Calamine, Wisconsin Explained

Official Name:Calamine, Wisconsin
Pushpin Map:Wisconsin#USA
Pushpin Label:Calamine
Subdivision Type:Country
Subdivision Name: United States
Subdivision Type1:State
Subdivision Type2:County
Subdivision Name2:Lafayette
Subdivision Type3:Town
Subdivision Name3:Willow Springs
Timezone:Central (CST)
Utc Offset:-6
Timezone Dst:CDT
Utc Offset Dst:-5
Elevation Ft:889
Coordinates:42.7425°N -90.1619°W
Area Code:608
Blank Name:GNIS feature ID
Blank Info:1562506

Calamine is an unincorporated community in the town of Willow Springs in Lafayette County, Wisconsin, United States.[1] 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 its walls.

Formerly Calamine was a bustling community with prosperous mines and farms with an active rail road. The rail road was operated by the Milwaukee Road RR and switched at Calamine, either going north to Slateford and Mineral Point or West to Belmont, Ipswich and Platteville. In the 50’s and 60’s large cattle trains would unload Texas cattle in the spring at Calamine and Slateford to be hauled to Kenyon Cattle Company’s pastures. 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 granular and liquid fertilizer, making the nearby Pecatonica River bottoms top producers in non flood yearsNorth 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

References

  1. http://www.wisconsinhistory.org/dictionary/index.asp?action=view&term_id=6241 Calamine, Wisconsin-Wisconsin Historical Society
  2. 'Proceedings of the State Bar Association of Wisconsin,' vol. 3, Wisconsin Bar Association: 1901, Biographical Sketch of Montgomery Morrison Cothren, pg. 229
  3. Book: THE LEGISLATIVE MANUAL OF THE STATE OF WISCONSIN. 15th. Madison, Wis.. 1876. 469.

42.7425°N -90.1619°W