Trempealeau, WI

Trempealeau is a Mississippi River village 18 miles upriver from La Crosse, with 1,843 residents in the 2020 census. Wisconsin Highway 35, the Great River Road, runs along its high banks, and the river, Trempealeau Bay, and nearby bluffs make the village's setting unmistakable. A two-block historic district along Main Street gives the center a compact old-town shape. Just outside the village, Perrot State Park reaches from the river to the bluffs, with archaeological traces of Indigenous communities around Trempealeau Bay, the site of a French trading post, and trails built in part by the Civilian Conservation Corps. The Great River State Trail, swimming pool, marina, and downtown businesses fill out the local map. Trempealeau is a river village where the current town center sits beside a landscape carrying thousands of years of human history.