Eidsvold History - Clark County Wisconsin

Eidsvold – A Little Town That Isn’t There (1956)
---Source: Scrapbook of Clarabelle Foster - Contributed by Mary Burton

East of Stanley

Eidsvold – A Little Town That Isn’t There by Dorothy Janzen

Not even a name marker is left at Eidsvold.

The minimal village has disappeared.

Located about a mile east of Stanley, the relic buildings of the little community have beckoned to the ghosts for many years.

With the recent closing of the cheese factory there, an epic is complete.

It is unbelievable to most people who used to know little Eidsvold that the village has evaporated.

To the true old-timers, the era of the sawmill there is still a reasonably fresh memory.

A Great Place

Profuse are the recounted tales about the loggers and farmers who built the village many years ago around the Nye, Lusk, and Hudson sawmill. Destined to clean out the timber in that area, the mill town was a “great place,” according to the early settlers. But it rose and fell rapidly and the sawmill moved on to Polly, Wis., in 1907.

Life in the village of Eidsvold apparently was on the upswing from 1890-1905.

Twenty homes were built around the mill. A grocery store, general store, planing mill, company horse barn, boarding house, store and post office, Story’s dance hall, freight depot – all of these were erected to serve a temporary industry that abandoned its structures only a few years after it had built them.

Only a few people ever settled in the village proper. At its height Eidsvold had under a hundred people. The largest family had nine children, one settler recalls.

Fiddled Or Cut Hair

The village barber worked in the sawmill during the day. In the evenings he played fiddle for dances and during free hours he operated at the barber’s chair.

Today no one seems to know where the village received its name. Eidsvold, however, was the official name in 1898 when the Grade School was built, but prior to that time some people called the place “North Fork.”

It is probable that the railroad company named it, according to the old timers. Actually the train stopped there only when prospective passengers would flag it down. Ordinarily the train engineer would lean out the window and hang the mailbag on a hooked pole as the train rolled by.

The community was active to the scale typical for sawmill villages. But it was peaceful and felt only two major disasters. Once the sawmill burned down and had to be rebuilt. Then in 1898 there were 13 fires in the Eidsvold neighborhood, including one that burned a village house.

Sold Store

In 1907 when the sawmill was moved, Nye, Lusk, and Hudson sold their general store to the people of Eidsvold. The building, called the North Fork Store, was constructed in 1886, and was one of the oldest structures in the village. The townspeople converted it from a store into a Town Hall.

When the sawmill vacated, the cheese factory was built. At first it was used to prepare cream, and later, cheese. The factory changed hands many times. George Thill was the last owner. After his death this April everything was moved out of the building.

The abandoned town is a strange and unique place. Only two families live there now. All of the other houses are either torn down, in shambles, or just empty.

The only buildings that are still used are the old Town Hall, Eidsvold Grade School, and a remodeled house which serves as a meeting place for the Church of God.

Judging by the quack grass condition of the former community, Eidsvold will probably never be more than a ghost town, “a little town that isn’t there.”