BEGINNINGS

The Dells of the Wisconsin River did not need protection during the years before the rise of tourism in the Dells area. The Dells - wild, formidable, inaccessible and dangerous - was largely left alone until 1875.

After H.H. Bennett's photographs popularized the Dells and the area became a tourist destination, the need for preservation quickly became evident. And Bennett led the earliest attempts to preserve the river's natural beauty and to keep it open to all.

The earliest preservation controversy appears to have revolved around access to Cold Water Canyon. During the summer of 1889, a botanist named Chanter bought fifty acres of land along the river that included part of Cold Water Canyon. Chanter's intention, apparently, was to close off the land he owned, which contained unusual botanical life, and bring people who had an interest in botany to the Dells.

Bennett, alarmed that Cold Water Canyon would be closed off, wrote to the railroad about the scheme. The Chanter project seems to have fallen under its own weight, but Bennett's letters are the earliest indication of battles to come to keep the Dells in their natural state and accessible to all.

EFFORTS TO STOP THE DAM

The next battle to preserve the Dells involved the dam at Wisconsin Dells. As talk began about the new, high dam on the river, Bennett used every persuasion possible with his neighbors to keep the dam from being built, and worked around the state to try to prevent the dam.

Citizens of Wisconsin Dells, caught up in visions of a future in which Wisconsin Dells become an industrial and commercial powerhouse, turned a deaf ear, and Bennett's efforts were in vain. The damn was built.

The results, in terms of the Dells, were mixed. On the one hand, the Boat Cave, Bass Cove, Diamond Grotto and Giant's Hand were submerged, lost forever. On the other, witches Gulch and Coldwater Canyon became more accessible, and Stand Rock could be reached without a long walk from the river. The Narrows was less often a boiling cauldron, and the Dells became more easily navigable.

STATE AND NATIONAL PARKS

An attempt was made shortly before the dam was built to protect both the Dells and Devil's Lake to the south as Wisconsin's first state parks. Devil's Lake became a state park, but the state investigating commission dropped the Dells as a potential state park in 1907.

During the 1920's, the Dells grew in popularity, and with a rise in tourism came increased pressure to commercialize the Dells. The area's natural forests were cut down, and the river corridor in the Dells became an increasingly dense checkerboard of resorts, cabins and other commercial enterprises, often visible from the river.

Recognizing the danger to the Dells, a number of civic groups in Wisconsin Dells began to unite behind the idea of a Wisconsin Dells National Park in the early 1930's. The proposal received editorial support from newspapers in the area and in the state. The Capital Times, in Madison, wrote:

"In past years, the number of visitors at Wisconsin Dells has equaled the number of tourists visiting Yellowstone Park. And there you find a valid argument for making a national park out of Wisconsin Dells."

A survey and plans were drawn up which would have included a five-mile stretch of river from the Lower Dells north to the mouth of the Lemonweir River, north of Louis Bluff. In June 1935, the Wisconsin Dells Events reported that Wisconsin Senator Merwyn Rowlands was sponsoring a bill to declare the Dells a national park, but the bill got nowhere, and the plan died.

THE CRANDALL FAMILY

About the same time, George H. Crandall, an innkeeper and property manager married to H.H. Bennett's daughter, began an remarkable, single-handed attempt to rescue the Dells corridor from commercialization.

As businesses along the river failed during the Depression, Crandall began to systematically purchase the river bank along the entire course of the Upper Dells, tearing down buildings and restoring the woodlands along the river through a massive reforestation program. Over the course of time, Crandall succeeded in acquiring almost the entire waterfront from Stand Rock south the the dam.

Crandall was clear about his intentions. He considered the land he bought as a trust held for future generations, expressed, as he put it: "No man can own the Dells - he can only be its custodian for a time."

In the 1950's, Crandall's family - his daughters and sons-in-law - transferred all of his holdings to the University of Wisconsin Alumni Research Foundation and to its wholly owned subsidiary, the Dells Boat Company, for the preservation of the river corridor.

STATE NATURAL AREA

The Dells of the Wisconsin River State Natural Area was created in September 1994, when the Department of Natural Resources purchased 1,050 acres from the Dells Boat Company. The Boat Company sold the property at less than market value to ensure its long term preservation.

The DNR has designated a 2,115 acre "target area" for conservation, to be acquired as time and circumstances permit. The DNR acquisition policy is to purchase from willing sellers - the DNR does not use powers of eminent domain to acquire property. A few small properties have been acquired by the DNR since the 1994 designation, but development pressures in the river corridor are intense, land values are rapidly rising, and it is not clear that the DNR alone will be able to preserve the Dells.

The area is designated as a "Native Community Management Area". The primary focus of the DNR is to preserve and enhance natural resource values - to restore and perpetuate native plant and animal communities - while providing opportunities for low-impact recreational uses, such as hiking and nature study.

DEVELOPMENT PRESSURE

In the last decade, development pressure on the Dells of the Wisconsin River has become intense.

The rise of large, self-contained resorts in the Dells area has fueled the trend, and land values along the Wisconsin River corridor have skyrocketed. The DNR's 1994 estimate for acquiring the entire 1,065 acres of land in the "target area" - $1,935,000 - is less than the 2007 asking price for 20 acres of low land south of the acquisition area.

Two recent developments - one in progress and the other planned - illustrate the development pressure.

Chula Vista Theme Resort has expanded from a relatively small, low-impact resort along River Road in the Witches Gulch area, to a large condominium, resort, water park and sports facility, and is planning to add a large convention center in the next few years.

Chula Vista's immediate impact on the Dells of the Wisconsin River has been constrained by limited river frontage and citizen concerns - the primary impact has been a condominium building visible from the river and a dock built to provide river boat tours from the resort and convention center - but Chula Vista illustrates the direction of riverfront development.

More problematic for the preservation of the Dells is a planned development, the Grand Cambrian Resort, located on the Lower Dells overlooking the Sugar Bowl.

The planned development, which calls for a six-story, 300-unit condominium building along the shoreline of the river, and 85,000 square feet of indoor entertainment space with a large arcade, indoor/outdoor waterparks, spa, four restaurants and eateries,retail, 35,000 square feet of banquet and conference space, will be a high-impact, high-intensity use, at a particularly scenic area of the Lower Dells. The resort's preconstruction marketing hawks "breathtaking views, 500 million years in the making" which need not just be imagined because "they are now yours".

The two developments - demonstrating beyond doubt the need to make extraordinary efforts to preserve the Dells of the Wisconsin River - were the impetus behind formation of the Stewards of the Dells of the Wisconsin River in April 2006.

RIVER SHORELAND BUFFER

The City of Wisconsin Dells took two important steps to protect the Wisconsin Dells river corridor in 2006 and 2007.

The first was creation of a "Wisconsin River Shoreland Buffer Overlay District" 200 feet from the river edge. Land in the buffer zone is to remain undeveloped except for recreation trails and "water-dependent land uses such as boat launches, boat docks, wharves and the like and the like may be allowed as a conditional use." The ordinance also requires that trees and shrubs not be removed unless dead and then they have to be replaced. It does allow removal for roads, paths no wider than eight feet or utilities and of "noxious" vegetation such as poison ivy.

The second was automatic extension of the buffer zone to lands annexed by the City of Wisconsin Dells.

By enacting the ordinance, Wisconsin Dells took a leadership role in river corridor protection. Efforts are underway to encourage other governments in the area -- the Village of Lake Delton and townships adjoining the Wisconsin Dells river corridor, to enact similar protection.

LOUIS' BLUFF

The Natural Heritage Land Trust, a nonprofit corporation dedicated to protecting natural areas, wildlife habitat, working farms, healthy lakes and streams, and recreation land, purchased a conservation easement, with the help of Knowles-Nelson Stewardship funds, to protect Louis' Bluff in May 2007.

Frank and Mariana Weinhold of Madison are the owners of the property.

The 133-acre property, in the town of Lyndon in Juneau County, includes more than 7,000 feet of undeveloped shoreline on the Wisconsin River, all within the Dells of the Wisconsin River State Natural Area.

Frank Weinhold told the Wisconsin Dells Events that he and his wife decided to do the conservation easement to ensure the bluff is protected as is: "There's lots to preserve. It's a chance to escape wholesale development."

Louis' Bluff is located north of Witches Gulch and Stand Rock on the Upper Dells of the Wisconsin River. The river corridor just north of the bluff has been the subject of recent development proposals.

The Weinholds hope the conservation easement will set a precedent for others in the Dells area to preserve the Dells.