Fennimore, WI

Fennimore is a Grant County town wrapped around the City of Fennimore, with Lancaster Junction and part of Preston inside its rural map. The 2020 census counted 594 residents. The town became smaller as Mount Ida split away and the city incorporated from part of the original township. Its name comes from a settler who disappeared during the Black Hawk War, a detail that gives southwest Wisconsin's early town lines a slightly mysterious edge. These days the town is best understood through what surrounds the city: farm roads, open fields, and small crossroads across Military Ridge.

The town sits near one of the higher elevations in Grant County, while the city supplies the nearby civic and school center. The township keeps its own road-and-field character. Lancaster Junction and Preston add a couple of extra local names to the township map. Fennimore is rural Grant County in the most literal sense: a town whose character is spread across the land around a separate small city.