ELI5: Explain Like I'm 5

1886 St. Croix River log jam

Okay kiddo, a long, long time ago in the year 1886 there was something called a log jam on the St. Croix River in the United States. This was basically a super big pile up of logs that were being transported down the river by lumberjacks.

The lumberjacks cut down trees in the forest and then put them in the river to float downstream to sawmills where they would be turned into things like furniture and buildings. But sometimes the logs would get stuck and pile up because the river was too narrow or there were obstacles in the way.

And that's exactly what happened on the St. Croix River that year. There were so many logs stuck together that it blocked the entire river! This meant that boats and other things that needed to use the river couldn't get through, and it caused a lot of problems for people who relied on the river for their work and transportation.

In fact, the log jam was so big and so bad that it became a really big deal. People from all over came to try to help break it up and clear the river. They used all sorts of things like dynamite and machinery to try to bust the log jam apart.

Finally, after many long weeks of hard work, they were able to break through the jam and get the river flowing again. It was a really big deal and people were really relieved and happy that they could use the river again for business and travel.

So that's the story of the 1886 St. Croix River log jam, where a bunch of logs got stuck in a river and caused big problems until brave people worked hard to fix it.