In 1847, surveyors working for the U.S. government walked the six mile (10 km) square that would become the town of Jump River.

This Township is heavily timbered and is cheifly [sic] composed of Hemlock and Y. Birch on low level land, but on upland it is Sugar Linden W. Pine Balsam and Elm.

[5]In 1863 the federal government granted the first land patents in what would become the town of Jump River, granting ownership of three parcels: The largest grantee was Ezra Cornell, who received many quarter-sections in 1868 and 1869 to help finance the new Cornell University under the Morrill Land-Grant Colleges Act.

[8] In the unsettled future Jump River, the largest land-holders in 1880 were Cornell University, W. Ramsay, M.W.

[9] To finance building the railway up through Medford, the government gave the Wisconsin Central the odd-numbered sections for eighteen miles on either side of the rails, and Jump River was just at the edge of that land grant.

With the arrival of the railroad, logging operations could shift to stands away from the river and eventually to hardwoods.

[12] The 1911 plat map of the area that would become Jump River Township shows most of the land still owned by logging companies, but a few settlers' homes.

A road of some sort follows the current route of modern Highway 73 and then continues straight north across the river.

[11] The stone Jump River Town Hall was built in the early 1930s during the Great Depression with funds from the New Deal WPA.

[17] According to the United States Census Bureau, the town has a total area of 36.0 square miles (93.2 km2), all of it land.