Horses Help Outfit Cellphone Towers in Rural Wisconsin

(Photo: Tyler Rickenbach / USA TODAY NETWORK-Wisconsin)

MEDFORD, Wis. (AP) – Old and new technologies are merging in rural Wisconsin, as U.S. Cellular is using draft horses to help install cellphone equipment.

The Milwaukee Journal Sentinel reports the horses that pulled plows for farmers int he olden days are being used to haul equipment up steep wooded hillsides, where trucks have gotten stuck in the mud, and all-terrain vehicles haven’t been up to the job.

The horses pull the high-tech gear, which weighs nearly a ton with all the pieces included, with a wooden wagon. The equipment is needed to upgrade mobile phone service in sparsely-populated areas.

The big draft horses, owned by Medford dairy farmer and logger, Jason Julian, are usually used for logging, dragging timber out of the woods, where a truck or tractor would make a mess.