Beef Slough Historic Marker
Gallery
img
Beef Slough Historic Marker
 
Details
Attraction
Location
Body of Water: Mississippi River
Trail Name: Inland Waterways
Year Built: 1976
Nearest Address: State Hwy 35
Nearest City: Alma
County: Buffalo
Zip Code: 54610
Latitude: N 44°21.60120'
Longitude: W -091°56.47860'
Attraction
Features
Open to public?: Yes
Mooring buoy?: No
Mooring buoy in place?: No
Snorkelable?: No
Dive guide?: No
Trails sign?: No
National Register?: No
Attraction
Description
The Beef Slough was a sluggish branch of the Chippewa River that provided an excellent storage pond for the logs floated downstream by numerous logging companies. Here loggers were employed to arrange the mixed-up logs into orderly rafts to be towed by steamboats to sawmills down the Mississippi. The Chippewa Falls and Eau Claire sawmills felt threatened when the Beef Slough Manufacturing, Booming, Log Driving and Transportation Company was organized near here in 1867. Camp No. 1 built offices, a railroad depot, post office, church and dormitories to house 600 men during the rafting season. The competition between the Eau Claire and Beef Slough interests developed into a brief dispute in 1868, sometimes called the 'Beef Slough War.' The most important result of the 'war' was the arrival on the scene of Frederick Weyerhaeuser, whose Mississippi Logging Company brought skilled management and seemingly unlimited capital into the picture and changed the logging operations on the Chippewa from locally-operated activities into a major interstate industry.
 
Map
 
Nearby
Attractions (3)
Alma Historical Society Museum
Beef Slough Historic Marker
Mississippi Lock and Dam No. 4
© 2026 - Wisconsin Sea Grant, Wisconsin Historical Society