Rusk County is a

county A county () is a geographic region of a country used for administrative or other purposesL. Brookes (ed.) '' Chambers Dictionary''. Edinburgh: Chambers Harrap Publishers Ltd, 2005. in some nations. The term is derived from the Old French denoti ...

in the U.S. state of

Wisconsin Wisconsin ( ) is a U.S. state, state in the Great Lakes region, Great Lakes region of the Upper Midwest of the United States. It borders Minnesota to the west, Iowa to the southwest, Illinois to the south, Lake Michigan to the east, Michig ...

. As of the 2020 census, the population was 14,188. Its

county seat A county seat is an administrative center, seat of government, or capital city of a county or parish (administrative division), civil parish. The term is in use in five countries: Canada, China, Hungary, Romania, and the United States. An equiva ...

is Ladysmith. The Chippewa and Flambeau rivers and their tributaries flow through the county. The land ranges from corn/soybean farms and dairy farms to lakes rimmed with vacation homes to hiking trails through the Blue Hills.

History

The forested wilderness that would become Rusk County was home to different Indian nations over the years. Some used the rivers to pass through, some camped, some buried their dead there. The first recorded Europeans in the county were Father

Louis Hennepin Louis Hennepin, OFM (born Antoine Hennepin; ; 12 May 1626 – 5 December 1704) was a Belgian Catholic priest and missionary best known for his activities in North America. A member of the Recollects, a minor branch of the Franciscans, he travel ...

and his company, who canoed up the Chippewa in 1680 when the area was part of

New France New France (, ) was the territory colonized by Kingdom of France, France in North America, beginning with the exploration of the Gulf of Saint Lawrence by Jacques Cartier in 1534 and ending with the cession of New France to Kingdom of Great Br ...

, on their way to Lac Courte Oreilles and Madeline Island. In 1790

Lakota Lakota may refer to: *Lakota people, a confederation of seven related Native American tribes *Lakota language Lakota ( ), also referred to as Lakhota, Teton or Teton Sioux, is a Siouan languages, Siouan language spoken by the Lakota people of ...

warriors came up the Chippewa to attack the

Ojibwe The Ojibwe (; Ojibwe writing systems#Ojibwe syllabics, syll.: ᐅᒋᐺ; plural: ''Ojibweg'' ᐅᒋᐺᒃ) are an Anishinaabe people whose homeland (''Ojibwewaki'' ᐅᒋᐺᐘᑭ) covers much of the Great Lakes region and the Great Plains, n ...

, but they were defeated, leaving the Ojibwe in control through the fur trade era. The first loggers and settlers came up the Chippewa River from the south, entering what would become Rusk County north of modern Holcombe, where the Flambeau River joins the Chippewa. An Indian settlement lay on the bank of the Chippewa near where St. Francis of Assisi Mission Church stands. European-American settlement began near that Indian village in 1847, when Adolph La Ronge and his wife came from Canada. By the 1860s the Daniel Shaw Lumber Company had a farm two miles west (across from modern Flater's Resort) to support their operations. Loggers initially went up the rivers and cut the choicest pine in winter, then drove masses of logs down to sawmills in Chippewa Falls and Eau Claire on the spring and early summer floods. At first they poled supplies up the rivers in bateaux, but later cut "tote roads" to haul supplies with oxen and horses to their remote

logging camp A logging camp (or lumber camp) is a transitory work site used in the logging industry. Before the second half of the 20th century, these camps were the primary place where lumberjacks would live and work to fell trees in a particular area. Many ...

s. One of these early tote roads was the Chippewa Trail, which followed west of the Chippewa from the south end of the county to the north end near Exeland, and beyond. By 1880 the Chippewa Trail was developed into a stage road, with a horse-drawn stage running up it one day and back down the next. Stopping places (rough inns) were located about every five miles, where lumberjacks could rest and carouse on their way to and from the camps. An 1888 map of Chippewa County shows more roads, including one following the west side of the Flambeau from Shaw's farm to Flambeau Falls (Ladysmith). Railroads reached the area in 1884. The Mississippi River Logging Company brought in a locomotive, cars and rails by sleigh from Bloomer to start a logging railroad. Weyerhaueser's company had tried driving logs down the streams from the Potato Lake and Soft Maple areas, but the streams proved too small, so they laid track and hauled logs to Big Bend, then rolled them into the Chippewa. As the timber in that area was cut off, this railroad, named the ''Chippewa River and Menomonie Railroad'', shifted operations, moving its rails north of Bruce. Th
WHS historical marker
on the CR&M says the logging railroad started in 1874, but all other sources, including the 1983 ''History of Rusk County'', agree on 1884. That same year the Minneapolis, St. Paul and Sault Ste. Marie Railroad (the Soo Line) started building its railroad across the area, aiming to connect the grain of the Twin Cities with the shipping at Sault Ste. Marie. The two railroads met west of Bruce at a place called Apollonia. In the 1890s the CR&M had shops and an engine house there and Apollonia grew to 350 people - the largest town at that time in the current bounds of Rusk County. The CR&M was notable for the huge wooden trestles it built near Star Lake and Deer Lake. The Soo Line continued east in 1884 and 1885, creating other stations which would develop as the towns of Weyerhaeuser, Bruce, Warner (now Ladysmith), Deer Tail (now Tony), Miller's Siding (now Glen Flora), Ingram and Hawkins. This new railroad provided a way to get lumber out to markets. This was particularly helpful when logging turned from pine to hardwoods which didn't float as well. Many of these little towns along the Soo Line had sawmills, and some of those sawmills were fed by their own little logging railroads, reaching out into the forests. Rusk County was established in 1901 when the Wisconsin legislature split off the northern half of what had been Chippewa County into a new ''Gates County''. It started with that name because

Milwaukee Milwaukee is the List of cities in Wisconsin, most populous city in the U.S. state of Wisconsin. Located on the western shore of Lake Michigan, it is the List of United States cities by population, 31st-most populous city in the United States ...

land speculator (and major land-holder in the county) James L. Gates said he would donate $1000 to the new county if it was named Gates. When Gates didn't come up with the money, the state legislature renamed the county ''Rusk'' in 1905 in honor of Jeremiah M. Rusk,

governor of Wisconsin The governor of Wisconsin is the head of government of Wisconsin and the commander-in-chief of the state's Wisconsin Army National Guard, army and Wisconsin Air National Guard, air forces. The governor has a duty to enforce state laws, and the ...

and the first U.S. Secretary of Agriculture. The 1901 legislation also designated Corbett (now Ladysmith) as the county seat, which was challenged by other towns all the way to the

state supreme court In the United States, a state supreme court (known by other names in some states) is the highest court in the state judiciary of a U.S. state. On matters of state law, the judgment of a state supreme court is considered final and binding in ...

. Around 1905 the Wisconsin Central Railroad built another rail line through the county, heading northwest from Chicago's direction toward Superior, and crossing the Soo Line at Ladysmith. In 1907, dedicated passenger trains began passing through. The stations along this line spawned another string of hamlets: Sheldon, Conrath, Crane and Murry. The area's economy was evolving. The peak of pine log drives on the Chippewa had been around 1885 and they ended around 1906. Hardwood lumbering started in earnest around 1900 and peaked from 1905 to 1915, then began to decline. With the decline of timber came uncertainty about the way forward, which led to schemes for mining, large-scale ranching, and manufacturing that came to nothing. The paper mill started in Ladysmith, which did succeed. The Big Falls Dam was built around 1920 to generate electricity, and the Thornapple, Ladysmith and Port Arthur dams were converted from pulp-grinding to electricity-generating later. All along, the lumber companies and their proxy land companies had been selling cut-over parcels to settler-farmers. The farmers grazed cattle, grew potatoes and rutabagas among the stumps, and gradually cleared the land with fire, dynamite and plows, eventually scratching out 40- and 80-acre family farms. As more land was logged, more of the county turned to farms. The sawmill towns shifted to serving surrounding farms with stores, creameries, and feed mills. During the

Great Depression The Great Depression was a severe global economic downturn from 1929 to 1939. The period was characterized by high rates of unemployment and poverty, drastic reductions in industrial production and international trade, and widespread bank and ...

, times were tough in Rusk County. Banks failed at Weyerhaeuser, Tony, Glen Flora, and Ingram. Cheese factories failed. But that was also the period when Jump River Electric, supported by the

New Deal The New Deal was a series of wide-reaching economic, social, and political reforms enacted by President Franklin D. Roosevelt in the United States between 1933 and 1938, in response to the Great Depression in the United States, Great Depressi ...

Rural Electric Administration, ran electricity to farms and homes in the country. Also during those tough times, a

Civilian Conservation Corps The Civilian Conservation Corps (CCC) was a voluntary government unemployment, work relief program that ran from 1933 to 1942 in the United States for unemployed, unmarried men ages 18–25 and eventually expanded to ages 17–28. The CCC was ...

camp was established in Rusk County. It employed many young men from

Chicago Chicago is the List of municipalities in Illinois, most populous city in the U.S. state of Illinois and in the Midwestern United States. With a population of 2,746,388, as of the 2020 United States census, 2020 census, it is the List of Unite ...

and other cities, along with a few locals. The camp was started in June 1933 in the town of Murry in the Blue Hills, then moved in November to a site in Cedar Rapids north of Glen Flora. The men fought fires, built roads, supported fire towers, and planted trees. When the U.S. entered

WWII World War II or the Second World War (1 September 1939 – 2 September 1945) was a World war, global conflict between two coalitions: the Allies of World War II, Allies and the Axis powers. World War II by country, Nearly all of the wo ...

, some of the CCCs enlisted or were drafted, and CCC Camp Rusk shortly disbanded. Rusk County's first rural schools had been established at least by 1891 - the Bear Lake school opened then. Those first schools were one-room, typically with one teacher for six grades. Ladysmith had a school by 1905. Rusk County Normal School opened in Ladysmith in 1907, and by the time it closed in 1948 it had trained 719 qualified teachers. Rusk County had 125 rural schools at one time. After the Depression, rural population declined and farms merged. Rural schools too merged, until decent roads and busing allowed them to consolidate with larger graded town schools like Weyerhaeuser and Tony; consolidation of schools was completed around 1960. The Hawkins school district joined Ladysmith in 1966, then switched to the Flambeau district in 2009. The private

Mount Senario College Mount Senario College (MSC or Mt. Senario) was a private non-profit college located in Ladysmith, Wisconsin, in the Diocese of Superior. History Early history The College began in 1930, when summer extension courses were conducted in Ladysmi ...

served the area in various forms from around 1962 to 2002. The Flambeau Mine was a controversial open pit mine near the Flambeau River a mile south of Ladysmith, which produced

copper Copper is a chemical element; it has symbol Cu (from Latin ) and atomic number 29. It is a soft, malleable, and ductile metal with very high thermal and electrical conductivity. A freshly exposed surface of pure copper has a pinkish-orang ...

gold Gold is a chemical element; it has chemical symbol Au (from Latin ) and atomic number 79. In its pure form, it is a brightness, bright, slightly orange-yellow, dense, soft, malleable, and ductile metal. Chemically, gold is a transition metal ...

and

silver Silver is a chemical element; it has Symbol (chemistry), symbol Ag () and atomic number 47. A soft, whitish-gray, lustrous transition metal, it exhibits the highest electrical conductivity, thermal conductivity, and reflectivity of any metal. ...

. In the 1970s the Kennecott mining company proposed a plan to mine there, but mining so near the Flambeau River was controversial, and that first plan was blocked by the local zoning committee. In 1987 Kennecott came back with a less risky proposal and it was approved. The mine operated from 1991 to 1999, excavating a pit 2,600 feet long and 220 feet deep, and producing 181,000 tons of copper, 334,000 ounces of gold, and 3.3 million ounces of silver. In the reclamation phase, the pit was back-filled and planted with native plants. It now offers walking trails open to the public. Over the years, sawmills and cheese factories in the smaller towns have closed, but other industries have grown. The largest employers in the county are now Weather Shield in Ladysmith, Rusk County administration, the school districts, Wal-Mart, Artisans, the medical center in Ladysmith, and Rand Trucking.

Geography

According to the U.S. Census Bureau, the county has an area of , of which is land and (1.9%) is water.

Adjacent counties

* Washburn County - northwest * Sawyer County - north * Price County - east * Taylor County - southeast * Chippewa County - south * Barron County - west

Major highways

* U.S. Highway 8 * Highway 27 (Wisconsin) * Highway 40 (Wisconsin) * Highway 73 (Wisconsin)

Railroads

* Canadian National * Watco

Buses

Airport

* KRCX - Rusk County Airport serves the county and surrounding communities.

Demographics

2020 census

As of the census of 2020, the population was 14,188. The

population density Population density (in agriculture: Standing stock (disambiguation), standing stock or plant density) is a measurement of population per unit land area. It is mostly applied to humans, but sometimes to other living organisms too. It is a key geog ...

was . There were 8,560 housing units at an average density of . The racial makeup of the county was 94.2%

White White is the lightest color and is achromatic (having no chroma). It is the color of objects such as snow, chalk, and milk, and is the opposite of black. White objects fully (or almost fully) reflect and scatter all the visible wa ...

, 0.5% Native American, 0.4% Asian, 0.3%

Black Black is a color that results from the absence or complete absorption of visible light. It is an achromatic color, without chroma, like white and grey. It is often used symbolically or figuratively to represent darkness.Eva Heller, ''P ...

African American African Americans, also known as Black Americans and formerly also called Afro-Americans, are an Race and ethnicity in the United States, American racial and ethnic group that consists of Americans who have total or partial ancestry from an ...

, 0.6% from other races, and 3.9% from two or more races. Ethnically, the population was 1.8%

Hispanic The term Hispanic () are people, Spanish culture, cultures, or countries related to Spain, the Spanish language, or broadly. In some contexts, Hispanic and Latino Americans, especially within the United States, "Hispanic" is used as an Ethnici ...

or Latino of any race.

2000 census

As of the

census A census (from Latin ''censere'', 'to assess') is the procedure of systematically acquiring, recording, and calculating population information about the members of a given Statistical population, population, usually displayed in the form of stati ...

of 2000, there were 15,347 people, 6,095 households, and 4,156 families residing in the county. The

was . There were 7,609 housing units at an average density of . The racial makeup of the county was 97.69%

, 0.51%

, 0.42% Native American, 0.26% Asian, 0.10%

Pacific Islander Pacific Islanders, Pasifika, Pasefika, Pacificans, or rarely Pacificers are the peoples of the list of islands in the Pacific Ocean, Pacific Islands. As an ethnic group, ethnic/race (human categorization), racial term, it is used to describe th ...

, 0.35% from other races, and 0.66% from two or more races. 0.76% of the population were

or Latino of any race. 32.7% were of German, 13.6% Polish, 9.0% Norwegian, 6.8% Irish, 6.2% American and 5.6% English ancestry. There were 6,095 households, out of which 28.60% had children under the age of 18 living with them, 55.90% were

married couples Marriage, also called matrimony or wedlock, is a culturally and often legally recognised union between people called spouses. It establishes rights and obligations between them, as well as between them and their children (if any), and b ...

living together, 7.90% had a female householder with no husband present, and 31.80% were non-families. 27.00% of all households were made up of individuals, and 14.30% had someone living alone who was 65 years of age or older. The average household size was 2.45 and the average family size was 2.97. In the county, the population was spread out, with 24.80% under the age of 18, 7.90% from 18 to 24, 24.80% from 25 to 44, 24.10% from 45 to 64, and 18.50% who were 65 years of age or older. The median age was 40 years. For every 100 females there were 98.50 males. For every 100 females age 18 and over, there were 97.40 males. In 2017, there were 134 births, giving a general fertility rate of 66.0 births per 1000 women aged 15–44, the 25th highest rate out of all 72 Wisconsin counties. Additionally, there were no reported induced abortions performed on women of Rusk County residence in 2017.Reported Induced Abortions in Wisconsin
Office of Health Informatics, Division of Public Health, Wisconsin Department of Health Services. Section: Trend Information, 2013-2017, Table 18, pages 17-18

Communities

City

* Ladysmith (county seat)

Villages

* Bruce * Conrath * Glen Flora * Hawkins * Ingram * Sheldon * Tony * Weyerhaeuser

Towns

Atlanta Atlanta ( ) is the List of capitals in the United States, capital and List of municipalities in Georgia (U.S. state), most populous city in the U.S. state of Georgia (U.S. state), Georgia. It is the county seat, seat of Fulton County, Georg ...

* Big Bend * Big Falls *

Cedar Rapids Cedar Rapids is a city in Linn County, Iowa, United States, and its county seat A county seat is an administrative center, seat of government, or capital city of a county or parish (administrative division), civil parish. The term is in u ...

* Dewey * Flambeau * Grant * Grow * Hawkins * Hubbard * Lawrence * Marshall * Murry * Richland *

Rusk A rusk is a hard, dry Biscuit#Biscuits in British usage, biscuit or a twice-baked bread. It is sometimes used as a teether for babies. In some cultures, rusk is made of cake rather than bread: this is sometimes referred to as cake rusk. In the ...

* South Fork * Strickland * Stubbs * Thornapple *

True True most commonly refers to truth, the state of being in congruence with fact or reality. True may also refer to: Places * True, West Virginia, an unincorporated community in the United States * True, Wisconsin, a town in the United States * ...

* Washington * Wilkinson * Willard * Wilson

Unincorporated communities

* Apollonia * Bear Lake * Imalone * Island Lake * Murry * Port Arthur * South Fork * Strickland * Thornapple

Ghost towns

* Atlanta * Big Bend * Crane * Egypt * Horseman (Varner) * Jerome * Kalish * Mandowish (Manedowish) * Poplar / Beldonville * Pre Bram * Shaws Farm * Teresita * Tibbets * Vallee View / Walrath * West Ingram * Wilson Center / Dogville (Starez)

Politics

Between 1928 and 2008, Rusk County backed the nationwide winner on all but two occasions (1972 and 1988). In 2012,

Mitt Romney Willard Mitt Romney (born March 12, 1947) is an American businessman and retired politician. He served as a United States Senate, United States senator from Utah from 2019 to 2025 and as the 70th governor of Massachusetts from 2003 to 2007 ...

defeated

Barack Obama Barack Hussein Obama II (born August 4, 1961) is an American politician who was the 44th president of the United States from 2009 to 2017. A member of the Democratic Party, he was the first African American president in American history. O ...

in the county by a margin of less than 4%, after Obama had won the county by more than 8% in 2008 over

John McCain John Sidney McCain III (August 29, 1936 – August 25, 2018) was an American statesman and United States Navy, naval officer who represented the Arizona, state of Arizona in United States Congress, Congress for over 35 years, first as ...

. Rusk County moved significantly to the right in 2016, as

Donald Trump Donald John Trump (born June 14, 1946) is an American politician, media personality, and businessman who is the 47th president of the United States. A member of the Republican Party (United States), Republican Party, he served as the 45 ...

took over 64% of the county's vote and won by a margin of nearly 34%, the best margin of victory for any candidate in the county since 1920. He further increased his margin of victory to nearly 35% in 2020 while turning in the best vote share for a Republican in the county in a century at nearly 67%. Trump once again improved on his previous results in 2024, winning more than 68% of the county's vote and grew his margin of victory to over 38%, tops for a Republican in Rusk County since

Warren G. Harding Warren Gamaliel Harding (November 2, 1865 – August 2, 1923) was the 29th president of the United States, serving from 1921 until his death in 1923. A member of the Republican Party (United States), Republican Party, he was one of the most ...

References

External links

Rusk County government website

Rusk County map
from the Wisconsin Department of Transportation * Old county maps
18731880
https://content.wisconsinhistory.org/digital/collection/maps/id/23640/rec/48 1888
1901
https://content.wisconsinhistory.org/digital/collection/maps/id/19515/rec/21 1901-190
1914
https://content.wisconsinhistory.org/digital/collection/maps/id/19545/rec/5 191
1915-1920
{{authority control 1901 establishments in Wisconsin Populated places established in 1901