MidwestWeekends.com - Frontier historyhttp://www.midwestweekends.comen-us2008-11-20T21:38:46-06:00The first American Girlhttp://www.midwestweekends.com/plan_a_trip/family_friends/travel_with_kids/caddie_woodlawn.htmlMore than a decade before Laura Ingalls played on the banks of Plum Creek, and 70 years before the fictional Kit Kittredge solved mysteries in Ohio, a girl named Caroline "Caddie'' Woodhouse roamed the Wisconsin wilderness.

To many readers, Caddie was the first and best American Girl.

]]>Wed, 16 Jul 2008 00:00:00 -0500Posse on the prairiehttp://www.midwestweekends.com/plan_a_trip/history_heritage/frontier_history/madelia_jesse_james.htmlThe outlaws came out on the short end. Twice.

The Civil War ended more than a decade before the James-Younger Gang rode into Minnesota. But it was far from over in Missouri, devastated by guerrilla warfare and still simmering with resentment.

]]>Tue, 01 Jan 2008 00:00:00 -0600Little sod house on the prairiehttp://www.midwestweekends.com/plan_a_trip/history_heritage/frontier_history/sod_house.htmlSometimes, it comes as a shock to tourists, especially those who grew up watching the TV show "Little House on the Prairie,'' that life on the frontier wasn't all that fun.

Twenty miles east of Walnut Grove, Stan McCone tells it as it was. A farmer, he'd heard stories about the early sod houses. None remained, so he decided to build one of his own, using an old sod cutter.

]]>Tue, 01 Jan 2008 00:00:00 -0600Hayward's lumberjackshttp://www.midwestweekends.com/plan_a_trip/history_heritage/frontier_history/lumberjacks_hayward.htmlOne hundred years ago, the white-pine forests around Hayward were the domain of a special breed of man.

They were swampers, sawyers and skidders. They were deckers, chainers, undercutters and riverhogs. They were dwarfed by the colossal trees they had to wrestle out of the forest, and their lives hung on their own brawn, nerve and dumb luck.

]]>Tue, 01 Jan 2008 00:00:00 -0600Scenes from the fur tradehttp://www.midwestweekends.com/plan_a_trip/history_heritage/frontier_history/fur_trade.htmlLong before settlers plodded into the Upper Midwest, its rivers and forests were swarming with a more footloose kind of entrepreneur.

The Pilgrims still were getting a toehold on the eastern seaboard when Frenchman Jean Nicollet passed through the Straits of Mackinac on his way to Green Bay, returning to Montreal with news of a vast interior filled with fur-bearing animals.

]]>Tue, 01 Jan 2008 00:00:00 -0600Blasts from the pasthttp://www.midwestweekends.com/plan_a_trip/history_heritage/frontier_history/civil_war_wade_house.htmlThe forest was quiet and the afternoon still. Unnaturally still.

Fifteen Union Army infantry units were camped around wagons in a meadow, near artillery and cavalry. Along a split-rail fence, a drum-and-fife corps pounded drums and blew trumpets.

Gunners began to load their muskets. The cavalry got on pawing horses. Then a Union skirmish line marched down the meadow, followed by a tight column of infantrymen.

]]>Tue, 01 Jan 2008 00:00:00 -0600Grand Portagehttp://www.midwestweekends.com/plan_a_trip/history_heritage/frontier_history/grand_portage.htmlLong before Minnesota existed, Grand Portage was as familiar a name to many Europeans as George Washington.

As the American Revolution drew to a close in the East, traders at this Lake Superior outpost were busy minting the interior's first millionaires. It was the crossroads of a continent, the place where voyageurs laden with goods from Montreal met voyageurs laden with beaver pelts from the Canadian wilderness.

]]>Sun, 23 Jul 2006 00:00:00 -0500Fight clubhttp://www.midwestweekends.com/plan_a_trip/history_heritage/frontier_history/fight_club.htmlIt was a gorgeous fall day in southwest Wisconsin, and all we could see was heartache and misery.

"Welcome to Virginia 1862," read the sign at the gates of Norskedalen, where pioneer homesteads evoke the Civil War era.

Pushing open the door of a chinked-timber farmhouse, we encountered Nedda Blodgett, who was surprised to find strangers in her parlor but quickly welcomed us in a Southern drawl.

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