Hayward Live Cam

The history of the Hayward Lakes area should be simple. Counties in England for example have written and oral histories that go back a thousand years while here in Sawyer County we have only two hundred years of written history to study. That apparent simplicity is deceiving.

This week I received a copy of a document from my neighbors, the Mike Martin family. It is the history of the Amish settlement of Sawyer County and adjacent Rusk County. The first settlers came here from North Dakota in 1909. They settled near Weirgor and Glen Flora. Eli J. Bontrager and several others were charmed by the country and the climate. At the same time Gideon Hochstetler and his son-in-law Jacob R. Miller settled seven miles south of Radisson. It was within a couple of years that other members of their families joined the growing colony which grew to thirty-two Ameishmen and their families. The settlers came from Iowa, Montana, Indiana, Colorado, Kansas and Oklahoma.