Boyceville, WI

Boyceville is a Dunn County village whose early settlement dates to 1860. The railroad station was called Barker, while the post office used Boyceville; the village incorporated in December 1921. Lumber came first, followed by a grocery, blacksmith, creamery, sawmill, and flour mill. At one point 35 to 40 businesses operated in town, giving Boyceville a bigger commercial role than its current size might suggest. When lumber slowed, farming and a pickle factory took over, and local growers supplied cucumbers for the plant.

The odd little piece of machinery that keeps turning up in Boyceville's story is the Pic Car, a cucumber-picking machine invented and built there. The Boyceville Cucumber Festival keeps that agricultural chapter on the calendar. Tiffany Creek and the village's school buildings give the present map its everyday landmarks; Boyceville has an elementary school and a combined middle/high school, with the older settlement pattern still visible around them. The local shorthand is Barker at the railroad, Boyceville at the post office, cucumbers after the lumber era, and a festival that remembers both.