The Christmas Seal: US and Polk County Origins

Christmas Seals

It was December 9, 1907, when a woman in a Red Cross uniform, sat at a table in the Wilmington, Delaware post office to sell envelopes stating the following:

25 Christmas Stamps

One penny apiece

Issued by the Delaware Red Cross to Stamp Out the White Plague

Put this stamp, with message bright, on every Christmas Letter; help the tuberculosis fight, and make the new year better.

These stamps do not carry any kind of mail, but any kind of mail will carry them.

The idea to sell stamps to raise awareness of the plight of tuberculosis patients was discovered in a magazine story read by Miss Elizabeth Bissell, Secretary of the Delaware Red Cross. Bissell read about the enormous success the people of Denmark had in raising funds, which prompted her to take a similar action.

Within a few weeks, the Christmas Stamp of 1907 was a roaring success. Selling nearly 80,000 copies, they made over $3,000 and immediately set to work on a 1908 stamp.  In 1908, the year of their first nationwide sale, the group raked in $135,000. By 1916, they had their first million-dollar year and by 1941, the total sold was $114,000,000.

Tuberculosis has been around likely since before the written word. It wasn’t until 1882 that the cause of tuberculosis was discovered by Robert Koch. When Wilhelm Roentgen created the x-ray in 1885, evidence of tuberculosis could be seen without an autopsy. A considerable amount of the Christmas Seal funds were spent on x-ray chest pictures for high school and college students and various adult groups. Early discovery, as it was deemed, was the best way to quickly stop its spread.

From folk cures and incantations to scientific methods, it was finally determined in the 1840s and 1850s that fresh air and rest were the two best ways to combat the disease. By 1904, a group of physicians had gotten together and formed the National Tuberculosis Association, dedicated to eradicating the deadly disease. Unfortunately, they couldn’t raise enough public awareness, and funds, to conduct their research. That’s when the Christmas Seal stamp popped up.

Stamps like the Christmas Seal were used to varying levels of success as early at the 1860s. In 1863, stamps were created to help improve Union camp conditions during the Civil War. In 1897, New South Wales issued a stamp to aid a “Consumptive Home” and in 1904, a Danish postal clerk created and sold his own Christmas Seal, selling more than 4,000,000 stamps to benefit children with tuberculosis in Denmark and continuing through 1907 when Elizabeth Bissell read about it in a magazine.

In 1910, the National Tuberculosis Association and the Red Cross formed a partnership. The Red Cross would sponsor the Christmas Seal production and sales, and the National Tuberculosis Association would distribute the funds to where they would do the most good. This would often be under one of four general heads: Education, Case-finding and Treatment, Rehabilitation, and Administration. With funding coming from everyday people all the way up to government entities, it’s no wonder these campaigns raised such incredible funds, and saved the lives of millions of people.

Polk County Health Seals

In a similar fashion, county health departments created their own seals that could be sold during the Christmas season and the funding would help with county public health

needs. The Polk County Health Seals were designed by students at Polk County Schools as early as the 1951–1952 school year and running through at least 1978. The seal, which is distributed and sold shortly before each Christmas season, is a seal to be used throughout the entire year. This is the reason the seal carries the date for the year following its distribution and sale.

To encourage participation and interest in designing the seal, a poster contest was open to all students in 6th, 7th, and 8th grade at Polk County Schools. It was sponsored by the Polk County Health Council. Each school district was invited to enter their best six posters, and judges would be selected to choose the three winners from all the county's entries. The Polk County Health Council awarded steadily increasing prize money to winners with $25.00 to the first-place winner, $15.00 to the second-place winner, and $10.00 for the third-place winner in 1975. This is equivalent to $155.00, $93.00, and $62.00 in today’s currency. The first-place winner would also receive the honor of having their seal design used on the health seals throughout Polk County.

Sales of health seals averaged $1,300.00 throughout each year, which is equivalent to $8,400 in today’s currency.

Winners over the years include:

·         1952: Carroll Klockeman (Alec A. Johnson School)

·         1953: Carroll Klockeman (Alec A. Johnson School)

·         1954: Renie Peach (Milltown School)

·         1955: Gerale Roe (Balsam Lake School)

·         1956: Sarah Hellerud (Milltown School)

·         1957: Valdis Vavere (Milltown School)

·         1958: Gary Knerr (Amery School)

·         1959: Gloria Floreen (Balsam Lake School)

·         1960: John Nielsen (Centuria School)

·         1961: Marsha Grant (Balsam Lake School)

·         1962: Mary Jensen (Luck School)

·         1963: Billy Nichols (Milltown School)

·         1964: Pam Boughton (St. Croix Falls School)

·         1965: Dick Soderburg (Dresser School)

·         1966: Diana Cruthers (Oak Hill School – Luck)

·         1967: Kay Friberg (Frederic School)

·         1968: Sherri Anderson (Frederic School)

·         1969: Sandra Wilson (Frederic School)

·         1970: Mona Hochstetter (Frederic School)

·         1971: Karen Java (Frederic School)

·         1972: Susan Hansen (Amery School)

·         1973: Robert Janis (Amery School)

·         1974: Barbara Bieniasz (Amery School)

·         1975: Judy Fox (Osceola School)

·         1976: Cheryl Peterson (Amery School)

·         1977: Lisa Lundeen (Frederic School)

·         1978: Jeff Rutcosky (Amery School)

Sources:

Hodges, Leigh M. 1942. The People Against Tuberculosis: The Story of the Christmas Seal. National Tuberculosis Association.

Polk County Department of Public Health. 1975.

Camp Milltown: Polk County's POW Camp

During World War II, the British took German prisoners of war (POWs) and began sending them to various locations in the 1940s. By 1943, they began running out of places to send their POWs and turned to the United States for assistance. The United States saw an opportunity to gain some workers at home and nearly 500 camps were established across the country. Nearly 400,000 German POWs were sent to camps in Georgia, Alabama, Colorado, and Wisconsin, among others.

Betty Cowley’s book “Stalag Wisconsin: Inside WWII prisoner-of-war camps” (2002) describes Camp Milltown, which was in operation between 1944 and 1945. During this time, the camp and its 180 Nazi prisoners of war were largely ignored by the press and the locals.

During their first season, the POWs used barracks at the Stokeley Plant property and tents across Highway 35 for their sleeping quarters. From here, they walked across the road to the Milltown plant or were transported to work sites at nearby canning factories and farms as needed. These POWs stayed for a season before being moved to Michigan to continue their work (Cowley, 2002).

By 1945, the POW numbers sent to Camp Milltown doubled to approximately 325 for work. A tent-city was erected to house the additional prisoners at the east end of Milltown Park near the baseball field. The prison camp closed in October 1945, wherein the prisoners tore down their tents and moved out (Cowley, 2002).

Newspaper article from July 5, 1945

From the combined work at the Friday Canning Factory in New Richmond, the Stokeley Foods plants at Frederic and Milltown, the Lakeside Packing Company at Amery, and the Hy-Dry Food Products in Centuria, the prisoners earned a total of $88,970 for the U.S. Government (Cowley, 2002).

POW Labor Summary article, October 10, 1945

Americans grew upset with the relatively easy treatment of the German POWs, particularly when Americans were dying overseas, and Americans were going hungry at home. This led to increasing attacks of POWs and destruction of POW camps or property.

After the war ended, POWs were required to stay in the United States for at least one year. They were forced to watch films of concentration camps and were educated on democracy before they returned home.

Local Wisconsinites recalled their experiences with the POWs in the Camp Milltown area. Most remembrances were positive with folks reminiscing of the POWs who were grateful for the food and the kindness of the locals.

Nevers Dam

The St. Croix River has a long and storied history. From Native Americans who lived and traveled on the river, to the trappers and traders passing through, and the loggers and settlers that followed. As lumbermen discovered more of this area of Wisconsin for their sawmills, the river soon became the main transportation for the hewn timber. As more and more logging companies used the river, it soon became a hazard for boats on the river and for lumber companies in Stillwater to verify the millions of feet of logs that were floated downriver. This also became a regular scene for some amazing log jams. These jams would not only stop the work at the sawmills, but they would endanger the lives of the loggers on the river and oftentimes would halt river traffic completely. Massive log jams sealed off the river in 1865, 1877, 1883, and 1886 causing not only headaches but also, more importantly to the lumbermen, a loss of profit. It was finally decided that the river needed a dam to regulate the flow of logs and the level of water on the river.

The Nevers Dam, rumored to be the largest pile-driven dam in the world at one time, was built in 1890 and was used to control the large flow of logs that came down the St. Croix River from the logging camps up north down to the sawmills in Stillwater. Costing over $200,000, much of the dam was built by hand with little help from steam powered equipment. It was used heavily for only a short period of time, until 1912-1913, but was not demolished until 1955 after spring floodwaters severely damaged its integrity. The dam structure had previously withstood a 70-foot crest of the river in 1950, which was an all-time high.

There were an average of 30 people working at the dam during the logging heyday. This includes workers who blasted ice flows apart in winter, worked at the sawmill, sluiced the logs through and downriver, and, of course, the cooks.

Nevers Dam also held some unique features, including an electric light (or rather a generator powered carbon light) system installed in 1889, which allowed work to continue around the clock. This was such a new invention that people drove from miles away to see the lights. It also held a specially designed 80-foot-long submerged gate, called the “Lang gate” that would sluice large numbers of logs through. It could handle approximately 4,000,000 feet of logs per hour, a huge sum at the time!

Other highlights during construction of the dam described in the St. Croix Valley Standard newspaper include:

• “Mr. Thomas Wright is kept very busy now, cooking for 285 men”

• “Mr. Register claims that the party who substituted potatoes for his apples did not fool him very badly”

• “Mr. Carrigan claims that dry hard wood placed in a bed does not add to the heat of the room”

• “A human skeleton was unearthed at the gravel pit on the east side of the river. It is supposed to be the bones of an Indian, as there once was a trading post at this place”

• “Isaac Register received quite a serious injury last Friday by a heavy timber falling on him, but he is now up and around again”

• “Guy Matthews received quite an electric shock on Monday evening, caused by the electric light wires crossing the cable used in hauling cars”

• “The boys have organized a society known as the Damville Codfish club. Sobriety and a knowledge of etiquette are among the numerous essential qualifications for membership”

The men involved in the construction of the dam appeared to be a close-knit fun-loving group of fellows as evidenced by many of the above story clips. This is likely due to the dangerous nature of their work. In fact, the construction of the Nevers Dam was dangerous enough that two men lost their lives. Andrew Anderson died by falling in a mass of gravel and Wm. Webb fell into the water while painting a gate and was dragged into the undercurrent at the foot of the dam.

Eventually the Northern States Power Company acquired the dam and used it for a couple decades to control stream flow and regulate power production at the Taylors Falls hydroelectric plant. Eventually the Army Corps of Engineers ordered the dam remain open and the stream should be regulated from June through October. As the dam did not serve any commercial or environmental purpose, not to mention the damage it received from flooding in the 1950s, it was deemed too hazardous and was removed.

Source:

Vezina, R. 1975. Nevers Dam...the Lumbermen’s Dam. Standard Press.