WInslow Historical Sites

(General Johnson/Winslow at the Battle of Gettysburg)





The Boren County Historical Association operates the Winslow History Center at the courthouse and collects, preserves and interprets the history of Boren County through exhibits, tours, publications, research and educational and community outreach programs.

The Boren County Historical Association was established in 1967 to restore the 1839 courthouse as a historical museum. Using a combination of grants, contributions and thousands of hours of volunteer labor, the historical association carefully restored the courthouse. The project was finished in 1976.

The General Winslow Museum and the Winslow History Center and the linchpins of the town’s historical offerings. There is also a memorial on the old site of the original sawmill honoring the thousands of fish killed in the Kootchikoo River in 1848. It includes a display created by Winslow High School students of a big paper-mache fish showing how the acetate killed them.

There is also a statue of General Winslow erected after his death in 1864, commemorating his actions in the Civil War and Mexican American War. The statue – and this is a considered a vile rumor by many, but it’s true – is not actually General Winslow. It’s a statue of Maj. Gen. Edward Johnson's originally created for his Virginia hometown. But the town couldn’t agree on a site and wanted some of its investment back, so the statue was offered as a deal to the Winslow. Sharp-eyed observers can see that “Gen. Winslow” is wearing a Confederate uniform.

Other historical sites include the the Saltine Steamer, Goosey Mansion, the Golden Locomotive at the Winslow Depot, and a model of the former Schoolhouse made of popsicle sticks. All of these are featured on a souvenir afghan costing $49.95.

Winslow History

(Winslow's Main Street)







Winslow history is forever tied to the Kootchikoo River.

The first person to begin a settlement of significance in what would become known as Winslow, was a Mr. Forks. Forks built a sawmill on the Kootchikoo River in 1833. This site was called "Fishford" in reference to the river’s fish-rich waters.

By 1848, the sawmill was the largest lumber operation in Boren county. But it was also pouring some weird acetate into the Kootchikoo River, killing the fish. People started calling the town Fishkill instead of Fishford and a ladies group, led by Wilhemina Petus led a protest that shut down the sawmill.

In 1849, a post office was established in the village with Mr. Petus named postmaster. With the new post office, Mr. Petus took the opportunity to name the village Fishkill after much prompting from his wife. Obviously, the citizens weren’t thrilled to live in Fishkill, and when retired Civil War General Josiah Winslow settled in the village in 1864 after the Battle of Gettysburg, people were excited to have a real Civil War hero in their town and changed the name to Winslow.

Actually Gen. Winslow was not a great general; he was frankly dotty and very old and died six months after they named the town after him. His glory days were the Mexican-American War in 1846-48. During the Civil War, he kept thinking he was fighting the Mexicans again. Many of his most valuable artifacts, like his sword, uniform, etc. were never found. But that didn’t stop Winslowites from founding a museum in his honor.

Anyway, the town of Winslow was growing, with a new, acetate-free sawmill and had expanded up the hill to the new Chicago and Michigan Railroad by the 1870's.

In 1893, Dudley Stark tore down the old sawmill, replacing it with a paper mill. The paper mill grew into the town's main industry, employing 400 people over three shifts. Then there was a big fire in 1955. In 1960, Chrysler established an assembly plant for plastic air-conditioning vents for Dodge Shadows. The plant replaced the paper mill as the town’s main industry and employed almost as many.

With the timber industry coming to a close, farming became a lucrative replacement for Winslow. One farmer, Harrison “Goosey” Sherwood, fast became known as the Apple King of Michigan thanks to Sherwood's 400 acres. In 1878 alone, 2,000 barrels of apples and 15,000 baskets of peaches were sent from the Winslow train depot to Chicago markets. Sherwood built Goosey Mansion, a fabled site of WInslow's historic past.

The Winslow Depot also served as a gateway to the Watervliet side of Kootchhikoo Lake. For more than a hundred years, summer visitors filled Main Street on their way to the hotels, camps and cottages. Kootchikoo Lake residents also made the trip by river to Winslow on small passenger boats.

Thank heavens for tourism, because Chrysler closed the plastics aseembly plant in 1991 and the town never truly recovered. The young people are leaving in droves and the tax base is shrinking. But the community has a strong sense of history due to the tireless efforts of Boren County Historical Director Fred Stark.

So It Begins

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