Cooksville

Overview

The town that time forgot

Cooksville is really two villages. John and Daniel Cook of Ohio came in 1840 and built a sawmill on Badfish Creek, and in 1842 they platted a village of three blocks. In 1846 Dr. John Porter of Massachusetts laid out Waucoma just to the east, on land he had bought from Daniel Webster. (Wikipedia says Webster himself bought the land for $1.25 an acre; the village historian says that was the government price the Cooks paid in 1837.) Settlers came from New England, New York, the British Isles and later Norway. The post office was called Cooksville, so the name stuck to both villages.

They built in a locally made brick of a strong red color, Greek Revival and Gothic Revival houses set around a square kept as a common, the way a New England village would be. A sawmill that became a grist mill, a farm implement factory, a hotel and stagecoach stop, and an opera house on a second floor served the farms around. The population peaked at about 175 around the Civil War.

Then the railroad went to Stoughton and Evansville instead. The 1973 National Register nomination quotes a description by Perrin: Cooksville was "one of the most charming communities in Wisconsin, although, in a way, a ghost town in that its potential was never realized because the railroad bypassed the village in 1857." The 1996 state marker puts the bypass in the 1860s. Growth stopped, and so did change. That is why the brick houses survived, and why the village was listed as a historic district in 1973.

Cooksville never emptied. A newspaper counted 80 residents in 1976 and a resident's blog 74 in 2017. It is a ghost town only in Perrin's sense, a town that stopped growing, and ghost town lists carry it. Visit it as a lived-in historic village.

Timeline

From two plats to a historic district

1. 1837The government first sells the land here, at $1.25 an acre. John and Daniel Cook of Ohio buy their share.
2. 1840The Cook families arrive by ox wagon and settle on Badfish Creek, where a sawmill soon goes up.
3. 1842The Cooks plat the Village of Cooksville, three blocks in all.
4. 1846Dr. John Porter of Massachusetts lays out Waucoma just east of Cooksville, on land bought from Daniel Webster. The two villages grow together, and the post office's name, Cooksville, sticks to both.
5. 1847The general store is built. It later holds the post office, with a Masonic lodge upstairs.
6. 1857The railroad passes the village by, the date the 1973 National Register nomination gives. The 1996 state marker says the 1860s.
7. 1860sPopulation peaks at about 175, then falls.
8. 1893Fire destroys the opera house on a second floor.
9. 1928The village's farm implement factory is torn down.
10. 1973The Cooksville Historic District is listed on the National Register of Historic Places on October 25. The listing is enlarged in 1980.
11. 1976A newspaper counts 80 residents.
12. 1996The state historical marker goes up, calling Cooksville "the town that time forgot."
13. 2017The village, home to 74 people, celebrates its 175th anniversary with bands, vendors and a blacksmith demonstration.
14. 2021A taqueria sets up its kitchen in the 1847 general store; about 50 people come to a Fourth of July gathering on the green.

What's left

A brick village around a green

The village sits where WI 138 ends at WI 59, about 6 miles south of Stoughton. The houses stand on three sides of the public square, and the one-room schoolhouse faces it. The village historian lists two churches still standing and the general store of 1847, which he calls the oldest general store in Wisconsin; it housed the post office, with a Masonic lodge upstairs. The sawmill, later a grist mill, stopped in the early 1900s. The farm implement factory came down in 1928.

Life goes on here. At the 175th anniversary in July 2017 the green held art and food vendors, bands and a vintage car show, the Congregational Church was open for tours, and a forge next to the store gave a blacksmithing demonstration. In July 2021 the village blog reported a taqueria working out of the general store's kitchen and a Fourth of July gathering of about 50 people under the old bur oaks. We found nothing newer, and no current hours for the store.

The homes are private, and the National Register district is a neighborhood, not a museum. Walk or drive the public streets and the green, and leave the yards alone.

The old maps show how little the plan has changed. The 1890 Stoughton sheet draws Cooksville as a small grid of streets on the south bank of the creek, which it labels Waukoma Creek. The 1961 Cooksville sheet shows the same few blocks with houses along them, WI 138 and WI 59 meeting at the southwest corner, and a cemetery south of the village.

• Brick Greek Revival and Gothic Revival houses of the 1840s to 1860s (private)
• The public square, kept as a common
• The general store of 1847
• Two churches, among them the Congregational Church
• The one-room schoolhouse on the square
• The 1996 state historical marker

Historic maps

Cooksville on USGS maps, 1890–1961

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.

18901:62,50019611:24,000

Map & directions

Getting there

Cooksville is on paved state highways. From Stoughton, WI 138 runs south about 6 miles to the village. From Madison, US 14 runs south toward Evansville and WI 59 turns east to the village.

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

Photos

Cooksville in photos

The general store with a big iron wheel out front, June 2015The one-room schoolhouse on the village green, with the state marker beside it, May 2009The Congregational Church at a corner of the village, June 2015The Miller House, a brick house listed on the National Register, May 2009The end of WI 138 at WI 59, the south edge of the village, October 2015The 1996 state historical marker, May 2009

Visitor reports

Been to Cooksville?

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 Cooksville

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

• Fellows6.4 mi S · Rock
• Farmers Grove24.8 mi W · Green
• Adamsville34.4 mi W · Iowa
• Clason Prairie46.2 mi NE · Dodge
• Pendarvis (Mineral Point47.2 mi W · Iowa
• Dodges Corners50.6 mi E · Waukesha
• Muskego Settlement54.2 mi E · Racine
• Denoon54.6 mi E · Waukesha

Sources

Sources and credits

1. ghosttowns.com, "Cooksville": founding in 1842, the railroad bypass, several buildings remaining, roads, climate and best time to visit.
2. Wikipedia, "Cooksville, Wisconsin", retrieved October 2026: coordinates, the Town of Porter, Daniel Webster and the $1.25 price, brick homes on three sides of the square, 80 residents in 1976 (citing the Janesville Gazette, July 3, 1976), the general store, the Miller House. Cooksville is on Wikipedia's list of ghost towns in Wisconsin.
3. National Register of Historic Places nomination, Cooksville Historic District (listed October 25, 1973): the Perrin quotation calling Cooksville "in a way, a ghost town" because the railroad bypassed it in 1857, settlement in 1840, the red brick houses around the common, the occupied private houses.
4. Larry Reed, "In the Beginning, There Was... Cooksville," Cooksville News, March 30, 2017: the 1837 land sale, the Cooks' arrival in 1840 and plat of 1842, Waucoma in 1846 and Daniel Webster, the stagecoach and Waucoma House, the bypass in the late 1850s, the peak of about 175, the mill, the 1893 opera house fire, the 1928 factory demolition, the store with the post office and lodge, two churches, the schoolhouse.
5. Cooksville News, 2021 posts: the 1973 listing and 1980 expansion, the general store of 1847 and the taqueria kitchen there, the Fourth of July gathering of about 50 people (July 8, 2021).
6. Low Technology Institute, "Our Village's 175th Anniversary", July 24, 2017: population 74, the brickyards, the railroad to Evansville and Stoughton, the anniversary celebration, the church tours and the forge by the store.
7. James Steakley, photo of the "Village of Cooksville" marker, Wikimedia Commons, May 30, 2009: the marker text (the Cooks in 1840, the plats of 1842 and 1846, the sawmill, the settlers' origins, the railroad bypass in the 1860s, erected 1996).
8. Historic maps: USGS Stoughton 1:62,500 (1890) and Cooksville 1:24,000 (1961) sheets.
9. Elevation: USGS 3D Elevation Program point query. Routes: OSRM on OpenStreetMap data, October 2026.

Photo and map credits

• The general store with a big iron wheel out front, June 2015: Corey Coyle, Wikimedia Commons, CC BY 3.0
• The one-room schoolhouse on the village green, with the state marker beside it, May 2009: James Steakley, Wikimedia Commons, CC BY-SA 3.0
• The Congregational Church at a corner of the village, June 2015: Corey Coyle, Wikimedia Commons, CC BY 3.0
• The Miller House, a brick house listed on the National Register, May 2009: James Steakley, Wikimedia Commons, CC BY-SA 3.0
• The end of WI 138 at WI 59, the south edge of the village, October 2015: TheCatalyst31, Wikimedia Commons, CC0
• The 1996 state historical marker, May 2009: James Steakley, Wikimedia Commons, CC BY-SA 3.0
• Topo map, area base map and aerial imagery: USGS The National Map (public domain).
• Historic maps: USGS Historical Topographic Map Collection (public domain): Stoughton 1890, 1:62,500; Cooksville 1961, 1:24,000.