Laona, WI

Laona is a census-designated place in the town of Laona, Forest County, Wisconsin, in the Northwoods. The place grew with the arrival of railroads and the timber industry around the turn of the twentieth century. The Connor Lumber and Land Company built a sawmill in 1901 after acquiring large tracts of Forest County timberland, and logging camps and roads spread through the surrounding woods. The town itself was named for Laona Johnson, the first settler's daughter.

The rail-and-lumber story remains visible through the Camp Five Lumberjack Steam Train and Museum, where a 1916 Vulcan steam engine once used by the Connor company now pulls a heritage train. Laona's landscape is a mix of forest roads, former logging corridors, sawmill history, and small Northwoods neighborhoods. The CDP shares its name with the surrounding town, but the separate place designation follows the built-up community within that larger forest municipality. Laona is a place where the old timber economy still supplies the clearest local orientation, from the railroad grade to the sawmill and the preserved logging machinery.