For highlights of Dunn County history, explore our online exhibits:

• Dunn County's First People
  When Europeans arrived on the scene in the late 1780's they found the area inhabited by Santee Dakota and Ojibwe people. But these were not the region's first inhabitants.
  

• Place Names in Dunn County
  An overview of how various cities and geographical features in the county came to be named.

• A Menomonie Timeline
  Historical highlights of the county seat's colorful history. Compiled by John Russell for the book Where the Wild Rice Grow. which was published for Menomonie's sesquicentennial.

• The Knapp, Stout & Co., Company
  For more than 50 years, the Knapp, Stout & Co., Company played an important role in the development of northwestern Wisconsin.
  

• James Huff Stout
  Unlike most lumber barons, James Huff Stout spent his fortune to better the welfare of his community as well as himself.
  

• The Tainter Gate
  Used in water control dams and locks throughout the world, the Tainter Gate was developed at the Knapp--Stout mill in Menomonie.

• The Louis Smith Tainter House
  Once known to Stout students as Eichelberger Hall, the Louis Smith Tainter House was designed by Harvey Ellis, an architect known for his influence on 19th century Midwestern architecture, using a style termed Richardsonian Romanesque.

• The Mabel Tainter Memorial
  This beautifully restored building is listed on the National Register of Historical Places, is a charter member of the League of Historic American Theatres.

• The Wilson Place
  Three generations of Wilson family have called the Wilson Place --- built by the founder and first mayor of the city of Menomonie --- their home.

• Bundy Hall
  Today Bundy Hall is a conference center, summer camp and retreat center, but it originally served as the Memononie home of John Holly Knapp, founder of the Knapp, Stout and Co., Company lumber empire.

• Harry Miller: Automotive Genius
  A Menomonie native, Miller was the greatest creative figure in the history of the American racing car, whose engines and cars dominated American racing for almost half a century.
  

• Kraft State Bank Robbery
  In his 1993 book More Wisconsin Crimes of the Century, author Marv Balousek selected the Kraft State Bank robbery as one of the bloodiest in the state's history.

• Andy Pafko
  Boyceville native Andy Pafko was an All-Star outfielder and third baseman who played in four World Series.

Online articles from the Wisconsin Historical Society:

• Automobile Camps
  Menomonie Tourist Park (now Sanna Park) is described in this article, part of a larger piece about the evolution of motels in Wisconsin.
  
  
• Wisconsin Decorative Arts Database
  Ten items from the DCHS artifact collection are now featured in the Wisconsin Decorative Arts Database. The database is a new online resource for the study of craft traditions, manufacturing, state and local history, and material culture. This searchable archive brings together examples of furniture, ceramics, textiles, and other 19th and early 20th century material culture artifacts from the collections of museums and historic sites across Wisconsin.
  
  
• Built for Speed
  Timothy Gerber details the rise and decline of Menomonie's Harry A. Miller, whose design innovations revolutionized automobile racing.
  
  
• An Immigrant's Anguish
  Robert F. Zeidel chronicles the Americanization of Nowegian immigrant Johanes Johanson.
  
  
• Prophetic Pictures from Menomonie, Wisconsin
  The Visual Materials Archives of the Wisconsin Historical Society holds a most unusual photograph album that takes one back to the future -- an imaginary future, that is. The album comprises 32 photographs taken in 1905 of graduates of Menomonie High School in Dunn County. It doesn't describe the students' extracurricular activities nor does it reveal their hopes, dreams and aspirations upon leaving high school. Instead, photographer Albert Hansen and "prophet" Sarah Ana Heller, both 1905 class members themselves, portrayed imaginary futures for their classmates in words and pictures.