Where is Camp 5 located?

Camp 5 is located in Laona, WI.

How do I get tickets to Camp 5?

Tickets and current schedules are available on the operator's official website at https://www.lumberjacksteamtrain.com/.

Photo by Jeff the quiet, via Wikimedia Commons (CC0)

Camp 5

Laona, WI

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Upcoming Events

No ticketed events are currently listed for Camp 5. Many heritage operators publish schedules seasonally or run on regular open hours instead of dated events.

Check the operator’s website for current hours and special runs, or subscribe to event alerts and we’ll email you when something is scheduled.

About Camp 5

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History

Camp Five began in the late 1890s, when the R. Connor Company established a logging camp at this site — its fifth near Laona, Wisconsin. By 1914 the timber within reach was exhausted, so the camp was converted into a company farm supplying meat, vegetables, and work horses to Connor's other logging camps, a role it kept for decades thanks to good surrounding farmland, proximity to town, and its position on a rail line. The farm opened to the public as a history museum in 1969, and the Camp Five Farmstead (also known as Camp Five Logging Camp) was listed on the National Register of Historic Places in 1996. The railroad that serves it, the Laona and Northern Railway, was incorporated in 1902 to haul lumber to the Connor mill in Laona and on to the Soo Line interchange eight miles north at Laona Junction; it survives today as the heritage line that carries visitors to the museum aboard the Lumberjack Steam Train. The living history site interprets Wisconsin's forest industry and transportation past, and has earned honors ranging from a 1970 Wisconsin Historical Society Award of Merit to a 1987 Presidential Environmental Youth Award.

The Trains

Visitors reach the museum by riding the Lumberjack Steam Train over the Laona and Northern Railway. Its motive power is steam locomotive No. 4, the '4 Spot' — the single steam engine the Connor Company kept for reserve power when the railway converted to diesel in the mid-1950s. By 1965 the company was using it on mixed trains carrying passengers to Laona Junction, and in 1983 it was given to the Camp 5 historical society, which still runs it at the head of the Lumberjack Steam Train. On the four-acre museum grounds, static displays include historic logging equipment and the bateaux once used in river log drives, alongside a working blacksmithy in the daily living history program.