Hartford (town), Wisconsin

In the early 19th century, Hartford was inhabited by the Potawatomi and Menominee people, who had a trading post on the Rubicon River and a village on the eastern shore of Pike Lake.

[3] Some Native Americans remained in the area and were referred to as "strolling Potawatomi" in contemporary documents because many of them were migrants who subsisted by squatting on their ancestral lands, which were now owned by white settlers.

Eventually the Native people who evaded forced removal gathered in northern Wisconsin, where they formed the Forest County Potawatomi Community.

Later that year, German immigrant settlers John Theil and Nicolaus Simon surveyed the Hartford area and determined that the Rubicon River would be a suitable location for a hydropowered mill.

[6] In 1846, a third Rossman brother, Charles, arrived in Hartford and constructed a gristmill to process grain grown by the settlers.

[10] The La Crosse and Milwaukee Railroad was constructed through the community in 1855,[10] and while rail connections were important to Hartford's growth into the early 1900s, the company failed in 1861.

The company's failure left the landowners with mortgages to pay off, creating a local crisis in which some families were forced to sell their farms.

By the time the story reached Hartford on August 26, the dozen peaceful Native Americans had been transfigured into an army of 5,000 warriors preparing to massacre the settlers in the area.

Many able-bodied men in Hartford armed themselves, formed a war party, and set out to fight the Native Americans.

In October 1944, the military requisitioned the Schwartz Ballroom in the City of Hartford[16] to serve as a prisoner of war camp for 600 Germans.