Meadowbrook was one of
the earlier settlements to develop because of logging in the area prior
to 1880. The Chippewa Falls Lumber interests finished cutting the
white pine in the forests about 1900. The topography of the locality
is level and a stream passes through a meadow barren of trees but overgrown
with a luxuriant growth of marsh grass. Because of this meadow, the
pioneers called the region "Meadowbrook", a name which has persisted through
the years.
The pioneer settlers
of this area were interested in farming and were a courageous and rugged
people. Farmland was improved slowly by the hard way -- manual labor
and horse or oxen power. The only tools and implements used by the
settlers were the saw, the axe, the plow, and the harrow. Pine stumps
are stubborn and tenacious, and are resistant to decay. The first
farmers were forced to grub them out of the soil with the aid of the power
of the horse and oxen. In later years, if the farm was prosperous,
he used an improvised stump puller powered by a team of horses. This
machine was of the windlass type consisting of a vertical barrel or drum
on which is wound a steel cable. A tongue or arm extends at right
angles to the axis of the drum to which the team is hitched. The
team travels in a circular path causing the cable to wind around the drum,
thereby pulling the stump and roots from the soil. Other less prosperous
farmers used the block and tackle which was less expensive and also less
cumbersome. Both machines have good mechanical advantage and are
labor saving and much faster.
One of the earliest
pioneer groups to settle in Sawyer County was the Amish settlement which
located in the vicinity of Nissleys Corners. This group is a Protestant
denomination which stands for nonresistance, simplicity of dress, abstinence
from accumulation of worldly goods, and restriction of marriage to members
of the group.
The Meadowbrook area
was a portion of the town of Weirgor until June 19, 1919, when the township
of Meadowbrook was established.
Elementary education
for the boys and girls of Meadowbrook was provided for in a new school
building constructed in 1919. Access to the school from all directions
was not possible, since only one road led to the school from the north.
Pupils from the southern part of the district were forced to walk across
open fields to school.
The location was impractical
and the electors in 1921 decided to build a school in a centrally located
site. The site selected was the location of the present school.
In later years a second room was added, and the school was converted from
a one-room rural school to a two-room state graded school, and was named
Brunet School.
Another school was
built about 1915 and was named the Riverside School. It was located
one half mile south of the Raynor Dantzman farm near the Brunet River,
and its operation was discontinued in 1946.
An influx of settlers
occurred in 1919 and soon a need was felt for a place of worship.
Because the majority of the population was Protestant, the Reverend Dale
of the Exeland Methodist Church was consulted, and he assisted in the organization
of the Brunet Methodist Church. The congregation purchased the original
schoolhouse, and on the afternoon of October 1, 1919, the first service
was held.
As the farm population
increased, and since transportation was slow and inconvenient, the need
was felt for the county fair to be held near population centers.
In 1920 the County Fair Committee authorized that a county fair be held
in the town of Meadowbrook. These activities were held each year
in the town hall and winners in the various exhibits entered their displays
at the county fair in Hayward and the fair held at Superior. The
fairs in Meadowbrook were discontinued with the fair of 1924.
As the highways improved
and automobiles became commonplace, people began to conduct their business
activities and seek recreation in larger communities. The shingle
and lath mill discontinued business and the millworkers moved away.
Meadowbrook is now an agricultural community with no mercantile or manufacturing
enterprises.
