WITHEE

A short history of Withee

James S. Boardman was the first settler in Withee, arriving in 1870. George Richards and David R. Goodwin arrived shortly after. A post office named Winneoka was established there in 1874 at the farm of Bernard Brown, who also sold small supplies. Before that, both mail and supplies had been hauled from Greenwood and Chippewa Falls.

In 1880 the Wisconsin Central Railroad built the line through Withee connecting Abbotsford to Chippewa Falls. The initial village of Withee was platted the following year, named for Niran Withee, a Maine schoolteacher, La Crosse lumberman, and Wisconsin legislator. With the railroad came fast growth. E.A. Eaton built Withee's first store in 1881, then sold it to W.S. Tufts, who ran the post office there. Then William Valiquette added a saloon. Another general store soon followed, a grocery and confectionery, a hotel, a blacksmith, another saloon, and a lumber yard. The first one-room school was built in 1883. A four-room school was added in 1890. By 1890, a stage line ran north out of Neillsville, through Christie, Greenwood, and Longwood, connecting with the railroad at Withee.

In 1893, attracted by Spaulding Company's offer of land for a church, a Danish Lutheran minister from Chicago, a follower of N. F. S. Grundtvig, moved with a few families into the Town of Hixon, north of Withee, to form a Danish community and church. Other Danes joined them from around the state, and by 1896 the congregation included thirty families. The Danish language was spoken, and in 1913 the community even hired a teacher of Danish folk-dancing and gymnastics. Gradually the Danish community blended with the surrounding English speakers, but Nazareth Lutheran church remains.

Withee incorporated as a village in 1901, and was the shipping point for D.J. Spaulding Mills of Owen through the Soo Line Railroad. Electricity became available in the village in 1902, provided by the Paul A. Paulsen mill. Most living outside the village went without electricity for another 35 years, when electric lines were finally put up about 1937 by the new Clark Electric Cooperative, funded by a loan from the New Deal Rural Electrification Administration. The village water system was installed in 1907 and a volunteer fire department was established in 1908. The 1906 plat map shows the depot, post office, and a church in the original plat between Division and Pine streets. By then other plats had been added east of Division Street, holding the school, two more churches, a hall, and the State Bank of Withee.

Today, Withee is largely a farming community located one mile from the city of Owen. It includes one gas station, 5 churches, a post office and pharmacy, as well as a few smaller shops. Although the Village of Withee and the City of Owen are separate municipalities, they operate and communicate as one large community, even sharing the same elementary and high school, the Owen-Withee school district.

Adapted (trimmed) from the Wikipedia article Withee, Wisconsin, revision 1375492231 by its contributors, licensed CC BY-SA 4.0.