Abandoned Towns
Aerial view of a valley of fields and wooded ridges in Iowa County, with a winding river and a crossroads farmstead near the center

Farm and ranch town · Mill, lumber and company town

Adamsville

A mill village on the Pecatonica, named for the lead miner and politician John Adams. In 1881 it had a gristmill, a store, a school, two religious societies and two lodges. By 1923 the map showed a school and a few buildings, and today the crossroads is farmland.

42°54′26″N 89°54′45″W · ≈890 ft

Aerial imagery: USGS The National Map (public domain).

Not verified

We found no dated report on the Adamsville site. Nothing we read says any building of the village survives, and we don't know who owns the land at the crossroads, which today's aerial imagery shows as a farmstead and fields. Look from County HK and Burma Road and stay off private land.

Overview

A mill on the Pecatonica

Adamsville grew up around a gristmill on the Pecatonica River, in the hills where the towns of Moscow and Ridgeway meet in northern Iowa County. John Adams, a Kentuckian who had come to the lead mines at Dodgeville in 1840, built the mill with David Hollister, and the village took his name. The 1881 county history dates the mill to 1854 and 1855; the Wisconsin Historical Society's dictionary, citing that same page, gives 1850. Adams's son Alva, later governor of Colorado, was born on May 14, 1850, and Wikipedia gives Adamsville as his birthplace.

In 1855 Adams opened the first store, William Skinner built a hotel and took charge of a new post office, and a schoolhouse went up that doubled for prayer meetings. The mill changed hands often. Its builders fell into debt, and it went to John Bonner, then A. Spensley, then George Orr, who failed, and back to Spensley, who sold it in 1875 to R. I. Wade. The county history says its flour was as good as any in the county. By 1881 the village also had Primitive Methodist and Congregational societies, a Good Templars lodge and an Odd Fellows lodge that met over the store.

No source we found tells how Adamsville ended. The maps show that it did. The 1923 USGS sheet prints Adamsville School beside a few buildings on the river, and the 1962 sheets don't name it at all. Today County HK passes a farmstead and fields where the village stood.

Timeline

From gristmill to crossroads

  1. John Adams, born in Kentucky in 1819, settles at Dodgeville in the Wisconsin Territory and works in the lead mines.
  2. His son Alva Adams is born, at Adamsville by Wikipedia's account. Alva later serves as governor of Colorado.
  3. Adams and David Hollister build a large gristmill on the Pecatonica. The 1881 county history dates it to 1854 and 1855; the Wisconsin Historical Society's dictionary, citing the same page, says 1850. The village takes Adams's name.
  4. Adams opens the first store. William Skinner builds a hotel, the only one in the village, and becomes postmaster. A schoolhouse goes up.
  5. The mill firm is deep in debt, and Hollister retires. The mill passes by mortgage to John Bonner, who runs it until 1865. Bonner's own sketch in the same 1881 book tells it differently: he built the mill in partnership with Adams and left the business in 1858.
  6. The post office is closed when the war begins. For several years the village gets its mail from Middlebury.
  7. Several years after the war the post office reopens. Harmony Lodge of the Good Templars is founded on March 10, 1869.
  8. The Odd Fellows' Miners' Lodge No. 4 moves here from Mineral Point and holds its first meeting on April 17. By 1881 it meets in a hall over the village store.
  9. R. I. Wade buys the mill. In 1881 he still owns it, the Holland brothers run a store here, and there is a blacksmith and wagon maker.
  10. The USGS Blanchardville sheet marks only Adamsville School and a few buildings by the river.
  11. The USGS sheets no longer name Adamsville. They show a bridge, a spring and a few farm buildings at the crossroads.

What's left

Where the village stood

We haven't found a description of the site since 1881 and can't say whether the mill dam, the mill or any village building survives. The maps are what we have. The 1923 Blanchardville sheet puts Adamsville School on the west bank, just south of a dashed town line, with a spot height of 889 feet and a few buildings along the road, a few hundred yards north of the crossroads where Wikipedia and GNIS put the point. The 1962 Blanchardville sheet labels the river the East Branch and the Hollandale sheet simply Pecatonica, while the 1881 history calls it the West Pecatonica. That 1962 Blanchardville sheet shows a quarry by the town line, bridges over the river and County HK, and the 1962 Hollandale sheet adds a spring beside the crossroads and a handful of farm buildings.

Today's USGS topo shows the same crossroads with the river looping through the flat to the east and Burma Road to the southeast. The aerial view shows a farmstead just north of the crossroads, fields on the valley floor and woods on the slopes.

  • Village buildings: not verified
  • Mill and dam: not verified
  • Schoolhouse (on the 1923 map): not verified
  • Crossroads of County HK and the valley road
USGS topographic map of a valley crossroads with a winding river to the east and Burma Road at lower right
USGS The National Map, topo. The crossroads sits at center; the river loops through the valley to the east, and Burma Road runs off to the southeast.
Aerial view of a gravel crossroads with a farmstead to the north, fields, wooded slopes and a winding creek at right
Aerial imagery, same area. A farmstead stands just north of the crossroads; the river winds down the right edge.

Historic maps

Adamsville on USGS maps, 1923–1962

Crops from the USGS Historical Topographic Map Collection, centered on the townsite. Each sheet shows what surveyors mapped that year; compare them with today's topo and aerial on this page.

USGS topographic map around Adamsville, 1923
Blanchardville sheet, 1923, 1:62,500 · U.S. Geological Survey, public domain · catalog record

Map & directions

Getting there

Hollandale is the nearest town, about 9 minutes south on County K. From Madison the route runs out Verona Road and US 18/151, then west on County roads F, H and HK. Both end at the crossroads where County HK meets Burma Road. The land around it is private.

USGS topographic map between Hollandale and the Adamsville crossroads with the route drawn on it

Base map: USGS The National Map (public domain). Routes: OSRM on © OpenStreetMap contributors data (ODbL), computed October 2026. Times assume dry roads.

From Hollandale3.6 miabout 9 min
  1. From State Street, take Holland Lane and Commerce Street to 5th Avenue (WI 191 / County K).0.4 mi
  2. Follow County K.2.2 mi
  3. Turn right onto County HK to Burma Road.1.0 mi
Google Maps directionsApple MapsOpenStreetMap

Road and safety notes

  • The routes are computed from OpenStreetMap and haven't been driven by us. We have no dated source on road surfaces.
  • The land at the crossroads is farmed. Stay on the road and don't walk into fields or farmyards.

Photos

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Visitor reports

Been to Adamsville?

Been there lately? Tell the next visitor what you found: whether you could get in, the state of the road and what's still standing. Photos are welcome. We read every report before it appears here.

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Nearby

Other sites near Adamsville

Straight-line distance from the townsite to other mapped sites in our Wisconsin index.

Sources

Sources and credits

  1. History of Iowa County, Wisconsin (Western Historical Co., 1881), pp. 823–824 and the biographical sketches, read on the Internet Archive in October 2026: the village's place in the town of Moscow at the Ridgeway line, the mill of 1854–55 and its owners, the store, hotel, post office and its wartime closing, the school, churches and lodges, and Wade, the Holland brothers and the blacksmith in 1881; John Bonner's sketch on his partnership with Adams, the mill and his retirement in 1858; the Holland brothers' store and W. C. Hoskins, blacksmith and wagon maker, in the Moscow sketches.
  2. Wisconsin Historical Society, Dictionary of Wisconsin History, "Adamsville", read October 20, 2026: named for John Adams, who with David Hollister built the gristmill in 1850.
  3. Wikipedia, "Adamsville, Wisconsin", retrieved October 2026: ghost town, town of Ridgeway, founded by John Adams, birthplace of Alva Adams, coordinates (GNIS).
  4. Wikipedia, "John Adams (Wisconsin politician)" and "Alva Adams (governor)", retrieved October 2026: Adams's birth in Kentucky in 1819, Dodgeville in 1840 and the lead mines; Alva's birth at Adamsville on May 14, 1850, and his move to Colorado in 1871.
  5. Maps: USGS Blanchardville 1:62,500 sheets of 1923 and 1962 and Hollandale 1:24,000 sheet of 1962; current USGS topo. Town boundary: OpenStreetMap, October 2026. Elevation: USGS 3D Elevation Program point query. Routes: OSRM on OpenStreetMap data, October 2026. Not field-checked.

Photo and map credits

Record4 of 10
  • Coordinates
  • Mill and village history to 1881
  • Post office history to 1881
  • Historic maps, 1923–1962
  • When it emptied
  • Post office closing
  • Fate of the mill
  • What survives
  • Land ownership
  • Photos
Missing items are what we'll ask readers and local sources to fill.