St. Joseph, WI

St. Joseph is a town in St. Croix County, Wisconsin, with a rural town government based on County Road V. Its boundaries include the unincorporated communities of Houlton and Burkhardt, along with farms, lakes, and older river settlements. The 2020 census counted 4,178 residents. The town's geography reaches from inland roads to the St. Croix River, giving it a mix of agricultural landscape and river-town neighborhoods.

Houlton sits at the river crossing opposite Stillwater, Minnesota, where Wisconsin Highways 35 and 64 meet the roads leading into the town. The historic Stillwater Lift Bridge and the newer St. Croix Crossing are part of the area's transportation story, while the 4.7-mile Loop Trail links Houlton with Stillwater for walkers and cyclists. St. Joseph's planning documents also identify historic farmsteads in the Houlton and Burkhardt areas and the bridge itself. The crossing also brings county-scale traffic into a town otherwise organized by farm and residential roads. It is a broad Wisconsin town held together by a town hall, two older hamlets, working roads, and the river crossing.