Stetsonville, WI

Stetsonville is a Taylor County village whose map still reflects the Wisconsin Central Railway. The line reached the area in 1872 on its northbound route toward Ashland, and Isaiah F. Stetson established a sawmill three years later. That combination of timber work and rail movement gave the settlement its first durable purpose. The 2020 census counted 563 residents, placing Stetsonville among the small communities scattered across Taylor County’s farm-and-forest landscape.

The village incorporated in 1949. Before that, the settled area was divided between the Town of Little Black to the west and the Town of Deer Creek to the east, a boundary history that still separates Stetsonville’s civic center from the surrounding townships. Today, the Jean M. Thomsen Memorial Library at 105 North Gershwin Street doubles as a practical community meeting point: its book club, youth programming, and community room sit beside the village clerk-treasurer’s office. The rail line and the sawmill belong to an earlier economy, yet the library and village board keep local routines gathered in the same small center.