Point of Beginning

Hazel Green, WI – Grant County

One of the coolest historic markers I’ve discovered is on the Illinois-Wisconsin border just south of Hazel Green, where Grant and Lafayette counties meet.

The “Point of Beginning” historic marker is significant because in the 1830s-1860s all points in Wisconsin were surveyed from this point of beginning. Every boundary of every county, city, village, township, farm and position of roads, lakes and streams. Near the historic marker, found at the state line on Hwy. 80 near Hazel Green, the point of beginning documents the intersection of Illinois’s northern boundary and the 4th Principal Meridian.

Thirty-five years of surveying this state started on this piece of land in Southwest Wisconsin!

An excerpt from one of the signs at this location:

“From above, southwestern Wisconsin looks like a patchwork quilt composed of neat rectangular farm fields. But it wasn’t always this way. Prairie grasses once waved in the breeze and oak trees stood guard. Ho-Chunk (Winnegago) camped along nearby streams. All this began changing in the early 1820s, when southern and eastern entrepreneurs started lead mining in southwestern Wisconsin. Eventually, these newcomers all wanted the same thing – to purchase land and settle here. But they couldn’t. Before they could, the Ho-Chunk had to sell their land, and the U.S. Government had to survey and divide it.”

The survey was started in 1831, the first land was sold in 1834 and by 1848, Wisconsin achieved statehood.

This post is part of a series, Explore Southwest Wisconsin History.