Originally published Sept. 21, 2008
There is a historical marker on a rock in Cornucopia that boasts: “On this site in 1897, nothing happened.” Given that the town wasn’t founded until a few years after that it is entirely possible that nothing happened in 1897, or more likely that whatever did happen was simply unnoticed because no one was there to serve witness.
But I’ve recently spent a bit of time in Corny, as she is familiarly known, on a writing project and have come to learn more about things that did happen in this horn-of-plenty place on Lake Superior’s edge than the rare days when nothing took place. Here are a few things about Cornucopia you might not know, or if you already do then you, too, can call her Corny.
North-south streets in Cornucopia were named for the Great Lakes (a decision which, just speculating, might explain why the village never grew very big), while east-west streets were named for trees. For example, the main business strip is on Superior Street and the Russian church is at the corner of Erie and Ash.
Russian church? That’s right, St. Mary’s Russian Orthodox Church, with its distinctive three-bar Russian Orthodox cross, octagonal belfry and small dome, was built in 1910 to serve the worship needs of Russian immigrants who came to the far north to work the lumber camps and, later, farm the cutover land. The Russian community has shrunk through the years but the little white church – I’ve already told you where it is – is still used for services.
Cornucopia was born as a lumber town and great quantities of logs, lumber and Hemlock bark – favored by tanneries – were shipped from its harbor. But after the forests played out the community turned to its other natural asset, Lake Superior, and became a major fishing center. Whitefish and Lake Trout were abundant, but the herring fishery eventually produced the biggest yield and profits. During the peak of the herring run school children would skip classes and housewives would abandon their kitchens to help in the herring sheds that lined the water. On a single day in 1941, 14 boats brought on 141,685 pounds, prompting a newspaper to declare: “Herring Run Smashes Records.”
Even a horn of plenty can be fished out, though, and today only one commercial fishing company can be found in Cornucopia. Still, the carcasses of old fishing boats sit on the water’s edge in the community park, posing for tourist photographs, and one boat, the Liberty (shown above), is currently undergoing restoration. Master boat builder Thomas Jones Sr. built the Liberty in Cornucopia in 1934, when the industry was going great guns.
Cornucopia is most famously known as “Wisconsin’s Northernmost Post Office,” as a large sign above the post office entrance declares. If Cornucopia had a barber shop it would also be known as Wisconsin’s Northernmost Barber Shop but it doesn’t, so that claim goes to Oly’s barber shop in Bayfield, where northernmost barber shop T-shirts are available.
Sadly, the Cornucopia Yacht Club is no more. But when it was started in 1972 by a local resident named Roger O’Malley it was like few other yacht clubs. For one thing, candidates for membership were not required to own a boat. A question on the membership application asked,
“If you had a boat, what would you name it?” President Gerald Ford was said to have been a member – it isn’t known what he would have named his boat if he had one, though “The Betty” is a good bet – but the club ended in 1991.
Cornucopia is blessed with one of the great community names in Wisconsin, but even that wasn’t good enough for its residents in 1940 when, apparently hoping to boost Christmas tourism, they voted to re-name their village North Pole, Wis. Postal officials, obviously lacking a sense of humor, declined the change.
And that, my friends, is not a Corny joke.
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