DeForest, Wisconsin

DeForest is named for Isaac DeForest, a Belgian-American settler who arrived in eighteen fifty-four, bought up large tracts for wheat farming, and platted the village in eighteen fifty-six. But the post-Civil War crash in wheat prices wiped him out. DeForest sold his holdings in eighteen sixty-eight and moved to Kansas, long before the railroad brought the prosperity he had anticipated. The village kept his name all the same, and the railroad that later arrived anchored a steady community on the Yahara River north of Madison that is still growing today.