Wisconsin's Most Historic Towns

Wisconsin's history spans Native American effigy mound culture, the fur trade, lead mining, German and Scandinavian immigration, Progressive Era politics, and the founding of the Republican Party.

Ripon
The birthplace of the Republican Party — on February 28, 1854, a group of anti-slavery Whigs, Free Soilers, and Democrats met in a one-room schoolhouse in Ripon and established what became the Republican Party. The Little White Schoolhouse is preserved as a National Historic Landmark. Ripon College (1851, the oldest 4-year liberal arts college in Wisconsin) gives the town additional historical depth.

Prairie du Chien
Wisconsin's second-oldest European settlement (1673 — the site of a major Native American trading center where Marquette and Jolliet first reached the Mississippi) and the site of the 1825 Treaty of Prairie du Chien (a major inter-tribal and US-Native American treaty). Villa Louis (1843 — a fur trading mansion of the Hercules Dousman family, now a state historic site) is the finest preserved 19th-century mansion in Wisconsin.

Baraboo
The winter home of the Ringling Brothers Circus from 1884 to 1918 — Baraboo's Circus World Museum (on the original Ringling Bros. winter quarters site) preserves 200 circus wagons (the largest collection in the world) and presents a live circus in summer. The International Crane Foundation (the only facility in the world breeding all 15 crane species) is adjacent to Baraboo.

Mineral Point
A Cornish immigrant lead mining community from the 1830s — Mineral Point preserves the finest collection of Cornish-style stone architecture in the US. Pendarvis State Historic Site (preserved stone cottages of the Cornish miners, 1830s–1840s) and the Shake Rag Alley arts complex give the town an exceptional character.

Spring Green
Frank Lloyd Wright's home — the Taliesin estate (600 acres, multiple buildings spanning 50 years of Wright's career), the House on the Rock (an eccentric alternative architecture experience 7 miles away), and the Spring Green General Store give the village more cultural significance than its 1,600 residents might suggest.