Loading map...

1944 Map of Moquah

Name: 1944 Topographic Map of Moquah
Creator: U.S. Geological Survey
Published: 1956
License: https://creativecommons.org/publicdomain/mark/1.0/

USGS Topo · Published 1956

About this map

The Moquah Fire Tower and Washburn Fire Tower stand as sentinels over this 1944 landscape in Bayfield County, where the transition from intensive logging to national forest management is clearly etched into the terrain. The region is defined by a dense network of abandoned transportation corridors, most notably the numerous segments of Old RR Grade that wind through townships like Pilsen and Barksdale. These grades once fed the region's timber industry and now connect scattered outposts like the Brinks Ranger Sta.

Settlement patterns follow the active rail lines and highways in the southern portion of the map, where the Northern Pacific and Chicago and North Western railroads support communities like Moquah, Ino, and Benoit. Small rural schoolhouses, including Gednota Sch and Eileen Sch, dot the countryside near the Fish Creek drainage, providing a record of the mid-century social geography of northern Wisconsin.