Camp 5

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.