Before air conditioning, interstate highways, and automobiles, a privileged few escaped the hot summers of the lower Midwest by taking trains to railroad-built resorts in the north woods. Besides bringing settlers north and moving lumber south, railroads built resort hotels to attract patrons during the summer months, but with dwindling numbers of settlers, fewer logs to carry, and only small seasonal vacation traffic, the resorts did not save the railroads from bankruptcy. In 1905, the Wisconsin and Michigan Railroad built a resort hotel on 82-acre Miscauno Island in the Menominee River, with a nine hole golf course and tennis courts. The railroad line to the island was abandoned in 1917, but the resort, rebuilt after a fire in 1923, continues to provide a summer refuge, and the former railroad bridge now carries automobiles across the river to the island.