Argyle, WI

Argyle is a Lafayette County village built around a crossing of the East Branch Pecatonica River. The first settlement grew at a ford, and the village's founder named it for the Duke of Argyll, who had supported his journey to the United States. A bridge followed in 1855, the Freeport-Dodgeville railroad reached town in 1888, and the river still runs through the community's geography. Argyle is surrounded by the Town of Argyle, giving the village a compact center within a larger farm-and-river landscape.

History is visible in the Star Theatre, a theater built in 1878 and listed on the National Register, and in the village school arrangement: elementary, middle, and high school students use one building on the northwest side. Current village business is more everyday—municipal utilities, Legion Park, the community building, and a downtown bank-building project all show where local attention is going. Argyle feels like a small Wisconsin crossroads with a river under its streets, a theater in its memory, and school and village facilities keeping the center in use.