There were heavy jack pine and hundreds of cords were cut for wood.  The corded wood was four feet long, which was hauled into town.  They received one dollar and a half a cord for delivering this kind of wood.

They didn't have roads as we have now.  It was a long trail through the woods back of the school down the river bank back of Phill Howes.

David Jackson and Sond Merchantile hired children to pick blueberries with a lady to watch over them.  These berries were taken into Augusta three or four times a week with a wagon and horses.  They hauled twenty to thirty bushels of blueberries every other day in a wagon box.  Each crate held a bushel with a cover top to keep the berries from bounding out.  The pickers received four to five cents a quart.  These berries were shipped by the merchantile to the cities.

The Troubled Water Bridge was built in 1902 to 1905.  At that time the bridge was as great as Boulder Dam is to us now.

Peter Lunderville lived on the other side of the bridge.  In order to get across he had to ford the river where the bridge now stands.  Many people went across in this way at that time.

This being a river with many stones caused rapids in the river.  That's where it received the name of "Troubled Waters".  The rocks were dynamited out so the logs could go down the river.

Saw Mill

Where Eau Claire Lake is now, there was a river with a logging camp.  Back of Kuhns barn was the saw mill, and after the logging business had stopped this mill was moved.

Lake Eau Claire

About 1935, the county started buying the land where Eau Claire Lake is now.  When the dam was built and the land was flooded it attracted many people to build cottages there.  The lake was stocked with fish by the conservation.

School

The district of Troubled Waters No. 7 can celebrate its sixty-fifth birthday July 23, 1948.  On July 23, 1883, a deed was made out to buy one acre of land from the Saint Paul, Minneapolis and Omaha Railway Company, in the town of Bridge Creek District # 7.

This one acre is located in the east quarter of the southwest quarter of section 11 of township 26 north, range 6 west.  The school grounds is sixteen rods north and south and ten rods east and west.  Before the school house was built there was a log house standing east of the present one.

During the year 1891, Wm. Schmidt came to this district from Germany, being thirty-one years old at the time he came.  He is near ninety years old now (1949).  He still enjoys fishing and rowing his boat.  After eight years of living in this community he was elected clerk for the term of three years.  He is still living on the farm with his son Edgar.

During the year of 1901 a special meeting of District No. 7 was called to order by Wm. Schmidt at 8 o'clock.  Albert Wagner was chairman.  They voted to make a loan for the purpose of building a schoolhouse.  The loan was made for the amount of five hundred and fifty dollars.

The school board resolved not to pay over twenty-eight dollars per month for a teacher and to have three and one half months for a fall term and three and one half months for a spring term.  Phil Howe was elected chairman in 1902.  The job to clean the schoolhouse was let out to Archie Howe for one dollar and seventy-five cents.  All money that was paid out in the year of 1902 was $219.00.

The district was to furnish free textbooks.  The new schoolhouse was to be built on the northwest side of the lot as near as possible to the old one.  G. G. Page was clerk at this time.  Bids were made on the school building.  P. Fetter was low bidder at a cost of $615.00, G. Hilts bid $700.  The contractor agreed to build and complete the school by Oct. 15, 1902.  The toilets were build and lumber furnished for the sum of twenty dollars.  The Victory Merchantile Co. received $2.85 for eight windows and $2.25 for the curtains.  The clerks fees were around four dollars.

This is a record of the teachers since 1891.  The first teacher up to the 1902 teacher taught in a log school house.  Wages were around 25 to 30 dollars per month.