St. Croix County History

Saint Croix County once comprised most of northwestern Wisconsin and part of what is now northeastern Minnesota. Its Indian culture dates back thousands of years to the tribes of the Sioux and Chippewa.

There are many stories as to how Saint Croix County received its name, the most popular however seems to be that of Father Hennepin – a French missionary explorer. A prisoner of the Sioux Indians in 1680, Father Hennepin was one of the first white visitors to the area. The name of Saint Croix was given the meaning Holy Cross. The peninsula formed by the St. Croix River and the Mississippi River was neutral territory between the Sioux and the Chippewa leaving it relatively open for settlement. St. Croix County was created in 1840 from part of Crawford County by an act of the Territorial Legislature when Wisconsin was still a territory. When Wisconsin was admitted to the Union as a full fledged state, the western boundary was set at the St. Croix River creating the western boundary of the county. After this, St. Croix County was still considerably larger than it is today until a final reorganization of county boundaries in1853.

In 1846 the towns of Stillwater and St. Paul were established as election precincts for St. Croix County until territorial boundaries shifted in the years following. The towns of Elizabeth and Buena Vista were laid out at the first meeting of the county board of supervisors in 1849. Elizabeth was renamed Prescott in 1851. Buena Vista was changed to Willow River and changed again to Hudson (Willow River bridge entering Hudson, ca. 1935) in 1852, as it remains today.

The first occupants of the area of St. Croix County were the fur traders and explorers. In 1793 a trading post was established along the St. Croix by Laurient Barth, Jacques Portier and Charles Reaume. Trade with the Indians continued for many years, dropping off in 1834 when farmers began moving into the area. Lumber (undated photo of logging on the Hudson waterfront) was another industry to take a hold in the area when in the spring of 1840 the St. Louis Lumber Company sent a work party to the Falls to begin work on a mill. At this time it was the pines north of the area that were in demand rather than the hardwoods of St. Croix County, however St. Croix County and the St. Croix River were important in the transportation of these pine logs. The St. Croix River was opened to trade and travel in 1839 with the arrival of the steamer Palmyra.

The first farmer in St. Croix County was Joseph Haskell, who began his endeavors in 1840 and was soon followed by others. By the late 1840s much more was taking shape. A post office was opened in Stillwater in 1845. By 1847 frame houses were appearing and by the following year a boarding house had been opened in Hudson by Moses Parrington. It wasn’t until 1849, when a U.S. Land Office was established in Hudson, that the county’s population really began to grow – doubling between 1860 and 1870 and only continuing to climb.

One major line of rail transportation (undated photograph of Hudson railway employees) that ran through St. Croix County was the Hudson and River Falls Railway (River Falls Depot, 1880's) which was connected with the through line of Chicago, Milwaukee, St. Paul and Omaha Railway. By 1880 wheat was the staple crop of the county, but by the end of the 1800s St. Croix County began to turn towards the dairy industry. An early cheese factory was established in Roberts in 1883 and by 1895 the county had seven cheese factories and 14 creameries as well as a brewery. (Wm. Montmann's brewery on Willow River, ca. 1875) [compiled by Rebecca Zarling, 2005]

Additional St. Croix County Images:

Hudson Bike Club members on the corner of Second and Locust, 1920.	Hudson baseball team, 1912.	Hudson children, unidentified and undated.

View more St. Croix County Images.

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Sources:
A Bicentennial Report on St. Croix County: Past and Present. American Revolution Bicentennial Committee: St. Croix County, 1967

History of Northern Wisconsin. The Western Historical Company, Iron Mountain, Michigan: Ralph W. Secord Press, 1988