Fargoville

Fargoville. . On this site once stood the hamlet of Fargoville. In 1864, brothers Thomas and Joseph Hamilton, along with another business partner, built a saw and grist mill on Willow Creek. The nascent town was called Hamilton Mills for the brothers, who also operated a general merchandizing firm in Berlin, Wisconsin, and owned 960 acres of nearby cranberry marsh. As Settlers moved into the area and population grew, more businesses followed, including a blacksmith shop, a firm selling wagons and implements, and a general merchandise store. Hamilton Mills also had a post office, dance hall, and school., By 1880, the Hamilton brothers had mutually agreed to dissolve their partnership. Thomas E. Decker, an entrepreneur, purchased the mills from Thomas Hamilton and in 1882 expanded his ventures by building a cheese factory near the artesian well about 100 yards from this sign. Decker served as the Warren township chair as well as county board supervisor. In 1885, he secured $2000, half from the county and half from the township, to build a bridge near his mill over Willow Creek. The next year, Decker sold the cheese factory to J.R. Wilcox, and in 1895 it became the Warren Cheese and Butter Company. Meanwhile, Thomas Hamilton remained active in the area improving and building roads to facilitate local transportation. , In 1893, the town was renamed Fargoville. Nevertheless ten years later the post office was closed. In the early twentieth century Waushara County began a long population decline that severely affected Fargoville and several other nearby small towns including Terrill, Sonora, and Howe’s Corners. The Fargoville School, located on the north side of Willow Creek, operated into the 1930s, but closed soon thereafter. In time the town’s ice house, hotel, and Hamilton Hall, a popular meeting and dance hall, fell into disrepair. The hotel, Fargoville’s last standing building, was torn down in 1949.