It was a sunny, sweltering 90 degrees. I had landed in the west end of Omro, at a wooden boat ramp. From there it was a half-mile hike through downtown and then uphill to the Ramble Inn Motel*. I trudged along, but an air-conditioned Subway restaurant in mid-downtown, wafting the smell of fresh-baked bread, drew me off course. I parked the baidarka and stepped into the cool air to order lunch.
Still, it was a beautiful day in a new town, and I had been in plenty of Subway restaurants before. So, I got my sandwich to go, and lots and lots of ice for my large lemonade, and headed for Scott Park, a shady refuge from the heat of downtown Omro.
Reached by a bridge from Main Street, Scott Park occupied a canoe-shaped island in the Fox. I took in the city as I ate. The downtown looked like it had had a facelift, and some businesses were new. The park was updated. Some vitality was on display. I decided to come back downtown after checking into the motel to learn more about this small city with an even smaller name.
The Ramble Inn, according to the sign out front on Highway 21, was under new management. The cluttered office was claustrophobically the size of a porch, which it had been in a former life, and the air conditioner was not holding its own. The décor was 70s - dark brown carpeting and trim, white counters and walls, and plastic plants. It was soon apparent that the new management had not yet ironed out all the wrinkles of running a first class establishment.
The owner ran my credit card repeatedly without success. As the minutes passed and the heat in the too-close office got unbearable, I asked if perhaps someone else was tying up the phone line. The hotelier’s eyes lit up. Muttering “John”, he dashed out to the row of small motel rooms facing the highway to get “John” off the phone. The single phone line cleared, the owner returned and finished checking me in. He said the only other guests were two men making a cross-country motorcycle trip, and a couple older men renting by the week. The long-term guests were sitting outside one of their rooms drinking beer, looking as worn out as the motel.
The room was recently posted as non-smoking, but prior years of smokers had permeated the walls, carpet and furniture with the stale odor of old cigarette smoke. The traffic areas of the carpet seemed clean, but the edges were frosted with dirt and dust. The bathroom and the TV were both small relics of another decade. But the air conditioner and shower worked, the bed was not too soft, and the sheets were clean. That was all I really cared about.
After unpacking and showering, I crossed Highway 21 to the Fat Cats Drive-in for a chocolate milk shake. (What could be better after a morning of paddling.) It was a 50s-style drive-in, with a walk-up window to order from. You could then eat in your car, or, like me, sit at a picnic bench. A large water park lay to the north down the slope, between the drive-in and the river. Having slurped up the last drop of the shake, I strolled downtown.
Omro was located on lands that, at the time of the first French explorers, belonged to the Ho-Chunk Indians. By the mid-1830’s, the Ho-Chunk had ceded their land to the United States government and were relocated west of the Mississippi.1 They did not lose the land for lack of love, stewardship or need. They gave way reluctantly and for too small a price in the face of overwhelming technology, a much more numerous race, and that people’s greed for wealth. Louise Phelps Kellogg reports in her Early Narratives of the Northwest 1634-1699 an Indian saying: “For us this river was a path. For our white brethren, to whom we sold it, it is a power.”2
Down near the river, by Scott Park, was a small public library where I discovered a fat three-ring binder with over 300 type-written pages of local history compiled by Miriam J. Smith, a 96 year-old woman, between 1970 and 1976. Reading it was like sitting around a kitchen table with friends, swapping stories heard long ago from parents and grandparents. I read of two brothers from Ohio who traveled from Green Bay to nearby Oshkosh in 1836. They made their way on Indian paths along the Fox, following sketchy directions from the scattered traders, settlers and Indians they met along the way. I learned that Charles Omreau, a French fur trader and black smith, settled in what is now Omro, bequeathing his name, albeit Anglicized, to the city.
Omro was founded in 1842, became a village in 1849, and finally a city in 1944. By 1853 it had a population of 600. Located on the south bank of the Fox, it had 100 dwellings, five stores, two hotels and three mills. Being on the Fox, and at the junction of two important plank roads, it was a commercial center. The village had grown to 2,000 people, adding a glass factory and several carriage factories.3 Miriam wrote of steamboats that ran through Omro, and that by 1880 there was a rail stop. The county fair was held in Omro.
In 1896, the village built a hall and firehouse with a four-story tower. Made of a pale-pink brick in the Late Victorian style, it was the village’s crown. However, the nearby city of Oshkosh, with its thriving lumber business, began to dominate commercially, and eventually the mills and factories of Omro relocated or closed.4 The notes in the binder said that the steamboat passenger service ended in 1902. I had read in another source that in Cady’s Bayou, between Eureka and Omro, some fifty steamboats “met a humiliating end”, being broken up for firewood.5
But the city began a new growth spurt in the 1970s, expanding from its static population of around 2,000 to about 3,400 residents today.6 The city web site said that Omro started a revitalization program in 1986, and claimed: “Through projects such as the historic walking tour, the Scott Park pavilion project, and the designation of a historic downtown district, [the city] is paying homage to its past even as it builds for the future.”7 So, Omro was trying to be something other than bayous I passed in the morning - a backwater. Still, it seemed the glory days were gone, leaving only ghosts - an elegant village hall, an old woman’s memories, Indian stories.
Finished with reading and musing, I returned to Fat Cats for dinner, eating my meal at a picnic table shaded by the building from the still blazing sun. As I ate, I turned my thoughts to tomorrow, the last paddle on the journey. It would be eleven miles to Oshkosh, at least five of which would be through Lake Butte des Morts, the largest and most dangerous lake of the trip.
* The name of the motel has been changed.
1. Hoocak Waaziija Haci Language Division (a division of the Ho-Chunk Nation). The Ho-Chunk Nation - A Brief History. Accessed July 9, 2011. http://www.hocak.info/mysite/HTM%20All/Ho-Chunk%20history.html.
2. Kellogg, Louise Phelps. Early narratives of the Northwest, 1634-1699. C. Scribners's sons, 1917.
3. Wikipedia. Omro, Wisconsin. Revised September 29, 2011. Accessed November 3, 2011. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Omro,_Wisconsin.
4. Id.
5. Svob, Mike, and Elizabeth McBride. Paddling Northern Wisconsin: 82 Great Trips by Canoe and Kayak, at page 15. Trails Books, 1998.
6. The City of Omro. A Brief History of Omro …. Accessed July 10, 2011. http://www.omro-wi.com/a-brief-history-of-omro.html.
7. Id.
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