Date in History: 1939
In September of 1939, members of the Fort Atkinson Wisconservation Club had a big task before them. Working with the County Game warden, they had to move quickly to remove almost 600,000 fish from two small Fort Atkinson ponds that were in danger of drying up.
First up was Pritchard’s pond, which was about 6 miles south of Fort on Highway 26. Dragging the pond, they netted 500,000 bluegills that were transferred over to the Rock River and Rock Lake. A few weeks later they removed about 75,000 bullheads from a similar pond on the Walter Becker farm northwest of the city.
The fish, many of considerable size, had apparently gotten into these ponds during the severe flooding of the previous year.
This historic document aired on the radio as an Historic Minute on 09/06/2004.