08/12/2026
Today marks 100 years since the infamous Winegar Massacre.
Here is the story of that day, according to the Officer Down Memorial Page:
"Town Constable George Rutherford was shot and killed when he encountered three moonshining suspects while attempting to serve a warrant on a man for wife desertion.
"Constable Rutherford parked at the edge of the woods to walk to the man's shack at Mermaid Lake, leaving his wife in his car. He was shot when he encountered the three men. His wife immediately went back to town and reported the incident."
Bill Rutherford, George's nephew, referenced a Lakeland Times article when he wrote up more information about the story.
"A few hours later, a posse was formed, to track down Jerry Brandenburg, and William Stanley. Two men in the posse, Elmer Monk, and “Big Alix” Garas, waited in a ditch near Brandenburg’s farmhouse.
"When they heard voices coming down the road, Elmer Monk raised up and shined his flashlight on the men, and ordered them to halt.
"Instead of stopping, Jerry Brandenburg fired five shots at Monk, before Monk gave him a face full of buckshot at close range. Both men fell, badly wounded in the ditch, and Brandenburg laid there ‘til the next morning when some men fetched him to town.
"While Monk and Brandenburg were tussling, “Big Alix” was making sure that William Stanley wasn’t going to escape. As Stanley raised his gun to shoot Monk, Garas shot him dead before he could get a shot off. “I shot him and he fell” Garas said later. “As he went down Stanley said “I am killed” and he never moved no more”
"They got the critically injured Monk back to town and patched him up; he lost an eye, and a big chunk of his arm. Across the hall from where he was, they had set up a morgue to do autopsies on me and Stanley.
"There was quite a bit of unrest in town over the next few days, as angry residents thirsted to lynch Charles Boring for murdering George.
"Sixty days later, trials were held in Eagle River, for Boring and Brandenburg. Charles Boring got life in prison for killing me, and Brandenburg got a shorter sentence for shooting Elmer Monk.""
George Rutherford was the first person to be buried at the new cemetery which was located west of town on Highway W - then known as the Winegar Cemetery.
