The Thompson family arrives

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The Thompson family occupies a unique place in the history of the Beaver River country. They moved to the area in 1911. The fifth generation of the family still lives and works there. The place has been shaped into what It is today in large part by their collective efforts.

 

It will take more than a single blog post to do justice to their many contributions to the fabric of the place, so I will break their story up into pieces that I’ll discuss in context. This post is just about the early days of the first generation. To get an overview of the family's history filled with many personal anecdotes, I recommend Pat Thompson’s little illustrated book Beaver River: Oasis in the Wilderness [Beaver River Press, 2000]. It’s out of print now, but used copies can still be found.

 

In 1911 William “Bill” and Hattie Thompson bought an existing guide’s camp called Camp Lookout situated on Loon Lake, a pretty body of water on the south side of the Beaver River about half way to Stillwater along the Carthage-to-Lake Champlain Road. I’ve been unable to discover who built this camp, but it must have existed by May 1907, the postmark date on this real photo postcard from the collection of Tim Mayers.



Anyone who has read through the earlier posts of this blog may remember the Rock Shanty, the first camp located near Loon Lake [see my post of March 2, 2021]. By the time the Thompsons arrived there were several modest camps around the lake. Of course, as with most guide’s camps, all these camps were built on state Forest Preserve land.



The Thompsons came from Sperryville, a small settlement near Chase’s Lake in the Town of Watson where Hattie had been a schoolteacher. Bill Thompson worked in the woods and from the little I’ve been able to learn about him, he visited the Beaver River country frequently prior to deciding to move in. They renamed their camp Loon Lake Lodge and were soon attracting a steady clientele of sporting tourists. Bill Thompson died not long after moving to the Beaver River country. Hattie Thompson with the help of her sons, Clint and Walter, continued to successfully operate the lodge.



When the state evicted all the squatters from the Forest Preserve in 1916 [detailed in my next post], the Thompsons dismantled Loon Lake Lodge and used the salvage to build a two-story cabin on a lot in Beaver River Station that the named the Evergreen. They continued to accommodate visitors at the Evergreen until 1920 when Clint and Walter purchased the Norridgewock II. I will discuss that part of their story in a separate post in due course. 

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