Miazga publishes third book of Rhinelander history

Mark Miazga is never that far away from Rhinelander. Though he lives in the Madison area, and works for the University of Minnesota, the 1987 Rhinelander High School alum remains fascinated by the history of his hometown. Now, after a 20-year hiatus, he’s published another volume detailing some of the Hodag city’s most interesting characters and happenings.
Miazga’s third book, “Tales of the North Woods: Echoes from Rhinelander’s Past Volume 3,” was released earlier this month and is available for purchase at the Hodag Store, hodagpress.com. After Oct. 3 it will be available at Kids Korner Pizza and next spring it will be sold at the Pioneer Park Historical Complex. Miazga also sells the book through his Tales of the Northwoods: Echoes from Rhinelander’s Past Facebook page.
In a recent interview with the Star Journal, Miazga explained how he researched the topics for the new book which includes eight chapters and covers everything from Prohibition-era moonshine operations to internationally renowned residents who called the city home.
“Even though I call them tales, these are not barroom gossip,” Miazga emphasized. “This is real history.”
“I really thank Bill Vancos at the Rhinelander Historical Society,” he continued. “For like three or four years, every time I see him, he’d say ‘You’re gonna write another book.’”

That encouragement finally clicked in April when Miazga dove back into historical research.
Newspaper archives, particularly newspapers.com, were particularly helpful in researching the area’s moonshine history, he noted, adding that Newbold and Pelican were popular locations for clandestine distillery operations.
“I was surprised at how public the moonshine arrests were,” he said, noting he found numerous newspaper accounts of busts and repeat offenders. “Most of these people weren’t big business people. They were mostly just trying to make a living.”
The book also profiles Edgar Apperson, who lived in the Newbold area for 35 years and was one of the early inventors of the automobile. Apperson helped create what many consider the first American sports car, the Apperson Jackrabbit, and was recognized in 1946 as one of the pioneers of the auto industry, Miazga explained.
Apperson Drive, in the Town of Newbold, is named in his honor.
Another chapter focuses on Frithjof Holmboe, an internationally renowned photographer who operated a studio on Davenport Street in the 1930s and 1940s. Holmboe had worked for Eastman Kodak, photographed Hollywood actors including Douglas Fairbanks, and was named to the international “Who’s Who” for his nature photography of wild orchids found in the Northwoods, Miazga learned.
The Holmboe family donated the old growth forest land nesar the Pelican River that is now known as the Holmboe Conifer Forest State Natural Area.
Miazga also dedicates chapters to Rhinelander’s athletic heritage, including the popular Fastpitch tournament at Pioneer Park that became a local obsession. During its heyday, crowds of up to 4,000 spectators would gather at the park to see the games.
“It was such a sense of community because everybody talked to one another,” Miazga said. “People respected each other. You passed the hat in the stands to cover some of the funds.”
The book also covers the development of West Side Park, which resulted from community activism by local residents and children who had been maintaining their own makeshift baseball field in an abandoned cow pasture. As Miazga explains it, the Oneida County Board of Supervisors was essentially “guilted” into creating a park for the children of the west side.
Additional chapters explore the origins of Rhinelander’s street names and the history of the local hospital, from its beginnings serving lumberjacks with a ticket system to its growth into a regional medical center.
Miazga explained that he has been interested in local history since was a child listening to his father’s stories.
Because his father was nearly 50 when he was born, he had access to stories from the 1930s that many of his peers didn’t hear.
“I feel like I’m well situated because my dad had all those stories. I paid attention and I wrote them down. And now I validated them through research, which is the key,” he said.
The book will be available in print format only, following the same approach as his previous volumes. Miazga hopes to sell copies at local merchants and festivals, with hopes of participating in a historical authors’ roundtable discussion with other local writers including Kurt Kortenhof and Mike Skubal.
“You don’t write to make money,” he said. “You write to get a story on the record so that people know this is the history of your community and there’s more out there if you want to chase it.”