Calamine, Wisconsin
Calamine is an unincorporated community in the town of Willow Springs in Lafayette County, Wisconsin, United States.[2][3] The Cheese Country Trail runs through the community, as does the Pecatonica River. The community is home to 100 year old St. Michael Church, within the Roman Catholic Diocese of Madison. Next to the church is the Willow Springs township hall which was the former one room school house until 1961, when the new Willow Springs school opened. Many scholars were produced between it’s walls.
Calamine, Wisconsin | |
---|---|
Calamine, Wisconsin Calamine, Wisconsin | |
Coordinates: 42°44′33″N 90°09′43″W | |
Country | United States |
State | Wisconsin |
County | Lafayette |
Elevation | 271 m (889 ft) |
Time zone | UTC-6 (Central (CST)) |
• Summer (DST) | UTC-5 (CDT) |
Area code(s) | 608 |
GNIS feature ID | 1562506[1] |
Formerly Calamine was a bustling community with prosperous mines and farms with and active rail road. Stores, hotels, blacksmiths, and taverns thrived. For many years local farmers hauled their milk to the Calamine cheese factory to be made into famous Swiss cheese with holes in it. Later the Cornland fertilizer plant was built and supplied farmers for miles around with fertilizer. North of Calamine there was a popular swimming hole known as the “Mill” on the Pecatonica River named after a prehistoric grist Mill which was burned to the ground during the Blackhawk war. Fourth Cavalry troopers from Fort Defiance were unable to extinguish it and through the procedure somehow discovered this great swimming hole.
Notable people
- Montgomery Morrison Cothren, Wisconsin legislator and jurist, lived in Calamine.[4]
- Danverse Neff, Wisconsin legislator, lived in Calamine.[5]
References
- U.S. Geological Survey Geographic Names Information System: Calamine, Wisconsin
- "Calamine, Wisconsin". Geographic Names Information System. United States Geological Survey.
- Calamine, Wisconsin-Wisconsin Historical Society
- 'Proceedings of the State Bar Association of Wisconsin,' vol. 3, Wisconsin Bar Association: 1901, Biographical Sketch of Montgomery Morrison Cothren, pg. 229
- THE LEGISLATIVE MANUAL OF THE STATE OF WISCONSIN (15th ed.). Madison, Wis. 1876. p. 469.