>> When Glacial Lake Wisconsin drained during the last ice age, it left Juneau County with a patchwork of soil types and rock formations, with wetlands and sandy soils, covering much of the county. >> Parts of it have been called the soil is the most unfit for agriculture in the state of Wisconsin. >> Ironically, the less fertile land became a major attraction for the county. The town of Camp Douglas got its name, and its start, as a logging camp, supplying fuel for wood-burning railroads. Just north of Camp Douglas, the Wisconsin militia purchased a large piece of land for another kind of camp, a training ground that would become known as Camp Williams. >> Camp Williams was used for annual training encampments, usually a week or two weeks long. Every unit in the state would go there, either all at the same time, or staggered throughout the year. It's a centralized location in the state. It's also on a main rail line that goes through Wisconsin, so it was much easier for units from all parts of the state to get to that location. It was inexpensive land. It was land that was safe to conduct rifle training, with the large bluffs there. They would conduct rifle practice, basic tactics, just general military living, and all the customs, and courtesies, and protocol, and discipline with that. As the National Guard evolved, the facility evolved to meet the needs of the National Guard. >> After World War II, the Wisconsin National Guard outgrew Camp Williams, and moved most, but not all, of its operations down the road to Fort McCoy. At the same time, the newly-formed Wisconsin Air National Guard moved in to Camp Williams, building runways and other infrastructure for aviation training. And since then, the facilities have served the missions of both guard units. >> In the late 1950s, the Air Guard portion was renamed Volk Field in honor of Lt. Jerome Volk, who was a Wisconsin Air National Guardsman who was shot down during the Korean War. >> When Glacial Lake Wisconsin drained and carved out the formations of the Wisconsin Dells, it created a natural amphitheater at Stand Rock, where members of the Ho Chunk Nation performed ceremonial dances. >> 1917 or 1919, somewhere in that area, is when they had the first dances take place. At that time, it only ran for about two weeks. It was in 1929 that they started having the summer-long shows, where it'd start, usually the second week of June, and run through Labor Day. It was a nightly performance, seven days a week. It ran consecutively until 1999, so it had a long history. In its heyday, in the '50s and the '60s, the place was packed. Even up through the late '70s, early '90s, when I was operating it, the amphitheater was able to seat over 2000 people, and most nights we had a sold-out crowd. So it was one of the major attractions.
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>> In 1950, completion of two hydro-electric dams on the Wisconsin River flooded thousands of acres of the old glacial lake bed, creating the Petenwell and Castle Rock Flowages. The Wisconsin River Power Company completed the projects that began with buying up land in the 1930s. >> It's really not hard to buy it. Here were many people that were happy that somebody, anybody was willing to take this dirt poor land off their hands. >> My daughter and I, we made this map, then we came up with the overlay to show the people where their property was. As you can see, there's lots of property owners. >> I had an obsession with taking pictures out there. Every week, I'd go out there, and the water was coming in more and more. >> This is what is now flooded. This is all water, and it goes down through here and up, and it encased the Yellow River. This became the Buckhorn State Park. >> This is my mother. This my aunt from Chicago. This is my aunt from Wisconsin Dells. They called up and wanted to see the place for the last time. They couldn't believe it, because they were born there. We were lucky to get in and out that day. The next week, we went out there, and really, I don't know how we got out of there. >> They were built solely to hold water to act as reservoirs for the power plants. As time went by, though, it became obvious that oh, my gosh, there is how many miles of water frontage that could be developed here. Much of the frontage remains undeveloped. What has been developed, hasn't been developed until maybe the last 20 years or so. But it's been a tremendous economic boom to Juneau County. >> In the restored wetlands of the Necedah Wildlife Refuge, a project to reintroduce the whooping crane, brought international attention to Juneau County. >> That's a species that almost became extinct in the whole world. It was down to very few birds left. Here was a bird that had to be trained the migration route, to leave Wisconsin during the cold winter. So they were trained to follow the ultralight wherever it went. They followed it clear down to Florida. So, it captured both national and international attention. We had filming crews from all over, from Korea, Japan, Canada. They were coming to do their documentary of this project. The Necedah Refuge became what we call in the Fish and Wildlife Service, a Flagship Refuge, a refuge that stands out, that people come from other states just to see something in that refuge. It got us congressional support and also public support for a visitor center. That was kind of spin off of this project. Once that was created and built, you had interactive displays, video and media to watch. Then you have some adjoining nature trails with interpretive signs. At this point, people come here all day long in the refuge, and can spend enough hours that they need a restaurant and motel. So, at that point, there's so many things in Juneau County that they can go out and look for, different attractions. So, eco-tourism has expanded tremendously in this area. >> Juneau County's diverse landscape and its history mirror in many ways those of the state of Wisconsin. >> It has a logging history, just like Wisconsin. It has the agricultural history that Wisconsin has in that southern and western part of the county. It has those great marshes, just as wetlands of course covered a third of Wisconsin. It certainly has the railroad history that Wisconsin has. It had the dependence on resources to make a living that the rest of Wisconsin has. And so, it can be said that if you know the history of Juneau County, in many ways you know the history of the state of Wisconsin.
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