Nelsonville, WI

Nelsonville is a village in Portage County, Wisconsin, United States. The 2020 census counted 158 residents. The community of Nelsonville began about 1855 when English immigrant Jerome Nelson built a six-foot-high dam spanning the Tomorrow River, with a sawmill across the river from where the flouring mill now stands. After Nelson returned from the Civil War he added the flouring mill in 1868. That mix gives Nelsonville a clear local shape within Wisconsin, with older layers still visible in current places. The local scoop is a place whose streets, landmarks, and institutions keep its earlier story close to the present.