The winter of 1880-81 — not unlike like last winter — dumped as much as 10 feet of snow on southern Wisconsin. The next spring, the Wisconsin River breached its banks below Wisconsin Dells and flooded the headwaters of the Fox River in Columbia County.

The banks were not repaired, and the following year the Wisconsin roared through the gaps and flowed all the way to the Fox. Rain-swollen Fox tributaries added volume, and soon farms from Portage to Fond du Lac were submerged under as much as 5 feet of water. Lake Winnebago rose so high the wooden sidewalks of Oshkosh floated away.

Hundreds of homes and businesses were inundated, diphtheria broke out, and still the Fox continued to rise.

The floodwaters were being held back by a dam at Neenah. Oshkosh and Fond du Lac residents demanded that Neenah officials open it, but authorities further downriver in Appleton served an injunction stopping it. They were afraid releasing the pent-up flood would destroy their city.

After a fiery meeting in Oshkosh, a group of men headed downriver at midnight armed with guns and equipment to destroy the Neenah dam. Appleton officials had already gathered there, and the opposing parties met face-to-face.

Luckily, a few trained engineers were also on hand. They reassured the Appleton citizens, opened a sluiceway at Neenah and successfully eased the flood.

Mob violence was averted and the water levels, like the passions, gradually subsided.

— Wisconsin Historical Society
www.wisconsinhistory.org

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