 The Bad River repeatedly filled his shaft with water, so he dynamited rock to divert the river.Ashland County was heavily logged from 1886 to 1920, stripping both pine and hardwood and leaving a wasteland of stumps and brush.Some of this cutover land was sold to immigrants to farm, but the acidic soil left by pine forests and the short summers of northern Wisconsin made it difficult to grow many crops, and many farms were abandoned by the 1920s and 30s, leaving the area vulnerable to fire and erosion.