In 1904, John F. Deitz and his family bought a farmstead on the Thornapple River about 2 miles south of here and soon found that Cameron Dam, one of many logging dams on this important tributary of the Chippewa River, stood on their property. Deitz then claimed that the Chippewa Lumber & Boom Co., a Weyerhaeuser affiliate, owed him a toll for logs driven downriver. For four years he refused to allow logs to be sluiced down the Thornapple, defended the dam at gunpoint, and successfully resisted attempts to arrest him. At least one deputy and two of Deitz's children were wounded in the confrontations. As he became an outlaw, Deitz also became a folk hero with a nationwide following. In October 1910, a large sheriff's posse surrounded his house, and in the gun battle that followed, deputy Oscar Harp was killed. Deitz surrendered, was tried for murder, and was sentenced to life imprisonment. He served 10 years, but public pressure eventually led Gov. John J. Blain to pardon him in May 1921. Deitz died in 1924, and Cameron Dam has long since disappeared.