In 1880, melting snow and spring rain abruptly filled the Chippewa River to a level 17 feet above normal. An avalanche of logs stored along its banks swept down river, taking out dams, bridges, and waterfronts.

In Eau Claire, a merchant whose store backed onto the river rushed in to save his stock. Horrified witnesses saw the store "break away almost without warning and sink into the river." The shopkeeper was "carried away down the river in the floating building. Drawn by the current to the center of the stream, the structure drifted rapidly down to the bridge where it was dashed to pieces."

The storekeeper's body was never found, but some the store's goods turned up decades later during excavations at the bridge.

Four years later, 14 inches of rain drenched northwestern Wisconsin in just 24 hours, again sending the Chippewa over its banks.

This time, 400 million board feet of lumber were swept downstream, stripping away 20 bridges and wiping out dams, mills and docks. Forty-foot trees were ripped from their roots onshore.

A Chippewa Falls mother stood in the raging water for three hours holding her baby over her head. Nearly 200 homes were destroyed. One house drifted 12 miles before the children trapped in it could be rescued. A barn with several horses and a cow floated alongside it and beached nearby.

When the water finally subsided, more than $360 million in damage, in today's dollars, had been caused.

- Wisconsin Historical Society www.wisconsinhistory.org

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