This site contains the content and additional information for the 175th Anniversary of Dane County display at the Dane County Regional Airport. Content was created by the Dane County Historical Society.

Southwest Communities —“The Early Years”

Blue Mounds

Division Street, Blue Mounds, WI c. 1900

The origins of the present Village of Blue Mounds began with the 1830’s “rough and tough” community of Pokerville. This mining boomtown, located slightly west, straddled what is now the Dane-Iowa County line. “Gambling was rife, fortunes were won and lost every night” wrote one chronicler. On the stage line between Madison and Mineral Point, the town had it all: a ten-pin alley, hotels, thirty houses, jeweler, tailor, blacksmith and other merchants. The village continued to thrive during the Civil War years, but its decline had already begun by 1882, when the Northwestern Railroad came through and established a depot a mile east. House by house, store by store Pokerville slipped away. A number of the buildings were moved to the new village site. The new village of Blue Mounds grew up near the depot. Hotels appeared, a feed mill, lumberyard, cheese factory, general stores, a bank and tradesmen of all types made up the business district by the turn of the twentieth century.

Opera House, Blue Mounds, WI c. 1900

Mt. Horeb

Mt. Horeb Depot 1885

Two early buildings at “the corners”

The intersection of well traveled roads created the initial location of the village. The Military Road and the roads to Mt. Vernon and Verona (old Badger Road) established what came to be known as Horeb’s Corners. Mt. Horeb was the official name of the 1861 established post office. Early settlers, many Scottish and English, and others from the eastern states established themselves around “The Corners.” During the Civil War and for decades after, the business life of the Corners stayed active. When the new Chicago Northwestern Railroad depot was built a mile west in 1880 merchants began to relocate to the new commercial heart of the village. “The Corners” soon became known as Old Town.

Mt. Horeb Main Street, Opera House 1895

Mt. Vernon

Mt. Vernon Baptist Church, Erected 1869

Ad for Roller Mills

Located on the middle branch of the Sugar River, a saw mill was erected on this site in 1849 by George Britt. He platted the village in 1851 and named it Mt. Vernon. A grist mill was built in 1858 and around it developed the village. The mill drew business from a large area. Hotels and other merchants became part of a busy main street reaching its hey-day by 1880. The village began its decline when the railroad from Verona west to Mt. Horeb was built on the north side of the ridge, rather than coming up the Sugar River valley through Mt.Vernon.

Paoli

Paoli, July 4, 1890

Paoli Cash Store, 1898

In 1849, Dane County Sheriff P. W. Matts acquired acreage with water rights on the Sugar River in Montrose Township. He built a saw mill and platted the Village of Paoli. In 1864 the Minch Brothers bought the mill property and erected a large stone grist mill. The community grew around it. By the 1870s and 80s, it had become a thriving village with merchants, doctors, tradesmen, hotels, school and church. It continued as a prosperous community into the 1900s with a theater group, coronet band and dance hall.

Verona

Original Bank of Verona building, (Walgreens Corner) 1911

Two Scotsmen, James Young and Thomas Stewart were the first to establish residence in the township in the late 1830s. With the building of a grist mill on Badger Creek in 1843, George Vroman and William Wheeler established a small settlement around it in the valley just south of today’s present village. The mill was sold to Samuel Taylor and this small community was briefly known as Taylorville.

Verona, Sharpe House Corner of Main and Verona Ave.

To the north of the mill site, Joseph Flick and H. B. Matts both acquired homestead land grants of large acreage in 1845. These properties included the major intersection of the east/west road (Mineral Point to Milwaukee) and the well-traveled north/south road (Green Bay to Galena). Both gentlemen sold lots along these routes which developed into Verona’s new residential and business district. Matts also sold land for the cemetery, the anticipated railroad and deeded land for a Baptist church. Two substantial brick homes were built at the corners by Matts and and his brother-in-law, John Meyers, their wives being Flick sisters. The very early travelers’ inn, The Eagles Nest, occupied one of the other corners.

Early Belleville

Belleville Village Hall/Library

Finding a mill site on the Sugar River, founder John Frederick, settled here in 1845. His mills prompted “Yankee” settlement and a village developed with a hotel/tavern, blacksmith, harness maker and general store. In 1847 an octagon-shaped school was erected followed by the formation of Baptist, Methodist and Presbyterian congregations. In 1851 the village was platted and named for Frederick’s native place, Belleville, Canada West. A post office was established in 1852. In the 1850s and 60s Swiss, Irish and French groups acquired adjacent farm lands. The 70s and 80s brought new growth with a library, opera house and railroad. By 1900 a fire department and high school were part of this flourishing village.

Belleville Ladies Utopian Band, Popular Group Organized in 1903

Belleville Park Hotel–Main Street 1898

Updated February 12, 2011