Fountain City, WI

Fountain City is a Buffalo County city on a bend of the Mississippi River, where the Wisconsin Great River Road meets Highways 35 and 95. It began as Holmes' Landing after Thomas A. Holmes settled here in 1839, and the river has shaped every later version of the place. Bluffs rise behind the city, bottomland and islands spread along the water, and Merrick State Park sits nearby with access to the upper Mississippi's changing channels. Agriculture and tourism share the local economy, with the river doing much of the visual and practical work.

The city belongs to the Cochrane-Fountain City School District and has a historical museum along the Great River Road. Merrick State Park is named for George Byron Merrick, a steamboat pilot and historian of upper-Mississippi traffic, so the park carries the same river history that runs through Fountain City's streets. The result is a Wisconsin river city with a landing-place beginning, a school connection across the county line, a state park nearby, and a highway route that turns the bluff-and-water setting into a destination for travelers.