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cc >>...As part of the Wisconsin Historical Museum's History Sandwiched In lecture series. The opinions expressed today are those of the presenter and are not necessarily those of the Wisconsin Historical Society or the museum's employees. Kim Tschudy, a native of New Glarus, has been active in historic preservation for years. He's published historic books, including two in the Images of America series, one on Green County and the other on the Swiss of New Glarus. He's here today to share the story of some of southern Wisconsin's lost towns. We like to call them ghost towns. So please join me in welcoming Kim Tschudy.

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>> Hello, everybody. >> Hello. >> Over the next 45 minutes, we're going to be looking at a number of lost towns mostly in southern Wisconsin. There will be a few surprises there, a few that you have heard of, and there will be a couple of strange twists and turns in all of this. I hope you enjoy it. The first one is Sinnipee, Wisconsin. Sinnipee is located in Grant County, three miles north of east Dubuque and 50 miles from Galena. It was founded in 1831 by Payton Vaughan, a native of North Carolina. At that time, the Wisconsin population was 40,000 Native Americans and 3,000 white settlers. Vaughan's intent to develop the town was to build a port where area miners who were being held hostage by Galena businesses charging high prices for supplies and shipping would be able to get more reasonable prices. Vaughan and the miners in the area in 1836 formed the Sinnipee Company and built a two story, the Stone House Hotel and Ballroom. During this time, the town built up and Sinnipee consisted of several stores, a bank, church, post office, blacksmith shop, and mill. Now, think about this. In 1836, the lots were selling for $2,000 each. At two different times during Sinnipee's short history, there were two prominent visitors from Fort Crawford and Prairie du Chien that came to Sinnipee. You'll probably recognize both of their names. Zachary Taylor and his future son-in-law Jefferson Davis. Sinnipee died out by 1839 when the snow melt and spring rains left in their wake big puddles in the community streets, and that became a breeding ground for malaria and very quickly more than half of the population had died off, and the rest of them pretty well left the town. Vaughan died in 1845, and his wife remarried John Fenley of Kentucky. Fenley's descendants were still farming the land in the early 1970s. Today, the only trace of Sinnipee that you will find is a small cemetery. Gratiot's Grove in Lafayette County. The location of Gratiot's Grove is probably not where you think you would find it, at Gratiot. Gratiot's Grove is actually located 14 miles from its namesake town, a couple of miles southwest of Shullsburg. Gratiot's Grove is founded by Henry and Bugnion Gratiot in 1825 when they came to southern Wisconsin to engage in lead mining. The nearest lead smelter at that time was in Galena, 20 miles away. So the Gratiots built their own smelter. Eventually, the Gratiot's Grove had nine smelters operating. The population at Gratiot's Grove had grown to over 1,000 people. The Gratiots, because they were French, had a good relationship with the native Winnebagos who trusted the French but not the Yankees. Because of his excellent relationship with the Winnebagos and his fluency in their language, Henry Gratiot was chosen to be the Indian agent for the Winnebago in what would become southern Wisconsin. Today, all that remains of Gratiot's Grove is this little sign and the cemetery that's right there. The house to the right here is the Henry Gratiot home built in 1835. It is the second oldest home in Wisconsin. It has been renovated a number of times over the years. There was a real bad fire in it at one time that destroyed much of the interior, and it was completely rebuilt and it was again restored just the last two or three years. If Henry came back today, he would still recognize the exterior of the house, but he would be shocked at the inside. But it has been a very good straightforward restoration of what he had built. Next is New Diggings. New Diggings was first settled in 1824, making it the first permanent settlement in Wisconsin. New Diggings is located about five miles southwest of Gratiot's Grove. The Indians were the first miners in southwest Wisconsin, and they used the lead for decorative and trading purposes. The first white miners known to be in the area came between 1690 and 1720. To give you some idea how quickly the lead rush developed, the 1825 population in the area was 250 people. 1826, one year later, the population had reached 4,000 people. Wisconsin's 1836 population was 11,000, with 5,000 in Grant, Iowa, and Lafayette Counties. During the Black Hawk War of 1832, which played out just south of the border between Wisconsin and Illinois, the residents fled to forts in Elizabeth, Illinois, and other numerous forts in southwest Wisconsin for the duration of the war. In 1844, a young Italian priest, Father Samuel Mazzuchelli, came to New Diggings, and he built St. Augustine's church. St. Augustine's is still standing today, one of the few buildings that is left. It has been restored in 2007. It is now in the National Register of Historic Places. Because there was some concern about the Indians in the area, Mazzuchelli built the alter in such a way that as you're facing the alter to the right side, if you go up to it, you can find that there's a little trap door that goes underneath the alter into a hole in the ground where the schoolchildren could go if the Indians were coming into the area. But there never was really any problem with the area Indians. Now, the Irish miners could not pronounce that darn Italian name. No way. So they just took to calling Father Mazzuchelli Father Matthew Kelly.

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Mazzuchelli was a strong believer in education, but also in the separation of church and state. His schools were all open to all religions, but if you happened to be Catholic and you wanted a Catholic religion for your children, they stayed after school for the Catholic education. Today, there are only two buildings or businesses left in downtown New Diggings. And this is a shot looking at New Diggings main street from the south The building right here is still existent. That is a tavern. And this is what the main street looked like looking west. That's all gone. There are several of the early buildings somewhat standing, but each year they fall more and more into disrepair, and they will never be saved. New Diggings, like so many towns, fell victim to the loss of the natural resource, which is what is a typical strain with almost all of the towns that we're going to discuss today. Either it was a natural resource boom that they could take and use or it was the loss of the railroad or the railroad not coming to their town. Belmont, Lafayette County. In 1835, the Wisconsin Territory was formed by Henry Dodge and was sworn in as territorial governor on July 4th, 1836, in Mineral Point. Dodge first ordered the census that showed Wisconsin population center to be southern Wisconsin. A Galena promoter, John Atkinson, offered to build a capital city for the new territory, which was to consist of four buildings. One of the legislature, one of the Supreme Court, a governor's home, and a rooming house for the legislature. This move to have Belmont as the state capital was highly criticized by the Green Bay area newspapers. When the first legislature convened on October 25, 1836, only one building was completed, and the legislators were forced to sleep on the floor wrapped in their coats. It's interesting, the bulk of the legislators were protestants, but Father Samuel Mazzuchelli was called upon to do the invocation for the first meeting of the legislature. There was a speculator. You may have heard of this guy, especially if you're in Madison, James Doty who realized this location was not going to work out for the state capital, and he purchased land in Madison for $1500. And we can see how that worked out. The state capital is about a baseball throw away from here. The first judge was Charles Dunn who came in 1836, and continued to live in the original Belmont for 36 years. The first legislature only met for 36 days. The capital was then moved to Madison, but Belmont held on for a number of years. In 1910, the Women's Federation of Women's Clubs bought the site and restored the buildings. But what also happened at that time that killed Belmont was a Milwaukee railroad that went out to Platteville, located itself three miles south in what is now Belmont, and most of the buildings from the original Belmont were moved into the current one. The next three are three very interesting communities that never had a main street, but they were communities nevertheless. The first one is Pleasant Ridge in Grant County. Pleasant Ridge is located about seven miles southwest of Lancaster and was birthed with Wisconsin statehood in 1848. Pleasant Ridge is not a town in the traditional sense but an ethnic settlement with a very unique history that lasted until 1961. By 1900, Pleasant Ridge boasted a population of 200 people. All were black ex-slaves or ancestors of slaves. It was founded by William Horner, a Virginia plantation owner and slave holder who moved to Wisconsin in search of cheaper land and over his concerns about slavery. Horner sold his plantation, freed his slaves, but he brought with him seven of his former slaves. He purchased a large tract of land and sold some of it off to his former slaves for $1.50 per acre. After the Civil War began, a Missourian, landowner and slave owner, William Ross and some of his newly freed slaves accompanied Ross to Pleasant Ridge. 1863 brought John Greene and his family to Pleasant Ridge. John Greene was unique to some degree because he could read and write, and he became one of the leaders of this new colony. Pleasant Ridge school was opened to both blacks and whites where they received an excellent education. Many of them graduated from Lancaster High School and went on to Macomb College in Missouri. Pleasant Ridge was one of the first to integrate its schools in the United States. On the Civil War monument on the courthouse square, there is a listing of all of these Civil War veterans from Grant County. Six of the names on there are of blacks that served from Pleasant Ridge, two of them, a father and son, were both killed in the war. The next town in Cheyenne Valley in Vernon County. Vernon County is known for its round barns, but a few people know that Cheyenne Valley held the largest rural black population in Wisconsin. This colony began with Wisconsin's defiance of the Fugitive Slave Act in 1850, and the extensive part that Wisconsin played in the underground railroad. Free blacks and those on the underground railroad were aided by the Quakers and others of conscience. Cheyenne Valley grew to a population of 150 free blacks. After the Civil War, the blacks were encouraged to come to a welcoming Wisconsin. This is the second integrated school in the United States. The Cheyenne Valley was a neighborhood of mixed ethnic groups, all quickly adapted as they shared schools, church, and sports teams. The people of Cheyenne Valley became very successful farmers, intermarrying with other nationalities and races. Thomas Shivers was born in a Tennessee plantation, and he became a large landowner. His son Algie went to the technical school of Sidelia, Missouri, and learned modern farm construction. Algie built at least 15 round barns between 1890 and 1930. This quote truly sums up what Cheyenne Valley was. "Everyone was concerned about their neighbor. We didn't even know we were integrated. We just didn't think about color." This particular round barn is just out of Hillsboro. And this is, I believe, the Shivers family, and this is the Cheyenne Valley school. I believe that one of the former Madison city council members, Michael Shivers, is a direct descendant of the Shivers family. Next we come to French Town in Dane County. And we're honored to have with us today the mayor of French Town, Jerry Remy. French Town was just north of Belleville, and it was founded by the French from St. Germain, France, in the early 1850s. Thirty-two families came to the area to begin farming. There was never a built town as such, but they built a very strong ethnic community. Many of the businesses in Belleville, including the Francois Ford dealership, the Paul, Jen, and John Deere Dealership, Belleville Auto Company and others were formed by people that had their roots in French Town. They attended church at St. Andrew's Catholic church in Paoli. A number of the original families still farm in the French Town settlement. They brought with them their own French dialect no longer spoken in St. Germain. Some years ago, Leo Pillar of Belleville and his wife took a trip back to St. Germain to see what their homeland was like. And they held a big banquet for Leo and his wife, and Leo got up and he addressed the group in that French language that they had used in French Town and only the oldest of the citizens could understand that language. And Leo was the last speaker of that language in this country. So it died out with Leo. Every once in a while, the French Town descendants hold a reunion. The last one was held in 2013, and 30 of the 32 families were represented. Sometimes all that remains is a historical marker, a cemetery, and a story about somebody. Albert -- was a bachelor Frenchman who was a beekeeper, and he had his hives up in a hill just behind the Belleville school system. And my understanding was that he lived in a little hut up there that was built somewhat into the ground. Okay, now we're going to go across to the eastern part of Wisconsin to Voree, the Garden of Peace in Walworth County. And Voree sits right on the county line. Voree was a Mormon town founded in 1845 by James Jesse Strang, who was born in New York state. Now, this doesn't look like the type of a house that a future king would live in, but it was such. Strang as a child was thought to be mentally retarded and stupid. The reality was Strang was very intellectual and probably a con man as well. Strang had a divine vision and commanded four of his followers to go up this hill, the Hill of Promise, and he had them dig under a tree. And they found three brass tablets that were one foot by two feet square written in some very strange hieroglyphics, and Strang pretended that he could read them. And all of this inspired Strang to build a two-and-a-half-acre Temple of Zion. Strang's sister-in-law was Moses Smith. Let me start over here. Strang's sister was the sister-in-law to Moses Smith, one of the founders of the Mormon church. Voree became admired and discord over a number of numerous issues and many moved to Beaver Island on Lake Michigan where they named the town that they founded, surprisingly enough they named it St. James for Mr. Strang. There, on 1850, Strang was crowned the king. He wore a discarded Shakespeare actor's red robe and a crown for his coronation. Shortly thereafter, Strang proclaimed that the lord had commanded him to institute polygamy, which caused a great uproar. Strang's despotic rule was despised, and in the summer of 1856 two of his followers shot and killed him. There are still a few of the buildings standing in Voree. Another Mormon town, Zarahemla is now Blanchardville and the village of Yellowstone in Lafayette County. Zarahemla is the City of God, was founded in the 1840s, and is now known as Blanchardville. By 1856, the town had a mill and a number of stores. The first Mormon settlers, the Newkirks, the Kleins, the Wildermooth families, were all related by marriage, and some of their ancestors are still in the Blanchardville and New Glarus area. The Mormons that came here combined farming and lead mining with Newkirk Diggings at Blanchardville and Fretwell Diggings at Yellowstone. The first Mormon families had been dissatisfied with their earlier religions and family tragedies that turned them to Mormonism. The hotel and area in Yellowstone is about seven and a half miles west of Blanchardville. One of the early settlers there was Zenas Gurley, a strangite Mormon who came to the area from Voree. And he had a falling out with Strang over the polygamy issue, and so he split with him. Gurley eventually went to Salt Lake City where he rose to a very high position in the church. Yellowstone, it was also known as Scottstown, was one of those towns that you come around the corner and suddenly out in the middle of nowhere is this beautiful stone building. And the story behind it was the guy that built it thought that the railroad was going to come up that valley, but it didn't. So he had this building and no railroad. And that was a very common thing because the railroad that came through Blanchardville killed off two towns, and we'll get to that one very quickly. This building did serve as the post office. The owners have kept it up very nicely. The second floor still has an intact dance hall in it that they have chosen to preserve. Today, there are new pioneers moving into this same area. The Amish farmers that have moved in and have bought up quite a few of the farms there. Moscow in Iowa County. Moscow, two miles cross country from Blanchardville, was founded in 1847 by Chauncey Smith who built the mill on the Blue Mounds branch of the Pecatonica River. At its height, Moscow grew to 110 people. The businesses in Moscow included a carding mill, broom factory, blacksmith, cheese factory, doctors office, post office, hotel, and school. It was a very well educated populous, and they formed a literary society for their citizens. In 1888, the Illinois Central bypassed Moscow for Blanchardville, and as the story always goes, the town died. Most of the buildings were moved into Blanchardville. Moscow had a very interesting history. In 1873, the Norwegians of that area, and it is a very solidly Norwegian area, staged a Syttende Mai, which is the Norwegian independence day. They had heard the Ole Bull, who was a Norwegian virtuoso violin player, was in Madison at that time. And they decided they wanted to get him out there to play and speak at their Syttende Mai. So they took a two-day buggy trip to Madison to find out if Bull would come out, and he said, yes, he would. So Ole came out and he spoke to a crowd of 3,000 people. After he was done, the crowd starting cheering and they asked him if he would play the violin. He says, I have come to speak, not to play.

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And I don't have a violin. This little 10-year-old kid walked up to him, handed a violin up to him, and said here, and he played. That violin is still in the hands of the grandson of the little kid that handed that violin up to Bull, and he still plays it and he can still play the same songs that Ole Bull played that day.

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1933, they did a reenactment of this, and at that reenactment, they drew 2,000 people. And then in 2003, they did yet another reenactment of this, and they had quite a cast of characters there to play out the parts. State Representative Steve Friess played one of the speakers, and former Madison mayor and Iowa County judge Bill Dyke also played out a part. Dill in Green County. Dill was one of these towns that was founded strictly on the railroad. In 1888, the Illinois Central railroad came through Dill on its way up to Dodgeville, and Dill was where the Milwaukee road going west and Dill crossed. So this little town was formed. Now, Dill is just one mile west of Browntown, and they decided that they should have a town there because they had a depot. The depot was shared by both railroads. It's an Illinois Central depot, and the agent worked for both of the railroads. There was fierce competition between the railroads, and it was pretty vicious at times. Then, one winter, a decision was made that they needed to move the depot across the river. So they waited until the river was solidly frozen, they jacked the depot up, put skids under it, hitched horses onto it, and pulled it across the river. Now, the hotel served the passengers of both railroads. There were 12 rooms in the hotel. They served meals. And there was also a stockyard in Dill. Dill had its own homemakers group. And Dill died in 1942 with the removal of the tracks from Dodgeville back to Freeport "for the war effort." The only trace of Dill that you'll find today is one green road sign that says Dill. And there's not another trace that you can find. And you would think that just with 72 years or thereabouts that you would find something, but there's absolutely nothing there. I'll bet you didn't know that oil was ever struck in Wisconsin. Well, you're about to hear the real story of this. Oil City was founded in the Kickapoo River Valley in 1842 by Esau Johnson, who was the first permanent white settler in Monroe County. In 1866, an eastern named Tickner arrived in Oil City telling people that he was an oil expert. And after several days of exploring around, Tickner came back and he told the people that he thought that the terrain looked pretty darn good for finding oil. So Tickner began leasing land at exorbitant prices for oil exploration, and he reluctantly, very reluctantly, sold stock to the investors. Exploration for oil began, and several days later Tickner discovered oil and he quickly formed the Gem Petroleum Company, which just drove the price of the stock up even more. After some drilling, a gusher was struck at 700 feet with liquid blasting 20 feet into the air. The only problem was it wasn't oil.

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They'd sprung an artesian well, which is still running today. But by the time he was found out, Tickner was long gone and a rather wealthy man. Oil City was platted in 1870 with eight blocks and 72 lots and all were sold by 1883. At it's high point, Oil City had a post office, a mill, a blacksmith shop, stores, schools, and a sawmill. All hopes for a sustaining Oil City died when the Kickapoo and Northwestern Railroads stopped building their tracks seven miles south. That just ended any hope that Oil City ever had of becoming any town of any significance. And, like so many towns, because of the railroad not coming, Oil City's best days were gone. This is Turtleville in Rock County. Turtleville is located north of Beloit, was founded in 1838 by John and Abel Lewis, the brothers found that Turtleville would provide them with the water power they needed for their sawmill. By 1850, this town had a stone schoolhouse, a baptist church, and blacksmith shop and several stores. 1850 also brought an Englishman to town, William Hodson. He was quick to build a flour mill and a distillery. He hired a lot of local residents for this. He then built this house, which was 17 rooms with 12 feet high ceilings, gardens, fruit trees, all kinds of amenities that you would never expect at that period of time. Then the Civil War broke out, and Hodson's loyalties during the Civil War were with the Confederacy, and in order to try to hurt the federal government, he was selling unstamped whiskey.

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In 1857, one of his employees turned him in, and Hodson eventually had to pay a fine of $98,407. To put that into 1867 terms, that's a lot of money.

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Eventually, the government foreclosed on him, and his property was sold at public auction for $3,000 and for all of his holdings. He spent his last days wandering in and out of taverns drinking whiskey and playing his violin in Janesville. Today, all that remains is the cemetery and this bridge which is in the National Register of Historic Places. Ulao in Ozaukee County is very close to what we now know as Grafton. It was just north of Milwaukee and built on a steep bluff, as you can tell here, on Lake Michigan. It was founded by James T. Gifford in 1847. Gifford was a perceptive businessman. He built a 1,000 pier out onto the lake to entice steamships to stop at Ulao. Gifford knew that it was difficult for the steamers to fuel in Milwaukee because they had to negotiate the river, which was very shallow. So he built this pier for them. He bought wood from the area farmers who were clearing their woods so that they could get cropland. He moved the wood to Ulao and then out to the bluff where he devised and built a large shoot that slid the wood down to the lake shore. This provided steamships with a much better fueling stop. And consider that each steamboat coming from Chicago to Buffalo, New York, or vice versa, could use up to 600 cords of wood for that trip. To put into perspective, it took 10 acres of wood just to fuel a one-way trip. Gifford's sister, Jane Gifford, married a Luther Guiteau and moved there in 1850 with their son Charles who was described as a high strung and excitable boy. Charles later described himself as an adult as an evangelist, an insurance salesman, a writer, and orator, and a conman.

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Charles went east and made a very good nuisance of himself trying to get a job with the government, and they obviously saw through him and nobody would hire him. So he ambled around for some time, and in July of 1880 a distraught Charles bought a gun and he went to the platform at the Washington, DC, train station where he shot and killed President Garfield. And as the wood supply died out, so did Ulao. But a new group of inhabitants

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Mormons that were retreating back from Beaver Island. Two of the buildings still exist today. Now we're getting closer to home. Dover in Dane County. Dover is located just three miles west of Mazomanie, founded in 1844. But its inception began two years earlier in Liverpool, England. Letters were set to a group of Englishmen thinking of making America their home became Dover's genesis. They formed the British Temperance Emigration Society and Savings Fund to promote emigration to America. Each family was to get 80 acres of land, including a two-story, 14 by 20 log cabin and five acres of land under cultivation. Emigration began in 1844, and by 1850 the population was nearly 700. Dover had stores, a wagon shop, blacksmith shop, hotels, post offices, and a coopers shop. Dover's most famous citizen was John Appleby. John Appleby invented the knotter that was used on early grain binders, and that patent has still been kept current and it is still used on the latest models of the old small square balers. Something that really stood the test of time. Dover's demise came when the Milwaukee and Mississippi River Railroad decided to bypass Dover. They had wanted to go through Dover, but the farmers near there wanted so much for their land that they switched their route and went through Mazomanie, and with the arrival of the railroad in Mazomanie, Dover died and quickly passed into the history books. Helena, Wisconsin. Where is Helena? Well, that kind of depends on when you ask the question. Helena has been in three locations but always on the Wisconsin River. The first Helena was laid out by Governor Henry Dodge and was to be used as a river port. In 1831, Daniel Whitney moved the town to the shot tower where he owned the shot tower himself and was making lead shot. The town was moved once again closer to the Wisconsin River and railroad, but the town never flourished in this location. The town was abandoned during the Black Hawk War of 1832. Many men from Helena went off to fight in this war. After the Battle of Wisconsin Heights, the buildings were torn apart to make rafts. General Atkinson arrived on July 26th, and over two days they tore down enough buildings that they could build rafts to get Atkinson's 1,300 men across the Wisconsin River. The mid-1850s were good to Helena. It boasted a post office, a hotel, a ballroom, a five-story warehouse, a 120-foot wharf for river steamboats. But by the mid-1860s, only 50 residents remained. Frank Lloyd Wright's uncle, Jenkin Lloyd Jones, bought the property for the Tower Hill Pleasure Company, an educational retreat boasting a pavilion, dining hall, stables, icehouse, cottages, and lawn houses. La Rue. I would imagine, have any of you ridden at Mid-Continent Railroad Museum? Okay. Then you're familiar with La Rue. La Rue had quite a history for a very short time. The 1890s a number of iron mines were opened up, and that gave La Rue its boom town moment. The iron ore brought to La Rue two saloons, a hotel, a general store, union church, and a grade school. To serve the mines, the Chicago and Northwestern Railroad extended their line two miles to service these mines. The mines operated on the two to three shift per day operation. And many of the miners were Norwegian, Swedish, and Finnish. There's one big problem with the mine. And that was water infiltrating. And that closed the mines down, and it reopened, another mine opened some years later mining quartzite. The last employee there left in 1960. We're going to skip past a couple of these because of time constraints. Exeter in Green County. In Exeter there were women who were tough, as you can tell.

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This is their 1939 women's rope pulling team. Exeter was founded in 1828 by William Deveise, a Virginian who had been in Exeter one year earlier. Two traders, McNutt and Boner, had a trading post just outside of Exeter in 1828. During a drunken brawl, McNutt killed Boner with an ax, making this the first murder in Green County. And interpreter named Van Sickle, who worked with them, was a witness to this murder. McNutt left Exeter immediately to go to Fort Blue Mounds to turn himself in for the murder. Shortly thereafter, McNutt arrived at Fort Blue Mounds and so did Van Sickle. McNutt was transferred out to the jail at Fort Crawford where a trial was held. Van Sickle was the witness to the murder, but McNutt was found innocent because Van Sickle was a noted liar.

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They didn't really have that much doubt that he probably did commit it, but they couldn't trust the witness. The first dance was held in Exeter in 1842, and the first Fourth of July was celebrated in 1843. The highlight of this Fourth of July event was when an area character, Lickfield, got up on a whiskey barrel, and there were plenty of whiskey barrels in Exeter, and delivered a speech. "Let us recount the history of that great struggle in which they so nobly fought, bled, and died. The hand of the omnipotence was against them, but by the grace of God they conquered." George McGee built this store, and nobody is sure, it could be 1850s, it could be early 1860s. When he opened it up, he had an open house and a dance in the second floor. He had people coming from as far away as Beloit, Janesville, and Rockford. Now, you think about that, in the 1860s that's 65 miles, and people came that far for this. William Deveise, the founder of Exeter, enlisted in the Black Hawk War of 1832, and he served with both Albert Sidney Johnson and Joseph E. Johnson, who went on to become Confederate generals. Deveise was General Atkinson's aide-de-camp, and Deveise lived in the area until he died in 1885. He was 95 years old. The other thing that's interesting about Exeter, you think a good northern state like Wisconsin, the men would all enlist in the Union army during the Civil War, but they didn't. A number of them enlisted in the Confederate army because of their southern roots. Attica, Green County. Attica is mid point between Monticello and Albany. It's one of only two townships that is not regular size. Fourteen of the 16 townships in Green County are six miles square. Attica did not like the town of Exeter, so they got themselves out of it and became a part of Brooklyn township. So you look at that line, and it goes like this. There's that little blip, and that's where Attica is. Attica was also named Winneshiek and Milford before becoming Attica, taking its name from Attica, New York. On the east side of the river, White Breast and his Winnebago people had a huge village there. By 1845, there was a gristmill, a cooper, blacksmith shop, a wagon shop, and many other businesses. I don't have a photo of it. This building right here was the blacksmith shop. That has been restored and is now in the National Register of Historic Places, and it is a restaurant, a very good restaurant. Stewart or Postville was founded in 1838 by John Stewart from Ohio. The first post office was located a couple miles away at Farmers Grove, then moved to Stewart or Postville. The town name was changed to Postville because there was another Stewart post office in Wisconsin. The new town name was attributed to Gilbert Post, who built the first hotel. Green's Prairie Cemetery is where Fighting Bob La Follette's father was first buried. And he was at some point exhumed and moved into Madison to be alongside his wife. This man is Carl Blaser, the longtime owner of the Postville blacksmith shop. The Postville blacksmith shop started in business in 1856. It has its fourth owner at the present time, and it has never closed. And it's going great guns. They do metalwork all over the United States now. Schultz, Green County. Schultz is three miles south of Monticello. Its biggest claim to fame was a murder in 1919. A hired man on a farm just to the east of Schultz killed his boss. He said, "I really didn't want to kill him, but I had to. And I liked the man." But he killed him nevertheless. So the sheriff's department is called out and they arrived and the guy is holed up in the house. And by the time this whole fiasco was done, the cops had fired 2,200 rounds into the house. The murderer never got a scratch on him.

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The farmer was dead. He shot and killed Sheriff Solbraa, and there was a World War I veteran who came and said, well, we need to storm the place, and he got killed as well. The hired man ended up in Mendota for the rest of his life. I'm going to have to jump though these. We're going to back up just one. How many of you have ever heard of Martintown? Oh my gosh, this is not a response I expected. Where did you hear of it? >> We live there. >> We live close to it. >> Pardon? >> We live near Browntown. >> Okay, you're cheating.

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Yes? >> I lived in Browntown. >> Pardon? >> I lived in Browntown. >> Okay. Anybody else? Where have you heard of it? >>

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>> Okay, typically every one of you has probably heard the name Martintown, but you wouldn't think about it. Oftentimes in the spring, when there are flood watches, flood warnings, high water warnings, and you'll hear the weather service say the Pecatonica River is one foot above flood stage at Martintown. Martintown is the gauging station. We're going to finish up with my favorite one. Centerville in Decatur, Green County. Centerville was just a marvelous town. My gosh, just look at it.

LAUGHTER

stayed for a short time

You're laughing, why? Don't you see anything there? It was such a beautiful... Centerville had a beautiful wide main street, buildings, two- and three-story buildings, businesses, a beautiful town square, parks, everything you could possibly want. Small houses, big houses, exquisite houses. What happened was the town was laid out and speculators that laid out the town had these beautiful drawings of Centerville and they went to Milwaukee, Chicago, Detroit, Cleveland, Philadelphia selling these lots in this beautiful mecca in southern Wisconsin. These people showed up to claim their lots, and the only thing they found were the red surveyor stakes. There was never a nail driven there, and the speculators were long gone. Any questions?

LAUGHTER

APPLAUSE