Trempealeau 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 30,760. 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 ...

Whitehall Whitehall is a road and area in the City of Westminster, Central London, England. The road forms the first part of the A roads in Zone 3 of the Great Britain numbering scheme, A3212 road from Trafalgar Square to Chelsea, London, Chelsea. It ...

History

Patches of woodland are all that remain of the brush and light forest that once covered the county. In ancient times, the woodlands contained a great deal of timber, but Native Americans burned them periodically to encourage the growth of berries. They did little cultivation and had been almost completely removed from the area by 1837. The area was ceded by the Dakota in the 1837 Treaty of Washington (7 Stat
538
. French fur traders were the first Europeans to enter this land, traveling by river across the county. At the mouth of the Trempealeau River at its confluence with the

Mississippi River The Mississippi River is the main stem, primary river of the largest drainage basin in the United States. It is the second-longest river in the United States, behind only the Missouri River, Missouri. From its traditional source of Lake Ita ...

, they found a bluff surrounded by water and called it ''La Montagne qui trempe à l’eau'' ("mountain steeped in water"). It is now known as Trempealeau Mountain. The name was later shortened to Trempealeau. Created in 1854 and organized in 1855, the county is named after the river. During the 19th and 20th century large numbers of Norwegian

immigrants Immigration is the international movement of people to a destination country of which they are not usual residents or where they do not possess nationality in order to settle as permanent residents. Commuters, tourists, and other short- ...

settled in the area in pursuit of cheap land, a better life and more opportunities. Much of the population is still of Norwegian descent and celebrate their ancestry by making foods native to

Norway Norway, officially the Kingdom of Norway, is a Nordic countries, Nordic country located on the Scandinavian Peninsula in Northern Europe. The remote Arctic island of Jan Mayen and the archipelago of Svalbard also form part of the Kingdom of ...

and participating in Norwegian Constitution Day events. In the late 1850s, Trempealeau became a destination for Polish Prussian settlers from Upper Silesia seeking to escape German persecution and poverty in their homeland. They built churches, schools, and communities to develop what became the nation's second-largest Polish settlement. Their settlements were especially focused around Independence, Arcadia, Whitehall, and Pine Creek. Trempealeau has a large population of Silesian Polish descent to this day. The county again became an immigrant destination in the first decades of the 21st century, gaining a significant Hispanic and Latino population.

Geography

According to the U.S. Census Bureau, the county has an area of , of which is land and (1.2%) is water. It is part of the Driftless Zone.

Adjacent counties

* Buffalo County - west * Eau Claire County - north * Jackson County - east * La Crosse County - southeast * Winona County, Minnesota - southwest

Major highways

Railroads

* BNSF * Canadian National

Buses

National protected areas

Trempealeau National Wildlife Refuge Trempealeau National Wildlife Refuge is a National Wildlife Refuge located along the Upper Mississippi River in extreme southern Buffalo County, Wisconsin, Buffalo County and extreme southwestern Trempealeau County, Wisconsin, Trempealeau Count ...

(part) * Upper Mississippi River National Wildlife and Fish Refuge (part)

Demographics

2020 census

As of the census of 2020, the population was 30,760. 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 13,270 housing units at an average density of . The racial makeup of the county was 85.5%

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 ...

, 1.2% 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 ...

, 7.9% from other races, and 4.7% from two or more races. Ethnically, the population was 12.9%

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 27,010 people, 10,747 households, and 7,243 families residing in the county. The

was . There were 11,482 housing units at an average density of . The racial makeup of the county was 98.81%

, 0.13%

, 0.17% Native American, 0.13% Asian, 0.01%

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 ...

, 0.29% from other races, and 0.47% from two or more races. 0.89% of the population were

or Latino of any race. 43.5% were of Norwegian, 24.6% German and 17.0% Polish ancestry. 94.9% spoke English, 1.6% Norwegian and 1.6% Spanish as their first language. There were 10,747 households, out of which 31.80% had children under the age of 18 living with them, 55.20% 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, 7.40% had a female householder with no husband present, and 32.60% were non-families. 27.60% of all households were made up of individuals, and 13.50% 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 3.00. In the county, the population was spread out, with 25.30% under the age of 18, 6.90% from 18 to 24, 28.20% from 25 to 44, 23.10% from 45 to 64, and 16.40% who were 65 years of age or older. The median age was 38 years. For every 100 females there were 100.30 males. For every 100 females age 18 and over, there were 98.80 males. In 2017, there were 450 births, giving a general fertility rate of 93.1 births per 1000 women aged 15–44, the third highest rate out of all 72 Wisconsin counties.

Gallery

Communities

Cities

* Arcadia * Blair * Galesville *

Independence Independence is a condition of a nation, country, or state, in which residents and population, or some portion thereof, exercise self-government, and usually sovereignty, over its territory. The opposite of independence is the status of ...

* Osseo *

(county seat)

Villages

* Eleva * Ettrick * Pigeon Falls * Strum * Trempealeau

Towns

Albion Albion is an alternative name for Great Britain. The oldest attestation of the toponym comes from the Greek language. It is sometimes used poetically and generally to refer to the island, but is less common than "Britain" today. The name for Scot ...

* Arcadia * Burnside *

Caledonia Caledonia (; ) was the Latin name used by the Roman Empire to refer to the forested region in the central and western Scottish Highlands, particularly stretching through parts of what are now Lochaber, Badenoch, Strathspey, and possibly as ...

* Chimney Rock *

Dodge Dodge is an American brand of automobiles and a division of Stellantis, based in Auburn Hills, Michigan. Dodge vehicles have historically included performance cars, and for much of its existence, Dodge was Chrysler's mid-priced brand above P ...

* Ettrick *

Gale A gale is a strong wind; the word is typically used as a descriptor in nautical contexts. The U.S. National Weather Service defines a gale as sustained surface wind moving at a speed between .

* Hale * Lincoln *

Pigeon Columbidae is a bird family consisting of doves and pigeons. It is the only family in the order Columbiformes. These are stout-bodied birds with small heads, relatively short necks and slender bills that in some species feature fleshy ceres. ...

* Preston * Sumner * Trempealeau * Unity

Census-designated place

Unincorporated communities

* Beaches Corners * Butman Corners * Chapultepee * Centerville * Coral City * Dewey Corners * Elk Creek * Frenchville * Hale * Hegg * Iduna * North Creek * Pine Creek * Pleasantville * Russell * Tamarack * Upper French Creek * West Prairie * Wrights Corners

Ghost towns/neighborhoods

* Cortland * New City * Williamsburg

Politics

Between 1948 and 1984, Trempealeau County voted for the nationwide winner in every election with the exception of the very close 1960 election. Then, from 1988 to 2012, like most of the rural counties in southwestern Wisconsin, it backed the Democratic candidate in each election, and did so by more than a 10% margin each time. In 2016, once again like the rest of rural southwestern Wisconsin, Trempealeau County dramatically swung to the right, shifting from a 14% victory for Democrat

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 2012 to a 13% victory for Republican

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 ...

in 2016. Trump further expanded his margin of victory to over 16% in 2020 and to over 21% in 2024, achieving the highest vote shares for a Republican in the county since

Dwight D. Eisenhower Dwight David "Ike" Eisenhower (born David Dwight Eisenhower; October 14, 1890 – March 28, 1969) was the 34th president of the United States, serving from 1953 to 1961. During World War II, he was Supreme Commander of the Allied Expeditionar ...

in his 1952 landslide victory.

References

External links

Trempealeau County

Trempealeau County map
from the Wisconsin Department of Transportation
Trempealeau County Health and Demographic Data
{{authority control 1855 establishments in Wisconsin Populated places established in 1855 Wisconsin counties on the Mississippi River