USA > Wisconsin > Eau Claire County > History of Eau Claire county, Wisconsin, past and present; including an account of the cities, towns and villages of the county > Part 42
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This college was the first to risk its fortunes with the promis- ing and ambitious little city of Ean Claire twenty-seven years ago. With the city it has grown, doing its share toward making it the attractive educational and business marte which it has become-the gate city of the great Chippewa valley and the largest and most important city of western Wisconsin.
Located fortunately, opposite the new postoffice, on South Barstow street, and in its own fine brick building, the college building challenges the attention of all who pass, and its ele- gantly furnished and well-equipped lecture rooms and commercial halls proffer a welcome to all visitors and to all who seek to make substantial preparations for a business career.
The rapid expansion in business the last twenty years incident to the unparalleled development of the western and northwestern portion of the United States has completely changed the busi- ness ideals of the vast majority of men. Strenuous competition
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has evolved new methods of business and ereeted other stand- ards of doing business, and the essentials for an education have concurrently grown.
To meet this change, the Eau Claire Business College has kept in close touch with the progress of the years, advancing steadily its standards that those who received their business training within its walls might go out and reap the richest reward offered to intellectual toil.
Having this policy as its guiding star, nothing obsolete nor antiquated prevails in its lecture rooms. Its methods of instruc- tion belong to this day and the most capable teachers are en- gaged to amplify those methods.
Its textbooks are modern and conform to the highest stand- ards; its commercial curriculum has taken on the best approved methods of accounting, and its normal instruction is equal to the best, whether given in high school, normal school or university.
This school may rightly claim a proud place among those edu- cational forces which are making Eau Claire a city educationally equal to any in the Northwest. Its thousands of graduates are now in business or in the offices of business firms, graciously extending the influences of the institution among the expanding communities of this wide West.
Upon investigation, it has developed that the Eau Claire Busi- ness College sustains a curriculum and a staff of teachers far in advance of any other college of its kind in this state. It aspires to prepare young men and young women for business. It holds that to simply make them accountants or stenographers is to but half prepare them for the exalted demands of this business age. So it carefully prepares them in all those subjects which are called into requisition by the accountant, the stenographer, the business manager, the director in corporations, a member of the civil service and the leader in society.
This standard which the Eau Claire Business College sets for itself places it in a elass of its own.
Nor does it allow its superior standards of education to shut out those who seek to improve themselves-even a little. It wel- comes those who, having had few educational opportunities, and having small means, would improve their condition, and it, by special personal instruction, helps them to a better conception of the world of affairs.
In a word, this institution seeks to lend a helping hand to everyone who comes within its walls. Its faculty, every member of which is a university trained teacher, is imbued with the
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idea of service-service that uplifts physically, morally and intel- lectually. It places its arms around the boys and girls who are entrusted to its care and protects them while it educates them. Good homes are provided for them, their conduct and company are carefully observed, and those influences that uplift are thrown around them.
During the college year just past, for the purpose of giving a wider margin to the students' intellectual vision, a course of lectures has been provided, to be given by prominent educators and leading business men. These were delivered before the whole school.
Thus it will be seen that the welfare of the student body is uppermost in the minds of the faculty.
As conducted, this college takes rank with the most advanced schools of the state. And the best word that can be said for it is that, commendable and substantial as has been its progress, its program calls for larger trinmphs in its chosen field.
HUNT'S BUSINESS COLLEGE.
Eau Claire can now boast of having a live, modern, up-to-date business school, known as Hunt's Business College, now perma- nently located in the Gas building in the quarters formerly occu- pied by the Eau Claire Commercial College. Professor D. L. Hunt is at the head of the institution. He is owner and business man- ager, also the principal of the department of penmanship and bookkeeping. This gives to the college a prestige that is at once a prophecy and guarantee of abundant success, and insures to the people of this locality a first-class business school for which there has long been a popular demand. Eau Claire is a central point and an ideal location for such a school. It is only at a central point like this that such a school can be maintained, and, besides, no other school can have a Professor D. L. Ilunt to put at its head to bring to it the prestige necessary to its success.
For several years Professor Hunt has been a well-known pro- moter of business college work in Eau Claire. In 1907 he ae- cepted a call to the position of professor of penmanship in the Eau Claire Business College. In a very short time, however, his ability not only as a teacher, but as a business manager became apparent and he was promoted to the position of prin- cipal of the business department of the school. He was able to greatly strengthen the school by bringing to it a largely increased
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patronage from students who desired to be under his tuition as teacher of penmanship and bookkeeping. His fame as a penman and teacher spread rapidly over the entire field. He has mar- velous skill as a penman, but his ability and skill as a teacher is no less marvelous, for he has the rare gift of being able to impart to others a generous measure of the skill that has made him so famous. It is oue thing to be a penman and another to be able to teach the art to others. An expert penman who is a poor bookkeeper finds no demand for his skill no more than there is for the man who is a good bookkeeper and a poor pen- man. The two things go together, penmanship and bookkeeping, and as Mr. Hunt combines the two in his method of teaching, his great success as a teacher is accounted for. His success has made him famous all over the country, and his graduates are in demand at good salaries by business men. Indeed, the demand is so great for Professor Hunt's student graduates that he is able to supply only some of the larger offices where skill is absolutely demanded, and even then the demand is something like six months ahead of the supply. This is one reason why prospective students will have no other teacher, and it follows as a reason why students are so loyally flocking to his school.
The writer of this article in a talk with Mr. Hunt just pre- vious to his writing it learned as a matter of fact that the start- ing of this school was practically forced on him. Early in Janu- ary of this year the Eau Claire Business College purchased the good will and fixtures of the Eau Claire Commercial College. Professor Hunt had been the principal of the business department of this school since 1912, albeit during the first year the school was known as the Union College. When, however, the transfer was made to the Eau Claire Business College some fifty or more of the students mutinied and refused to be transferred. Many or most of them had matriculated with the Commercial College because of their desire to be under Professor Hunt's teaching. The rebellious students flocked around Professor Hunt and urged and petitioned him to open a business college of his own, offering to go with him in a body. They pointed out to him that there was a moral obligation imposed on him to teach them to the end of the term inasmuch as it was at his solicitation they joined the school. After careful deliberation Mr. Hunt finally con- sented to accept the burden thus imposed on him and some fifty or more of the students followed him to temporary quarters where an organization was effected and Hunt's Business College was born. The temporary quarters lacked the conveniences and
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comforts of the quarters they had forsaken but they bore the hardships cheerfully until their present quarters were available.
The present home of the school is now fitted up with all fix- tures and accessories necessary to make a perfect schoolroom adapted to the purposes intended. The schoolroom is splendidly lighted, well ventilated and with modern equipments adapted to the comfort and convenience of the students, the school is on the highway to great prosperity.
Professor Hunt came to Ean Claire with a big reputation back of him. Ile certainly stands at the head of his profession. Ile is not only one of the best penmen of the country but there are those who lay the broad claim that he is the best penman in the world today, and an examination of his work makes it easy for one to believe that this is true. Even as a small lad back in Indiana where he was born, he was known as the boy prodigy in using the pen. As a child he attracted the attention of penmen all over the country. But not satisfied with the natural skill that was born in him, his love of the art led him to use every available educational advantage that would contribute to per- fecting him in the art. Ile began his career as a teacher when but seventeen years of age and he frankly acknowledges that in teaching others he has himself learned more than he taught his pupils. He has not yet ceased to study and learn, but is pro- gressive, becoming more efficient as the years go by, though it is hard to understand how he can make any further advancement, for to ordinary observers he appears to have reached a point where there is nothing more for him to learn. He has now given a quarter of a century of the best years of his life to teach- ing penmanship and bookkeeping as well as the various branches that go with them. He has always had a passion for the West. and at an early period in his career his migratory instincts led him to go west. His westward movements began in 1888 when he visited Hutchinson, Kans., where he spent a year and then spent another year teaching in Topeka. It was while he was at Topeka he took first prize at the state fair for pen work in competition with all the best penmen of the state. He then accepted a call to the position of principal of penmanship and bookkeeping with Depue & Aydelotte's Business College and Normal School. Here again his ability as a penman was shown by his taking first prize at the state fair for the best collection of pen work in the state. His great ability as penman and teacher attracted the attention of the management of Heald's Business College at San Francisco where he succeeded Professor
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Fielding Schofield as penman and teacher. He remained with this school for three years and during the time acquired the title of Hunt, the Budget Man, by his introducing the budget system of bookkeeping. This system won great popularity on the Pa- cifie coast as indeed it has wherever it has been introduced, and it might be added here that it is taught here in Eau Claire in Professor Hunt's College. From this school he went to Norris- town, Pa., where he was offered and accepted a position as prin- cipal in the penmanship department of Schlissler's College of Business, where the budget system of bookkeeping was again introduced and taught by Professor Hunt as a special feature, and was very popular.
But the professor's migratory instincts kept drawing him again toward the West, and we find him next at Oklahoma City, where he acquired the ownership of the business college there which he developed into a great success. After three years at Oklahoma City he sold his college that he might give his time to some business interests that demanded attention. Early in his career he began to understand that it was the dollar saved and not the dollar earned that enriches, so he early began to save and invest his earnings, and his outside business now demanded more attention than he could spare from his school work, so for a time he gave up teaching and made a success of his business the same as he had made with teaching, but the love of his professional work led him to answer the demands made on him as a teacher which had become so insistent that he could not ignore them, and in 1904 we find him again in the harness. He accepted a position with the business college at Wichita, Kans., a school that for a long time had been seeking to have the professor on its teaching staff, not only because they desired a good teacher, but rather for the prestige he would bring to the school, for long ere this he had a national reputation. He did good work for this school for he greatly improved the pen work of the college and also in- trodueed the budget system of bookkeeping, which was popular, as it was wherever taught. Soon after leaving this school he came to Eau Claire.
It may not be out of place to mention here that while yet a young man he was called to the position of penmanship teacher in the Gem City Business College, of Quincy, Ill., the largest and best school of its kind in the world, a school that would have none but the best teachers obtainable at any price. It might also be added that while filling his engagement with this school he took the opportunity for taking a post-graduate course
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in bookkeeping, not because he particularly needed the course, but rather to perfect himself in that branch of this work. While he has been a teacher he has also always been a learner, and he will be a seeker for knowledge in the line of his profession as long as he lives.
The brief history of Professor Hunt's career as penman and teacher is summed up by saying that he has a quarter of a cen- tury of experience during which time he has given to his work all of the best there is in him to fit young men and women for life's battles with the world. He has had great success, not only because of his skill, but also because of his unfailing esti- mate of the human nature he deals with. He adapts his teaching to the nature of the man. Herein lies the secret of his success. He is hunan and he deals with his students as human beings worthy of the best he can give them. His students love the man because he is human. He wins his way into their confidence and is able to get out of them intellectually all there is in them.
The writer has given this much of Professor Hunt's history. A sketch of his career is a history of business college work, for he is Hunt's Business College, a school that takes high rank from the very start because he is at its head. Without him it would lapse into medioerity and in the business world there is no de- mand for the young man of medioere attainments.
STENOGRAPHY AND TYPEWRITING.
Hunt's Business College has the best teachers in the depart- ment of stenography and typewriting. The young man or woman who has a thorough knowledge of penmanship and bookkeeping can always find a job, but with stenography and typewriting added to these, there is scarcely any limit to the salary he or she is able to command. The slogan of the school is thorough- ness and perfection in every department. Hunt's Business Col- lege is seeking to graduate men and women who are ambitious and who desire to be at the top. Perfection in every detail is the rule. Trifles make perfection, but perfection is no trifle. Any school will do for those who merely wish to earn their bread and butter, but this school with high ideals, with great ambitions, is equipped to do things and to teach young men and women who want to do big things in the world of business.
CHAPTER XXVI.
FLOODS.
By MISS A. E. KIDDER.
A destructive flood occurred in 1856 on the Chippewa river. Ice, logs and drift wood came down in such force that booms, piers and all other obstructions were carried away and many thousand logs were deposited on the Island of the Mississippi. Another similar visitation came on the morning of August 22, 1870, when it began raining simultaneously along the whole length of the Chippewa and continued many hours. The stream rose until it reached fifteen feet above its ordinary level. Over twenty million logs were lost, the greatest sufferers being the mill and boom owners in and near the city, and lower down the river. Still another disaster was the rising of the waters in 1880. Heavy rains had swollen all the tributaries of the two rivers, and on June 12 the Chippewa rose 22 feet, sweeping through the lower part of the city with destructive force. Many streets were navigated by boats to give aid to the occupants of houses and stores. Logs came down in enormous quantities and were carried over the banks in all directions, thousands being left when the river reeeded in great distances from the regular channel. Buildings were washed from their foundations and their contents were swept away by the torrent. The Grand ave- nue bridge and one other were wrecked and the total loss ex- ceeded $100,000. Still heavier was the catastrophe of September, 1884. The river began to rise on the ninth of that month and on the following morning had risen from two to eleven feet, and continued until it reached the extraordinary height of 27 feet above low water mark at 11 o'clock on Thursday morning, ex- ceeding the rise of 1880 by five feet. Between 3 and 4 o'clock of that day the floating logs, lumber and masses of timber erashed against the bridges until, at 3:30 a raft of lumber from the Dells mills struck and carried away the east section of the Madison street bridge. This disjointed section was impelled with over- whelming force against the Chicago, Milwaukee & St. Paul Val- ley Division Railway bridge, destroying it instantly. Grand
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avenue bridge was next swept away, followed by Water street bridge, the lower Chicago, Milwaukee & St. Paul bridge and the Shawtown wagon bridge. All bridges across the Chippewa at this point were destroyed except that of the Chicago, St. Paul, Minneapolis & Omaha Railroad, and the C., M. & St. P. bridge above the Dells. The latter was carried away on the following day, mingled with masses of debris, timber, houses, furniture, carcasses of animals and a heavy run of logs from the booms above. The damage to property within the city limits was esti- mated at $500,000, and in the valley at $1,500,000. All the city bridges were immediately rebuilt. The cause of the flood was the giving way of the Little Falls dam, some forty miles up the river, and perhaps accelerated by the giving way of a dam on Duncan creek at Bloomer, in Chippewa county.
CHAPTER XXVII.
CITY PARKS.
By
MISS A. E. KIDDER.
Eau Claire has four hundred and fifty acres of land set aside for the use of its citizens for purposes of recreation and the enjoy- ment of natural beauty. Most of these parks are due to the generosity of early settlers who, acquiring wealth in the lumber business, did not fail to consider the needs of their own town in the distribution of their abundance. Putnam Park, in the south- ern part of the city, and east of an abrupt bend of the Chippewa to the westward, consists of two hundred acres, including a line of thickly wooded hills whose top spreads out into a wide stretch of well tilled farms. Its use is free to all; it can be reached by trolley from any part of the city, and once within its sylvan depths yon can hardly believe yourself so near a bustling world of labor. On either side of a well kept drive is a forest contain- ing over thirty varieties of trees and twenty species of ferns. Four kinds of oak, elms, willow, beech, white and yellow birch, iron wood, basswood, a grove of tamarack or black larch, many varieties of fir are at home here, and other trees only to be fully appreciated by the true forester. Among the rich profusion of ferns is one rarely seen in this country, the Regalis Esmondi or Royal Fern, named, it is said, for one King Esmond, who hid from enemies in a thicket of this species, but was killed there. The Cinnamon fern and the Walking fern are also found here, and several orchids, the Habenaria, Arethusa, Indian Pipe, masses of Celandine, Cypripedinm, Spectabilo, Elecampane, Sarsaparilla, Thoroughwort and Ginseng. Along the lower drive and under it are springs of pure soft water issuing from the sand rock, and so abundant is this supply that within one-half a mile the gath- ered volume therefrom would supply a city of one hundred thou- sand people. Many years ago the owner of this land, the Hon. Henry C. Putnam, stocked the streams with ten thousand brook trout and took measures to preserve the park and drives in unspoiled beauty, "a bit of nature," close to the city. The upper drive on top of the bluff is over three miles in extent, the lower
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one two and one-half. The birds of this latitude are entirely at home in these woods, and may be studied at close range. The mourning dove, the cat bird with its uncanny change of note from delicious musie to fretful complaint, the scarlet tanager-a bit of flittering flame, the warbling vireo, thrushes, blue birds, cedar birds in social crowds, grosbeaks, all and more are in this forest. This park was given in memory of Henry C. Putnam by his children, Mrs. E. B. Hinckley, of Chicago, and Mr. E. B. Putnam, of Eau Claire, who promised to carry out his wishes and plans began during his long and aetive life in Eau Claire.
Carson Park is a beautiful island comprising one hundred and thirty-five acres in the center of Half Moon lake, stands twenty- five feet above the water and is covered with a fine grove of native trees. It formerly belonged to the Daniel Shaw Lumber Company, early founders of the village, but was lately purchased and given to the city by the five surviving children of the late William Carson as a memorial to their father, a pioneer lumber- man of the Chippewa Valley, and a man of unusual enterprise, sagacity and liberality. The lake is much used for boating, and the park will be one of the finest in the country.
Mt. Tom Park, twenty-five acres in extent, encircles a beautiful mound one hundred feet in height in the northern part of the city, with a winding road to the pavilions at the summit, from which is had a fine view of the Eau Claire river and the golf grounds of the Country Club. This park was a donation from William J. Starr, J. T. Barber, W. K. Coffin and other stock- holders of the Starr Lumber Company, the Northwestern Lumber Company and the Eau Claire National bank.
Gleason Park, also in the northern part of the city, is near Mt. Tom and of the same height, topped with a rock eighteen feet square and twenty feet high, which is a noticeable landmark. This park of twenty-five acres was deeded to the city by the Gleason Brothers of Rock Ledge, Florida, as a memorial to their father, Gov. Charles R. Gleason, of Florida, formerly a pioneer of Eau Claire.
Wilson Park, near the postoffice, was given to the city as "Court House Square" at an early period by the Eau Claire Lumber Company. When the new court house was erected on the west side on grounds donated by Hon. O. H. Ingram, the tem- porary buildings were removed and the place called Wilson Park, in honor of an esteemed early citizen whose energy did much to lay the foundation of prosperity in the young city.
Randall Park, five acres in the center of the west side, was
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deeded to the eity in August, 1856, by Adin Randall, a pioneer who gave liberally of his lands, labor and interests toward the development of the little village, but who died at the early age of thirty-seven years, too soon to witness the most rapid move- ment in the course of the race, but not before the town might be sure of victory.
Boyd Park, given to the city in 1914 by Robert K. Boyd and his wife, is another five-aere plat in the upper portion of the Seeond ward, which will become a garden and a resting place, as also University Park near it, and on the way to a golf links of the Country Club grounds. All these smaller parks are near the business eenter, and will be welcome oases to weary toilers on their way to and from labor.
Owen Park, or Riverside, is on the west bank of the Chip- pewa between Grand avenue and the bend in the river westward. It contains fifty acres of land, is graded and set out with many fine trees, and, being near the center of the city, will become a popular resort. It was the gift of John S. Owen, one of Eau Claire's most loyal eitizens, and is the latest addition to the ehain which, with our well shaded streets and wide boulevards, will form a suitable and harmonious environment for a prosperous city like this one.
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