms of where researchers can take this, and as a librarian,
I’m able to see the overlap and interconnectedness of it all,” Mindel said. “That’s really why I
think it’s important to label this as something more than just random collections — to try to make
it into something more.”
Collections include steamboat photos, river maps, birding journals
The initiative simply gives a name to something that’s been in the works much longer. Building
on the 1920 donation, the library has received thousands of historical photos of steamboats,
which played a major role in the development of the Mississippi and its tributaries.
Some of the photos are the oldest of the river-related materials housed at the library, Mindel
estimated, dating back to the 1850s.
The collections also include research from Stanley Trimble, professor emeritus at the University
of California, Los Angeles, who spent decades studying agriculture and sedimentation in
Wisconsin’s slice of the Driftless region, and from the late Stafford Happ, who was publishing
papers in the 1940s about the area’s soil.
There are river maps from the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers, some of which show how it flowed
before the implementation of the locks and dams in the 1930s, which forever changed the look
of the upper Mississippi. There are maps and charts from the beginnings of the Upper
Mississippi River National Fish and Wildlife Refuge, established in 1924.
Mindel is working on adding more recent works into the collection, such as Stories from the
Flood, a project from the Driftless Writing Center to preserve the experiences of residents who
lived through catastrophic flooding in southwestern Wisconsin in 2018.
Mindel said his favorite part is looking through photo negatives that the library acquires, which
have to be processed before the images on them can be seen. He described it as “treasure-
hunting.”
He also enjoys the personal journals and field notes that are part of these collections, including
from Fred Lesher, a former UW-La Crosse professor and avid birder. The library has 13
volumes of Lesher’s handwritten birding notes.
“You’re getting unfiltered thoughts,” Mindel said. “It’s not a published paper or some other formal
document. It’s a person’s own personal thinking.”
There are plenty of formal documents, too, including publications and surveys from the Upper
Mississippi River Conservation Committee dating back to the 1940s. Materials were donated as
recently as last week by the Mississippi River Regional Planning Commission, a Wisconsin
group that works on economic development along the river.
Historical artifacts could provide a deeper connection to the Mississippi River
The presentation of the Driftless River Initiative is still in nascent stages — people who want to
view steamboat photos or other collections can visit the library or look online, Mindel said, but
there’s no formal exhibit.
That’s because many of the materials still need to be digitized. Realistically, Mindel said, that
will take a long time. He’s currently searching for grants that could help the library purchase
larger scanners.
It’s a crucial part of the process, though.
“If (it’s) not known that we’re just sitting on these things, essentially, they don’t exist,” Mindel
said.
Once people know what’s there, he’s hopeful it will open the door for researchers to make
connections between subjects and create new things. Looking at the pre-lock and dam river
maps, he said, he imagined an app people could download as they cruise the river to see what
it once looked like.
Mindel said he thinks the collections will keep growing naturally over time. The library already
has a reputation for steamboats and river science, he said, and having the formal initiative could
turn it into even more of a hub.
Ultimately, he hopes it will more deeply connect residents to the stories of the river that shapes
their region, which in Wisconsin can sometimes get overshadowed by the Great Lakes.
“The nation itself has this long connection to the Mississippi River … you could define things by
the Mississippi, in terms of your place. Sometimes it’s forgotten, that significance,” Mindel said.
“What I’m hoping is this elevates the river a bit as this major freshwater resource, and the way
that folks in the Driftless area identify with the river and with the area in general.”
This story is a product of the Mississippi River Basin Ag & Water Desk, an independent
reporting network based at the University of Missouri in partnership with Report for America,
with major funding from the Walton Family Foundation.
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