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Mauston, Wisconsin
"Mauston, situated on the line of the C.; M. & St. P.R.R., 127 miles west of Milwaukee, surrounded with a rich and beautiful agricultural country, supplied with abundant timber and pure water, settled with intelligent, temperate, industrious people, making it a home for culture and thrift, of which its citizens are justly proud. It has a population of about 1,300. That public affairs are well managed is proved by the fact that the tax rate for village purposes is less than six and one-half mills on the dollar of assessed valuation. It gives every evidence of being most thriving and energetic in its business pursuits. The commercial trade report it as one of the finest of the many on this line of the railway." (History of Northern Wisconsin, 1881)
M. M. Maughs filed the original plat for the heart of the "thriving and energetic" city that would bear his name in July of 1854. As other plots were surveyed over the years they were identified as "additions" to Maugh's first plat. Maughs platted the addition that became the center of Mauston in 1855.
Most of the city's original business and industrial establishments were built along Mansion Street east of North Union Street. As the village grew new sawmills located upriver while stores and offices spread south on Union and westward on State Street.
Mauston's Downtown in late winter.
Industrial activity in Mauston centered on the mills along the river, and spread through the business district to the Milwaukee Road depot located on the tracks between Hickory and Pine Streets. The old Maugh's mill which passed into the hands, first of Ben Boorman, then Jeff T. Heath, was the largest sawmill and the only grain mill in the village until the 1880's. The steam-powered foundry mill of the Carter Iron Works also ground grain.
Smaller lumber mills like the Winser Brother's were built upstream on the Lemonweir and used the pond formed by Maugh's dam to hold logs. Nearby were small woods products factories like the Todd, Daniels and Company stave factory. When Martin Roth excavated to lay concrete footings for a building on Mansion just east of Hickory in the 1920's, he discovered near-perfect preserved slabs cut off of pine logs many years earlier. They were buried when the low spot was filled in the 1860's and still repose beneath the buildings there.
The old dam also served as the first footbridge across the Lemonweir River at Mauston. It was replaced and improved upon as early as 1866 when Oscar F. Temple completed his covered bridge just upstream. It could handle wagon as well as foot traffic.
The Milwaukee Road depot was important both to travelers and residents. The depot clock was the official timekeeper for the village. The correct time was wired to the depot daily, the agent set the "regulator" timepiece in the station and men set their watches from it.
Mauston's New Public Library.
Mauston's two leading hotels in the late 1800's were the Mauston House, on State just west of Division, and the Central House on State and Pine. Both hotels sent men to meet every train. They pushed short, two-wheeled carts that could be loaded with baggage and offered to guide new arrivals to what they assured the visitors was the best place in town. The livery stables sent buggies to transport visitors to destinations too far to easily reach on foot.
Since virtually every raw material and manufactured item used in the village arrived by rail the tracks on the south edge of the business district were lined with store yards and warehouses. Lumber sat in tall stacks ready to load. A large lime barn, built long and narrow for easy loading and sitting high off the ground to keeps its contents dry, ran parallel to the tracks. Sheds for agricultural produce-- hops, wheat, and potatoes--were also nearby. A coal yard and a stock yard for cattle, sheep, hogs and horses on their way to and from market were also part of the depot complex.
After the courthouse was built in 1875, county government played an important role in Mauston. The Courthouse Park was the chief decoration of Mauston's downtown. A hundred-foot spruce flagpole stood at the northwest corner of the park and the American flag snapped in the breeze at its peak. The pole was also popular with pranksters who felt obliged to raise a buggy to its top on Halloween night. By 1890, Courthouse Park also had an octagonal wooden band shell from which various city bands serenaded the passerby on summer Saturdays.
Mauston's Courthouse--2001
For its first twenty-five years the village was split into two parts, upper and lower town. Lower town was mainly east of Pine Street and upper town was clustered along west State Street. An ancient bed of the river, with a small creek, was the principal line of demarcation dividing upper and lower towns. During periods of high water the old river bed would fill and citizens needed a boat to travel between the two towns. A footbridge spanned the gully for several years so pedestrians could avoid it. Even when it was dry, the old river bed and the future Courthouse Park area had a reputation for being "snaky." One year Milton Maughs and his mill crew cleaned up the spot and killed over 150 rattlesnakes.
The village incorporated in the spring of 1860. The village system served Mauston well until the mid-1880's. In 1855 Elroy incorporated as a city and gained an additional seat on the county board. As the largest community in the county, Mauston felt under-represented with the single supervisor allotted to a village. In 1887, Mauston then incorporated as a city and gained another seat on the county board.
Mauston was originally served by its volunteer fire department. When a fire broke out, all hands turned out. Firefighters pulled the engine to the blaze themselves. Hoses were run to the river or dropped into street corner cisterns and hand-pumping of water commenced. When a blaze got out of control, neighboring buildings were pulled down or hosed in order to limit the damage. Mauston's most serious 19th Century fire occurred in 1874, when the west side of State Street between Division and Oak was destroyed. Stone buildings like the Opera House replaced what was lost.
For children, who usually went shoeless as long as the weather would allow, the early wooden sidewalks of Mauston could be amusing as well as hazardous. They had to pick their way down the sidewalks carefully to avoid slivers and pitch-filled pine knots. Slivers and knots were a special problem after the the post-Halloween sidewalk repair. Since many of the boardwalks were tipped up or kidnapped on Halloween night, many property owners took the time to replace damaged boards before setting the walks in place again. While the walks were gone, the young people searched the sand for coins that had fallen between the cracks in the previous year.
Hog Island, across the main channel from downtown, took its name from its most numerous residents. The island was also the home of C. W. Grote's vineyard. In the 1890's he tended 2,000 vines, crushed the grapes, and barreled his own wine.
Transportation has played a large role in Mauston's history. The railroad set the village on the track to prosperity in the 1850's. The development of automobile travel and highways to support it also favored the city. It was located roughly half way between Chicago and Minneapolis on the shortest route connecting the two cities and became a stopover point for truckers on their way between the two metropolises.
This is Mauston's Lake Decorah (from behind the Library)
