The Lost District

The Lost District. Where Wonewoc Began. , Though today only faint traces of early structures remain, this was the site of much industrial activity in the early days of the Village of Wonewoc. From the original log dam and sawmill of the Willard brothers in 1851 to the Power House and Dam of Arthur Gale (1917) this district was the scene of later sawmills, improved dams, a tannery, lath and planing mills, gristmills and flour mills, all deriving their power from the Baraboo River. The Power House and Dam, removed in 1996, was in fact one of the places to which Wisconsin Power and Light (Alliant Corporation) traces its origins, while the last flour mill, dating to the great boom in village development of the 1890s, was destroyed by fire in 1927; this was the massive three-story structure of the Wonewoc Mill Company maker of the famous White Swan Flour. Because today only concrete footings and scars along the bluff wall, easily visible to the practiced eye, indicate any human presence at all, this area, for generations the scene of great and noisy labor, is now know as The Lost District. This Park is dedicated to the memory of those generations which labored here.