Hatchet Creek History

The Tipsy-Traveler's Guide to Exploring the Backroads of Wisconsin,
courtesy of the Sudds Brewing Company
"At work, at home or on the road, you're oblivious with a belly load - of Sudds!"

Authors note: Though all official records of the early history and settlers of Hatchet Creek were reportedly lost during the violent Root Beer Rebellion of 1905, a picture can be drawn from the stories told to me by the regulars at The Dew Drop Inn on the day I visited there in 1978. After an eight hour sampling of my wares, my hosts swore to me that the following account is accurate and complete to the best of their limited knowledge.
Harry Paratestes, Director of Sales and Marketing, Sudds Brewing Co., Heafford Junction, Wisconsin.
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Prior to 1750, the Lockjaw River Valley of northern Wisconsin was one vast, unbroken, and peaceful wilderness. This Eden-like setting was transformed abruptly following the Great Michigan Tom-Tom Wars of 1751. Tribal lore indicates that during that year a lengthy, pounding drum solo, which appeared in the middle of the teen smash hit 'Song of Hiawatha', began to slowly drive the adults crazy during that long, freakishly hot summer. Since custom forbade striking a child for any reason, rebellious teens took advantage of the situation and played the song over and over and over.

The tribal elders grew increasingly surly as the incessant pounding and off-key wailing caused their legendary patience to wear thin. What once would have remained only minor conflicts between neighboring tribes soon erupted into pitched battles as repressed anger found release. When the dust settled, the losers were pushed out of their traditional lands and forced to begin anew elsewhere. Most hightailed it right on through this region, with some heading west all the way to Minnesota, later to become known as the 'go-far' state for that very reason.

The one tribe which fled to, but not out of the area, was the Flatfoot. They stayed here simply because walking any farther was too painful for them. They named this area 'Ka-nish-ga-wa-bo' which loosely translated means, 'Ouch! Dammit, there are (SLAP) many big mosquitos (SLAP) here' (SLAP SLAP). As it turned out, the bountiful fish, game, and wild comestibles allowed them to overlook the shortcomings of the location and, in time, they came to love the land and prospered here. (see Flatfoot MegaCorp, Forbes Top 500)

(Here, ethnically misrepresentative Hollywood actors portray the tribe in the epic 1928 Hollywood motion picture, 'Drums of Kanishgawabo: The Long, Cold Swim to Illinois')

The first 'forked-tongue white-eyes' to appear were three French-Canadian nihilistic philosophers. Having been lost in the wilderness for almost four months, they were reduced to arguing bitterly among themselves over who had lost the pea soup kettle as they followed the Lockjaw River downstream. Captured by young Flatfeet girls who had been out picking berries, they feared a gruesome death by torture as they were dragged kicking and screaming into the village.

Their fears were soon proven to be unfounded. The Flatfeet were not at all hostile or aggressive; in fact, they were a quite patient and generous people. Quick to recognize an opportunity, the starving trio moved in and commenced annoying their hosts with endless discourses on nothingness while they ate nearly everything in sight. After a month of strained good humor, the legendary Chief Tetanus, no big fan of Nietzsche to begin with, promptly ordered them beaten severely and tossed into the nearby river. The nihilists drifted into northern Illinois some months later where they were dried out and shortly thereafter elected to political office in Chicago.

Some fifty years later, this crown jewel of the north was being mentioned in the same breath with such mystical locations as Brigadoon, Shangri-La, and the shimmering lost city of El Dorado. Daring riverboat pilots braved the tempest-tossed journey around Lake Gitchee Gumee only to face another hundred miles of the perilous Lockjaw River as it snaked its way through the Tomahawk Mountain Range.

Those intrepid few who managed to survive the final, harrowing plunge over Widowmaker Falls gazed in awe at Nature's splendor as they bobbed along the pristine Kanishgawabo shoreline. In retrospect, it's no surprise then that the first public works project undertaken by the survivors (after their bones knit) was to blast an access road to the outside world.

Word of the wealth of natural resources here soon leaked out and it seemed like a town sprang up almost overnight. Within months, there were tuna canneries, diamond mines, and toothpick mills running around the clock as the little burg grew at a rapid pace. Those were halcyon days for the Flatfeet as well since they owned all the real estate and knew how to sell swampland as effectively as any of today's realtors.

The Grand Funk Railroad reached Kanishgawabo in early 1868, bringing with it throngs of spinsters, fortune-hunters, schoolmarms and insurance agents. With the ensuing urban sprawl, escort services, used-horse lots, wampum exchanges and liquor stores were built upon the grasslands where massive herds of free-ranging jackalope once roamed.

It wasn't until 1870, when the loggers arrived, that the area fulfilled its latent Manifest Destiny. Thousands upon thousands of acres of lofty, majestic Jack Pine, some of which stretched to cloud scraping heights of nearly 20 feet, were soon to become only a memory. A diminutive lumber tycoon by the name of Percival Chauncey Fouillard, a/k/a 'Silk Hankie', brought a hand picked crew of lumberjacks from the San Francisco Bay area of California to the Northwoods and shortly thereafter began logging operations here.

Those slender, effeminate 'timber beasts' of Fouillard's worked long hours for low pay, yet still enjoyed a spirited frolic on Saturday evenings when they made every effort to dress up and feel pretty for a night on the town. Indeed, some of those rough and tumble characters became famous throughout the region for their tavern brawling abilities as well. Some old-timers in Hatchet Creek can still recall the legendary 'Big Brucie', whose slapping, name-calling, and hair-pulling exploits remain unmatched in the annals of rugged Northwoods frontier lore. Though the dance theaters and trendy bistros they once frequented still remain, the 'jacks are long gone now and, curiously, they left no progeny.

Not all was sweetness and light in Kanishgawabo however. A vicious outlaw element, in the form of 'The Gang of Two', had taken root here and ran roughshod over the populace in the absence of law enforcement. For months the troublesome pair had terrorized the town with all manner of deviltry and the good folks felt they had endured it long enough. They were ready to teach those who would stray from the path of righteousness a hard, bitter and permanent lesson.

Increasingly fed up with the hail of gunfire during their Sunday pie socials and kitten-tossing contests, the ladies of the Foursquare Quilters Guild and Emasculation Society hired a retired Old West town-tamer by the name of Lazlo 'Shakes' Peabody to handle the cleanup job. His life long affinity for a bottle of 'Old Grand Dad' may have cost him his once blazingly fast pistol draw, but he easily compensated for that deficiency by toting an 8-gauge shotgun loaded heavily with buckshot and rusty nails. When able to focus his eyes long enough to aim, he enforced all the ordinances equally and without hesitation, and trained his successors to do the same. To this day, there is no such thing as a 'repeat offender' in Hatchet Creek.

In April, 1871, a select committee of townsfolk was charged by the newly formed city council with finding a more suitable name for the settlement, one which would capture the true 'spirit' of the fledgling metropolis. After weeks of heated debate and a smattering of gunfire and veiled threats, they settled on 'New Town', a sensible name which stuck until the 1970's, when Robert Redford's movie 'Jeremiah Johnson' triggered a nationwide craze for beards and rustic simplicity. In the wake of the film's success, New Town was renamed 'Hatchet Creek' over the protests of the traditionalists, and the little city continues to thrive to this day.

Each summer a wild, three day celebration called 'Dunking Days' is held which commemorates the down river 'journey' of the original French-Canadian explorers. Randomly selected groups of three are pulled from the unsuspecting throng of tourists along the river banks, clubbed senseless, and 'sent ta Ill-a-noise' via the river. Understandably, the crowds at this event have dwindled somewhat with each passing year.

Not so with the running of the jackalope. For nearly 100 years, foolhardy young men and women have tested their strength, speed, and courage against the packs of wild jackalope, which are collected and then turned loose in the city's main alley during Dunking Days. The wave of 3-pound beasts is a formidable sight as they thunder over the hard packed mud, trampling and goring those unfortunate souls in their path who stumble or hesitate. (Due to mounting liability insurance costs and lawsuits by animal-rights activists, the fabled 'running of the jackalope' will no longer be held after 2001.)

Though much has changed about the city in the one hundred years or so since it's founding, it is said by the locals that when conditions are just right (basically, anytime between April and November), if you step outside in the evening and listen closely you can still hear, instantly... the whine of many (SLAP) big mosqui (SLAP) tos (SLAP).