Brantwood is an
unincorporated community
An unincorporated area is a region that is not governed by a local municipal corporation. Widespread unincorporated communities and areas are a distinguishing feature of the United States and Canada. Most other countries of the world either have ...
in southern
Price County,
Wisconsin
Wisconsin () is a state in the upper Midwestern United States. Wisconsin is the 25th-largest state by total area and the 20th-most populous. It is bordered by Minnesota to the west, Iowa to the southwest, Illinois to the south, Lake M ...
, United States located within the town of
Knox.
It lies along
United States Highway 8 and on the
Wisconsin Central Railroad, between
Prentice on the west and
Tomahawk
A tomahawk is a type of single-handed axe used by the many Indigenous peoples and nations of North America. It traditionally resembles a hatchet with a straight shaft. In pre-colonial times the head was made of stone, bone, or antler, and Eur ...
on the east. The rural community was settled in the late 1890s as a logging community.
History
Francis Palms was the first to purchase acreage in the area and later sold the land to William and Samuel Knox. The Knox brothers were loggers from the
Stevens Point, Wisconsin
Stevens Point is the county seat of Portage County, Wisconsin, United States. The city was incorporated in 1858.
Its 2020 population of 25,666 makes it the largest city in the county. Stevens Point forms the core of the United States Census Bur ...
area. They established the small community of
Knox Mills a few miles south of Brantwood when they built a mill. The need to transport timber and products resulted in a spur being built from Brantwood to Knox Mills.
J. B. Engstrom owned a sawmill,
planing mill, and a boarding house for the mostly immigrant bachelor workers in Knox Mills. The mill prospered in the 1920s, but the Great Depression shut it down until the late 1930s. Knox Mills, having no post office or main line railroad, began to disappear and the area was absorbed into the Brantwood community and the spur line abandoned.
As the land was stripped of its timber, the Knox brothers began selling it to immigrants for farm land and the community slowly changed from a booming logging industry to a sedate farming and dairy community.
Land advertisements were targeted to Swedish, Norwegian, and Finnish immigrants living in other states. K. A. Ostergen and E. H. Hobe, both agents for the railroad, assisted the railroad company and the Knox brothers in marketing the land sales.
According to the 1900 US Census, there were 411 people living in the Town of Knox which included Brantwood and Knox Mills. By 1910, the population was 1,010 and in 1920 the census counted 1,251 people in the Town of Knox.
The Finns of Brantwood established a cooperative store and cheese factory that prospered well into the 1960s. However, with no industry to entice new people to the area or keep young adults there after graduation, Brantwood slowly declined as well. In the 2000 US Census there were only 399 people in the Town of Knox.
References
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Unincorporated communities in Price County, Wisconsin
Unincorporated communities in Wisconsin