The Flying “P” Riding Academy

By Kay Krans

In the early 1950s, tourists were becoming more and more interested in activities other than the usual up north experiences. Fishing and hunting were still the primary focus, but now more families were spending their vacations up north, and varied activities were welcome, paving the way for new opportunities for newcomers to the area.

Eugene and Lela Poiron and their young daughter, Darla, traveled from California cross country to visit family in Pennsylvania. On the way, they stopped in Wisconsin to visit old friends. They learned of the treasured fishing and hunting place known as Manitowish Waters. They decided to visit the area and fell in love with the Northwoods. They purchased property from Jim Bart of Rest Lake Resort.

Palmer Hanson (one of the town fathers) introduced himself to the couple and encouraged them to bring back the old riding stables and create a new tourist attraction for the community. The old riding stables were a perfect fit for Lela because she was raised on a farm in Texas and knew horses. Thus, in 1951, began the story of the Flying “P” Stables. 

The Poiron family began a lifetime of spending summers in Wisconsin, running the riding stables. The first summer was spent in a one-room shack, preparing the property to open the new stables. Darla spent that summer sleeping on a large shelf above her parents’ bed. As time went on, they purchased Campbell’s Resort and created the Flying “P” Guest Ranch with a 10-bedroom lodge. The Poirons bought horses and opened each summer from mid-June to Labor Day until 1970. The stables would become a destination for tourists, Camp Jorn campers, and local and summer kids who wanted to learn to ride and enjoy the trail rides that the stable had to offer. 

Eugene and Lela met in San Diego, California during World War II. Eugene had worked around airplanes all his life, and he was flying cargo planes to the Pacific Islands to deliver needed supplies to the military. Lela was living in San Antonio, Texas and inspected aircraft that were built there and soon to be sent to California. On one of the deliveries, Lela hopped one of the new craft being flown to San Diego and landed at the airport where Eugene was located. They fell in love and married. After the war, they built an airport together named La Pressa in Spring Valley, California.

Airplanes and horses would become central to their lives in Manitowish Waters. For several years, Eugene managed the Manitowish Waters airport, while Lela and Darla ran the stables. If Eugene was at the stables and saw an airplane coming in, he would jump on a horse, grab the reins with one hand, hold a gas can in the other, and gallop across Highway 51 along the runway to meet the plane, make sure the passengers could get to their local destination, and refuel the plane. He would get back on the horse and gallop back to the stables.

The first summer of the Flying “P” brought the purchase of 10 horses. They were bought in the Medford area from a mink farm, which sold the horses by the pound as they were either going to become saddle horses or mink food. The first horses were great trail riders, and the business was off to a great start. For the next nine years, additional horses were purchased from the mink farm.

In the summer of 1956, Lela gave birth to the first little girl born in Dr. Kate’s New Hospital and named her Toni.

Darla led her first trail ride at the age of five and worked her way through the years to running the stable as a teenager of 19. Her mother loved for teenagers to work at the stable, and as long as they worked, she fed them lunch, and they rode the horses. Darla grew up helping run the horse stables and enjoyed the social activities that drew young teenagers there to learn horsemanship and have fun times. Many of those teenagers were members of the Manitowish Waters Skiing Skeeters as well.

The Flying “P” Stables became the horsemanship arm of Camp Jorn for many years, and the camp riders would come ride three days a week. Every summer, the stables would have moonlight trail rides and end up at Little Star Beach. There were campfires, and hot dogs and marshmallows were roasted. The horses always knew their way back to the barn along the dark wooded trails.

One summer, a horse died under a large pine on the 12-acre property, and a bobcat climbed the tree and hollered all night. In the morning, the horse was untouched, and the bobcat was gone. They never had their horses injured by wild animals but saw many bears and deer on the trail rides. No one near the trails ever complained about the manure in the woods. As a matter of fact, Emil Wanatka, Sr. would come and collect manure to fertilize the pastures in front of Little Bohemia. It was said they were the greenest pastures in the Northwoods.

Every fall, the family would close up the stables, store the saddles and tack, look at expanding the number of horses for the next summer, and enjoy most of September in Manitowish Waters.

The daughters had the experience of attending the two-room school in Manitowish Waters and went back to California with great memories of that experience. Darla remembered that she could ride her horse Penny to school, and she was the most popular girl at school that day. She also felt that she learned her lessons well at school because there were only about 16 students in four grades, and along with the teacher, the older students taught the younger students. Darla and Toni would then return to California and finish the school year, eager to return each summer to the stables and summer in Wisconsin.

The horses were boarded for the winter for many years at the Kassein’s Farm. One winter, illegal night hunters were spotlighting deer and shot one of Mr. Kassein’s work horses but didn’t get any of the trail horses. As the years went on, the stable grew to 25 saddle horses, and the memories of riding along the channel between Rest Lake and Stone Lake became vacation memories for many of the people vacationing in the community.

Darla Poiron Interview. September 5, 2017.