The phenomenal building boom of the Nauvoo period of the history of The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints required much more lumber than was locally available. Consequently, a group of Latter-day Saint loggers went to harvest timber from the Wisconsin pineries some 400 miles north of Nauvoo. These men and their families worked areas in Clark and Jackson Counties from 1841-45. Once the trees had fallen, they were floated down the Black River to mills at Black River Falls.
Neillsville, Wisconsin, was one of several logging settlements that supplied the mills. Mormon loggers were the first white settlers to establish Neillsville. After they left in 1845, the site was settled by others, including James O’Neill, for whom the town was subsequently named. Nearby Cunningham Creek was named for Elijah Cunningham, the one Latter-day Saint — at least, according to available records — who lost his life while working in the pineries. Local members of the church tell the stories of the early Latter-day Saint presence in Neillsville at the annual Heritage Days celebration held in Schuster Park.