Ettrick, WI

Ettrick is a Trempealeau County village whose name also belongs to the surrounding Town of Ettrick, so one community appears under two governments. The village counted 525 residents in the 2020 census and occupies a compact 0.74 square miles. The settlement began along Beaver Creek, where Iver Pederson opened a store in 1870. A mill, a flouring mill, and the Ettrick Cooperative Creamery followed as nearby farms turned milk and grain into market goods. The village was platted in 1877, and part of the wider community became an incorporated village in 1948.

The town-and-village line still crosses the places that make Ettrick feel like one community. French Creek Lutheran Church stands outside the village in the Town of Ettrick, while Ettrick Elementary School and the Gale-Ettrick-Trempealeau School District serve families across the boundary. Earlier residents also pushed for a railroad to carry farm products out of the valley, though the line's story was complicated. Ettrick remains a service center in the Beaver Creek valley, with a creamery past, a shared school system, and two local governments using one name.