The equipment was auctioned off in April and the business
closed. The quarry property at 936 Appleton Road in Menasha
was sold. An online auction notice said, "After 60 successful years
of business, Harold and Steve have decided to retire." Bucklin Tree
Service is now leasing the Appleton Road property. It moved from
Racine Street, said owner Chris Bucklin, to get more space. "We are
still selling gravel, stone and mulch," he said.
We first addressed Badger Highways in 2012: http://menashabook.blogspot.com/2012/12/badger-highways.html .
Happy retirement, guys!
Badger Highways had everything a boy in the 1960s could want. Lots of trucks and noise, a deep quarry, water, danger, and best of all ......explosives. I grew up about six blocks from the quarry and remember hearing the siren before they would set off the explosives. Also remember making several "unauthorized" visits to the quarry during off-hours to explore and go sledding.
ReplyDeleteOur house was 3 blocks from BH. In the 1950s we kids "braced" ourselves at 4:00 PM for their daily warning signal and subsequent dynamite blast. The concussion was transmitted effectively through the clay and limestone bedrock and there was cumulative damage from those blasts on neighborhood basement walls. But "the quarry" itself was a wonderment for teenage boys. After hours, even at night, we explored every nook and corner, climbing up into the huge crusher building and even finding where keys were hidden in a few trucks. In spite of our parents' warnings we swam in the crystal clear water that flooded various pits and hammered out countless trilobite fossils from the walls. We collected miles of colorful dynamite wire and even found 3 broken sticks of the explosive, which we failed to explode, but not for lack of trying. My most vivid memory, perhaps of the owners mentioned, occurred on Saturday mornings when I collected payment for the Twin Cities News Record, which I delivered there and in the "suburbs" north of Ninth St. There were always several men hanging around the BH office BS-ing and drinking coffee and on the counter there was always a quarter for the paper and a nickel tip, the latter epoxied to the counter. Every week I fell for the joke to their amusement and often received as much as a quarter tip for my performance.
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