CENTRAL RALLY "The Sound of Awesomeness" 6 AUG 9-17 13'

Some of you have visited the Burnt Rollways Boat Hoist which is on some of my rally tracks for GPS. Here is a little more information about it.


This boat hoist moves boats between the Eagle River Chain of Lakes and the Three Lakes Chain. There is a difference in elevation of about 8' between the two. Moving boats has been going on here for more than 100 years.

This particular system uses an electric gantry that runs on a 165 foot long trestle way (rails). It is the only device of its type moving boats in Wisconsin and maybe even in the US (although there are railed ramps in some other places).

It costs $5 for a lift. The operators sit in a nearby house with a big picture window watching for boats. They can fish or read or whatever as long as they promptly respond to boat traffic.

The Eagle River - Three Lakes chain includes a series of 29 lakes which is the largest freshwater chain in the world. Theoretically you could go from here to the Gulf of Mexico by water.

Back in the 1800s the lakes were used to move logs. Loggers cut and stacked logs onto a rollway. When high water came in the spring, they dumped the logs and floated them downstream. One year the loggers didn't get paid by the guy who hired them to cut and stack the logs. Since they got stiffed, they burned the logs so no one else could make money on them. Hence the term "Burnt Rollway". The actual rubble of the rollway is about a mile upstream.

The first dam was built in the 1800s to raise water levels for logging. In 1911, they installed a boat railway to get over the dam. They used a water wheel to power the inclined lift. Years later they swapped out the water wheel for an electric motor.

Sometime around 1911.


1920s


In 1947 they needed a bigger lift so they ginned up the design for the current one. It is like a gantry crane used in shipyards. They got surplus 2 1/2T truck winches from Army trucks to do the lifting. Normally a lock is used with the dam to raise and lower boats but it would have been too expensive.

The system has been improved over the years but continues to do what it needs to.