Ludlow Island History

Ludlow Island History. . , In 1891, government surveyors platted this area as "meadows." Travel was difficult until drainage ditch spoil piles provided a rough bed for the first road, present-day Highway 72. A road linking Baudette and Kelliher was completed in 1914. Ludlow had a post office by 1915, and homesteaders worked hard to eke out a living. Among the early residents were William and Gerry Ganyo, who helped raise elk and caribou. Like many other settlers, they didn't stay long. When the bog couldn't be properly drained for farming, many settlers moved on, or government resettlement programs helped them to move to more productive lands., [Captions:] , Ludlow Island , You're standing on Ludlow Island, a spit of high ground emerging from a "sea" of peat. This gravel ridge, and there aren't many in the Big Bog, was once a sand ridge in ancient Glacial Lake Agassiz., For centuries, North American native peoples have ventured into the bog to hunt and trap game and to harvest the plants and berries. Bog plants have been used for food and medicines, and to make baskets, mats, dwellings, and canoes. The bog remains important to the Red Lake Band of Ojibwe, which lives nearby., At Home in a Resettlement Camp Bunkhouse, 1939 , Frank Dickerson was the second cook and James Cavanaugh the night watchman., Ludlow Fire Patron Station and Tower, 1927, Ludlow Game Patrol Cabin, 1939 , Game patrollers stayed in these cabins as they made their rounds, especially in the winter when they traveled by snowshoe or dogsled., Resettlement Camp and Caribou Pens, 1939 , The crew that lived in this camp worked on dams and firebreaks in the bog. Ludlow Island was also the site of an unsuccessful attempt to save Minnesota's last woodland caribou band from extinction. They vanished from the state in the 1940s.