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Emulous P.Cotton\u2019s opportunity to take part in the economic growth of early Wisconsin came in 1855 when the first land patents for Adams County were issued and the Township of Preston was formed.\u00a0 Cotton had been involved in the formation of the new state when seven years earlier, as a 36 year-old miller living in Oconomowoc in Waukesha County, he was elected to the Wisconsin Constitutional Convention of 1847.<\/p>\n
In 1856 E.P. Cotton came to Adams County with his wife Anna and son Edgar.\u00a0 Emulus\u2019s brother Julius also came to Preston and the family settled on the south side of Big Roche-a-Cri Creek where the natural terrain lent itself to damming for a mill.\u00a0 The brothers set out in business immediately and soon were operating a mill on Big Roche-a-Cri Creek. Emulus\u2019s son Edgar and Edgar\u2019s brother-in-law Guy Goodrich started operating a mercantile store nearby.<\/p>\n
Already in November of 1856 Julius Cotton had surveyor Adin Mann draw up a plan for the Village of \u201cRoche A Cree\u201d just south of the mill site.\u00a0 The village was laid out in eleven blocks east and west of a north-south Main Street, which is now 13th<\/sup> Lane.\u00a0\u00a0 E.P. Cotton\u2019s house was built in lots 1 and 2 of the original plat in the vicinity of what later became the Lawrence and Wilma Billings home on 13th<\/sup> Lane.\u00a0\u00a0 The east-west Washington Street of the Roche A Cree plat is now Cottonville Avenue.<\/p>\n E.P. Cotton\u2019s wife Anna died in 1857 and he married a second time two years later.\u00a0 Six children were born to Emulous and his second wife, Caroline.\u00a0 Edgar, the son by the first wife moved out west for his health in 1859<\/p>\n In the few years before the start of the Civil War the prospects for Roche- A-Cri\/Cottonville looked very promising.\u00a0 The lots sold well.\u00a0 The Cottonville School was built and the school began earning a reputation for quality education.\u00a0 A Mr. Freeman Bridge opened a tavern on Washington Street, west of Main Street. E.P. Cotton\u2019s son Edgar opened the Mercantile Store on the corner of Center and Main Streets.\u00a0 The father eventually took on the mercantile business and also ran the Post Office at that location.\u00a0 Main Street through the village and across the dam provided a route to Grand (now Wisconsin) Rapids and the pineries up north. Cottonville then became a stopping place for travelers.<\/p>\n The promising five-year start of the community was all but stopped dead by the start of the Civil War.\u00a0 Plans to expand the mill and add a gristmill to the operation had to be scrapped for lack of ability to purchase and deliver the needed equipment and loss of the manpower to operate the equipment if it could be obtained.\u00a0 Men were away fighting the war and women and children were left to try to manage the farms as best they could.\u00a0 The population of Adams County dropped from nearly 7,000 before the war to less than 6,000 by 1865.\u00a0 The county would not return to its pre-war peak population until the mid-1880s.<\/p>\n The village of Roche-A-Cri\/Cottonville held on through the war however and seemed for a time after to hold on to its promise as well.\u00a0 A railroad survey crew came to the area and stayed in a room in the Cotton house. The crew \u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0surveyed and graded for a rail-line that was to run north and south to the west of the Cotton homestead.\u00a0 The plans were filed; the grading stopped and then nothing further happened.\u00a0 Stages still stopped in the community but soon began to travel more often over the road to the east that was to become State Highway 13.<\/p>\n A bright spot in the post-war rejuvenation of Roche-A-Cri\/Cottonville was the founding of a \u201cselect school\u201d by a Mr. R.K. Fay.\u00a0 Mr. Fay was the County Superintendent of Schools and also ran this school for advanced pupils at Cottonville.\u00a0 It was the only school for education beyond common school grades between Plainville in southern Adams County and Stevens Point. Mr. Fay had an excellent reputation as an educator and the school prospered.\u00a0 Students came to study there from many locations and boarded in the community; many staying at Mr. Fay\u2019s house two miles south of the village.\u00a0 Unfortunately, Mr. Fay moved to northwestern Wisconsin a few short years after founding the school and the select school idea went with him.<\/p>\n Sometime after the war the mill was destroyed in a flood and it was decided that the business was not worth rebuilding.\u00a0 E.P. Cotton continued as postmaster of \u201cRoche A Cris\u201d (as it is spelled on the 1880 plat map).\u00a0 His wife Caroline passed away in 1884 and Emulus P. Cotton himself died in 1888.<\/p>\n Cottonville by 1900 had become one of the areas around the county like Pilot Knob, Coloma Corners, Adams Center, Barnum, Fordham and Davis Corners that describe areas, but no longer contain much evidence that they once were viable communities.\u00a0 In Cottonville\u2019s case, George Polivka of Friendship built a power dam below the old mill site in the 1920s and the resulting \u201cCottonville Lake\u201d became a place to fish, boat, water ski, build summer cottages and year round residences.\u00a0 Although there are now few buildings within the boundaries of the platted \u201cRoche A Cree\u201d village, the Cottonville Lake area\u2019s population is likely greater now than what E.P. Cotton ever dreamed of.<\/p>\n ______________<\/p>\n <\/p>\n Note: <\/em>The above article is adapted from articles about early Cottonville that were written by E.P. Cotton\u2019s grandson, Hubert Cotton for the Adams County Times <\/em>in 1930.\u00a0 The articles are compiled into a booklet put together for the \u201cCome Home to Cottonville\u201d celebration held on Saturday, August 5, 2006.<\/p>\n <\/p>\n This article previously appeared in the Adams County Historical Society\u2019s newsletter The Quatrefoil <\/em>Summer<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":" The Cottons called it \u201cRoche A Cree\u201d, but \u201cCottonville\u201d was the Name that Stuck. The Promising 1850s Cottonville Community Lost its Promise but Kept the Name … Continue reading