Don't mess with lumberjacks

It was a hot July in 1871. Lumberjacks working along the Mississippi and St. Croix rivers had been quenching their thirst with whiskey and beer. Then they heard that some big railroad company was building a bridge across the St. Croix near Hudson, Wisconsin. The bridge would be built on hundreds of pilings driven into the riverbed, which would work fine for the railroad but would interfere with the annual floating of felled trees from the north woods to the mills in Stillwater. On July 7, a rowdy bunch of lumberjacks marched to the river near Hudson, removed about 100 of the pilings, and dragged them back to Stillwater, where they built a massive bonfire and drank some more.

The event becomes known as the "Battle of the Piles."(I will refrain from any stupid references to the human posterior.)

The lumber interests prevailed (for a few years) in defending their stomping grounds. Not many lumber mills in Stillwater any more, but you can still get whiskey and beer.