1886 St. Croix River log jam

The 1886 log jam on the St Croix River near Taylors Falls, Minnesota

On June 13, 1886, a log jam developed in the St. Croix River, close to Taylors Falls, Minnesota, and St. Croix Falls, Wisconsin. The river was used to transport large quantities of logs from the forests upstream to the sawmills, and log jams disrupted this business. The 1886 jam was described at the time by a local journalist as "the jammedest jam" he had encountered,[1] and was very difficult to clear, with hundreds of men working for six weeks to clear it, eventually using steamboats and dynamite. The jam was also a major tourist attraction, with thousands of spectators every day. After the jam was broken up in July, cleanup work to remove the logs on the river banks continued until September.

  1. ^ McMahon, Eileen M.; Karamanski, Theodore J. (October 20, 2009). North Woods River: The St. Croix River in Upper Midwest History. Univ of Wisconsin Press. ISBN 978-0-299-23423-2. Archived from the original on January 15, 2022. Retrieved October 15, 2020.