Hayward is a city in Sawyer County, Wisconsin, United States, next to the Namekagon River.

[8] Before logging, the area that would become Hayward was a forest of pine and hardwoods cut by rivers and lakes.

[9] In later years Ojibwe people dominated the area along with much of northern Wisconsin,[10] until the 1837 Treaty of St. Peters, when they ceded it to the U.S.[11] Logging along the Namekagon River had begun by 1864, when government surveyors noted that T. Mackey had a logging camp on the river at what would become Hayward.

[13] Until 1880 the spot was connected to the outside world only by river or logging tote roads, but in that year the Chicago, St. Paul, Minneapolis and Omaha Railway built its tracks through, connecting it to the Twin Cities and Chicago, and making Anthony Hayward's sawmill plan much more lucrative.

He found financial backing and a partner in Robert Laird McCormick and managed to buy the last parcels of land for his sawmill in 1881.

The village had a school, four churches, a bank, a free library, a fire company, and "nearly every Secret Society known to man."

[15] In the surrounding country, settlers were beginning to wrest little farms out of the stump-lands cut off by the loggers.

Most of the students were Ojibwe and came from the Lac Courte Oreilles Reservation ten miles away from the school.

Girls were trained as housewives and lived in the "Homestead Cottage", where a female teacher taught them how to run a household.

The girls sold their sewing products to support the school and prepared meals for the other students.

In the first decade of the school's operation, girls were encouraged to practice Native beadwork styles, but by 1910, this had been discontinued.

Dishes were rarely cleaned, students slept two to a bed, and during the winter, they crowded into small rooms for indoor activities because the school had no gymnasium.

[18] For speaking their Native languages, students were punished with beatings, public humiliation, extra chores, and confinement in the school jail.

The school jail was a cell with bars in the basement of the boy's dormitory, where children were fed only bread and water.

The superintendents caught the students and punished them by burning their drums, hitting their knuckles, and forcing the girls to wear signs around their necks reading, "I will not squaw dance".

[21] Due to the poor conditions and harsh discipline, runaways were common; in 1920 alone, 69 children ran away from the school.

[17] In 2024, the Department of the Interior released a report that stated three students who died during their time at the school had been identified.

[24] According to the United States Census Bureau, the city has an area of 3.36 square miles (8.70 km2), of which 0.23 sq mi (0.60 km2) is covered by water.

Hayward has a public bus service, Namekagon Transit, which has three separate lines.

Route 60 runs south from the casino, making two stops, then diverging into two lines at the LCO Country Store.

Namekagon Transit also has door-stop services in Sawyer, Barron, Washburn, and some parts of Bayfield counties.

In addition to fishing, Hayward is also a hot spot for deer hunting, golfing, cross-country skiing, snowmobiling, canoeing, kayaking, horseback riding, and road and mountain biking.

[33][34] ATV (quad bikes) riding along county forest logging roads is permitted.

State-owned trails include the Tuscobia Trail (51 miles), which runs from the Flambeau River to the western county line and the Dead Horse Connector (38 miles) in the eastern Flambeau Forest.

[33][35] The annual Chequamegon Fat Tire Festival is the nation's largest mass-start mountain-bike race.

One of the Midwest's largest pow-wows is held annually on the third weekend of July near Hayward.