New Post

History

Before the 1920s an Ojibwe community called Pahquawong lay along the west fork of the Chippewa River, two miles northeast of New Post. Around 1865 Maine-born Thaddeus Thayer started a trading post at that community, and married Mary Anibish, an Ojibwe woman. During the logging era of the late 1800s Thayer's place became the north terminus of the Chippewa Trail, a tote road along the river that carried loggers and supplies from Chippewa Falls to logging camps upstream. Thayer built a hotel for loggers and other travelers, and the Catholic mission started St. Anthony Church in 1884. Along with Pahquawong, the community was called Trading Post, or Post. In the 1910s lumber companies, the state of Wisconsin, and Wisconsin-Minnesota Light and Power began moving toward damming the Chippewa nearby, as a part of a system that would moderate floods and generate electricity. The proposed dam would flood many acres of reservation land. The Ojibwa resisted, arguing that flooding their land would violate guarantees of the 1854 treaty that granted the land to them. After six years, their argument was overruled by the Federal Water Power Act of 1920. Construction of the Winter dam began in 1922 and the reservoir began filling in March of 1923. By summer's end, the old village of Post lay under of water. Wisconsin-Minnesota Light and Power had agreed to move the old village to a new site, and they had begun building new homes, but not enough for the families flooded out. The new homes were built at New Post, now on the south shore of the Chippewa Flowage. In 1934 St. Ignatius church was built there to replace St. Anthony church, which had been left on an island.

Geography

New Post is located at (45.903968, -91.178564). According to the United States Census Bureau, the CDP has a total area of 27.4 square miles (71.0 km2), of which 20.4 square miles (52.7 km2) is land and 7.1 square miles (18.3 km2) (25.74%) is water.

Race & ethnicity

Largest nearby schools

• WOLI/Akii'gikinoo'amaading Environmental School
  High · Hayward · 13 students