Wisconsin Genealogy Trails

Welcome to this
Rusk County Wisconsin
Genealogy Trails Website

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Rusk County consists of 936 square miles, with 24 townships, 8 villages, and 1 city.

Founded in 1901, Rusk County was originally named Gates County, after Milwaukee land speculator James L. Gates.
Formed out of the northern part of Chippewa County in 1905, it was re-named by the Legislature in honor of Jeremiah M. Rusk, a Civil War hero, Wisconsin Congressman, 3-term Governor of the State and the first United States Secretary of Agriculture under President Benjamin Harrison.

In 1840, almost all of Rusk County was covered with six million acres of white pine and hemlock, and loggers made their livings harvesting these trees. Logging was the industry that opened up the territory in 1884 and the Chippewa River, Weigor and Thornapple Rivers were a solid mass of logs being floated down river. In 1884, the Soo Line was completed from the west to Bruce.

Small towns developed in a line east of Bruce as the Railroad developed. The logging industry fell off sharply after 1915, and farming then rose to take its place. Farming developed slowly in the county, lumber-jacks would acquire 40 or 80 acres, buy a cow or two, and raise food for their own use and fodder for their stock.

Ladysmith is the county seat.

The city was founded at the intersection of the Railroad Soo Line with the Flambeau River in 1885, named "Flambeau Falls" after the Ojibwa name for the area Gakaabikijiwanan "of cliffed rapids". Robert Corbett, a logging and lumbering entrepreneur, held the dominant influence on the city in its early years, first renamed as "Corbett", then to "Warner" in 1891, and then to the present name on July 1, 1900, after the bride of Charles R. Smith, head of the Menasha Wooden Ware Co.

Minor Avenue, Ladysmith, Wisconsin
abt 1908

City
Ladysmith (county seat)

Villages
Bruce * Conrath * Glen Flora * Hawkins * Ingram * Sheldon * Tony * Weyerhaeuser

Towns
Atlanta * Big Bend * Big Falls * Cedar Rapids * Dewey * Flambeau * Grant * Grow * Hawkins * Hubbard * Lawrence * Marshall *
Murry * Richland * Rusk * South Fork * Strickland * Stubbs * Thornapple * True * Washington * Wilkinson * Willard * Wilson

Unincorporated Communities
Apollonia * Bear Lake * Imalone * Island Lake * Murry * Port Arthur * South Fork * Strickland * Thornapple

Ghost Towns
Atlanta * Big Bend * Crane * Egypt * Flambeau * Horseman (Varner) * Jerome * Kalish * Mandowish (Manedowish) *
Poplar / Beldonville * Pre Bram * Shaws Farm * Teresita * Tibbets * Vallee View / Walrath * West Ingram * Wilson Center / Dogville (Starez)