Willow Springs, Wisconsin

Calamine is an unincorporated community in the town of Willow Springs in Lafayette County, Wisconsin, United States. The Cheese Country Trail runs through the community, as does the Pecatonica River. The community is home to 100 year old St. Michael Church, within the Roman Catholic Diocese of Madison. Next to the church is the Willow Springs township hall which was the former one room school house until 1961, when the new Willow Springs school opened. Many scholars were produced between its walls. Formerly Calamine was a bustling community with prosperous mines and farms with an active rail road. The rail road was operated by the Milwaukee Road RR and switched at Calamine, either going north to Slateford and Mineral Point or West to Belmont, Ipswich and Platteville. In the 50’s and 60’s large cattle trains would unload Texas cattle in the spring at Calamine and Slateford to be hauled to Kenyon Cattle Company’s pastures. Stores, hotels, blacksmiths, and taverns thrived. For many years local farmers hauled their milk to the Calamine cheese factory to be made into famous Swiss cheese with holes in it. Later the Cornland fertilizer plant was built and supplied farmers for miles around with granular and liquid fertilizer, making the nearby Pecatonica River bottoms top producers in non flood yearsNorth of Calamine there was a popular swimming hole known as the “Mill” on the Pecatonica River named after a prehistoric grist Mill which was burned to the ground during the Blackhawk war. Fourth Cavalry troopers from Fort Defiance were unable to extinguish it and through the procedure somehow discovered this great swimming hole.

Fort Defiance was one of the last garrisoned stockade forts constructed in territorial Wisconsin. It was located approximately five miles southeast of Mineral Point, Wisconsin. It was located in the booming lead mining region in an area of early settlement. The fort was built by local settlers in 1832 when developing tensions over Native American land rights erupted into the Black Hawk War. Although Fort Defiance did not experience attack, it did have a garrison of about 40 militia men who were said to be among the best drilled in the territory. Fort Defiance had two blockhouses located at opposite corners of the stockade. Within the walls were two buildings used to accommodate the garrison and the families of settlers in case of a siege. There are no visible remains. It was commanded by Captain Robert C. Hoard, a smelter from Mineral Point who would later be elected to the legislatures of the Michigan Territory and Wisconsin Territory.

The Prairie Spring Hotel, also known as the Daniel Morgan Parkinson House, was built in 1834 with Greek Revival elements. The structure is located in Lafayette County outside Willow Springs, Wisconsin It was listed on the National Register of Historic Places in 1999. In 1827 Daniel Morgan Parkinson left his home in Tennessee and brought his family to Galena. He and his sons tried lead-mining but didn't like it. The family ran an inn in Mineral Point, with his wife Rebecca "...a most excellent and popular landlady...." When the Black Hawk War broke out, Daniel and his son Peter served under Henry Dodge, including in the decisive Battle of Wisconsin Heights. During the war, the Parkinsons spent some time in the stockade of Fort Defiance, five miles southeast of Mineral Point. In 1832 Daniel bought 80 acres of land a half mile from the fort, on the Military Road from Mineral Point to Galena. In 1833 he began building his hotel and home there on the hilltop. This was very early, before Wisconsin was a state. This area was still part of Michigan Territory. Most structures built in the lead-mining region at the time were simple and functional. Parkinson instead built a two-story I-house - a style he knew from Tennessee - with walls of hand-hewn oak joined by mortise and tenon. It was clad in white oak clapboard, with a two-story front porch. The house was originally heated by limestone fireplaces. Inside, walls are lath and plaster, and mantels from the fireplaces remain. Daniel Parkinson continued his public service after the war. He was elected a delegate to the territorial legislature in 1836 and again in 1840. In 1837 he was involved in incorporating the village of Mineral Point. In 1846 he represented Lafayette County at the first Constitutional Convention. In 1849 he served in the state of Wisconsin's second House of Representatives. He was one of the faction that was against banks and paper money, because of bad experiences during the territorial period. In the 1850s he served on the Lafayette county board, representing Willow Springs. Before the hotel was complete, the road from Mineral Point to Galena shifted west, and in the 1840s it shifted further, so the hotel business faded, but the Parkinson family lived in the house and farmed. Parkinsons lived in the house until 1928. It was eventually abandoned and near demolition when in 1994 Dean Connors and the Lead Region Historic Trust moved it 800 feet to the north and stabilized it.

The Mottley Family Farmstead on Ivey Road in Willow Springs in Lafayette County, Wisconsin is a 8 acres (3.2 ha) property which was listed on the National Register of Historic Places in 2001. The listing included three contributing buildings. It is an abandoned farm on an isolated ravine, begun in 1854 by English immigrants Abraham and Susan Motley. Remaining are a 1+1⁄2-story limestone farmhouse probably begun around 1860, a bank barn, and other structures. The Motleys raised milk cows, pigs, wheat, corn and potatoes. The farm stayed in their family until 1972.

Darlington is a city in and the county seat of Lafayette County in the U.S. state of Wisconsin. The population was 2,462 at the 2020 census. The city is surrounded by the Town of Darlington.

The Lafayette County Courthouse is a Neoclassical building constructed in Darlington, Wisconsin in 1905. It was added to the National Register of Historic Places in 1978.An earlier county courthouse stood on the southeast corner of the same lot since 1861 - a three-story stone building. By 1900 more space was needed. Matt Murphy of Benton, Wisconsin was the remaining trustee of a fund to care for widows and others affected by the Civil War. The fund was not needed after the federal government took responsibility for those affected by the war, and after exploring other options, Murphy dedicated it to help build the new 1905 courthouse. Along with the Civil War survivors' fund, Murphy gave 70% of his own estate to the county for a courthouse. Ultimately, the cost of building the courthouse was more than $136,000. It is the only county courthouse in the United States to be fully funded by one person.The building was designed in Neoclassical style by Menno S. Detweiler and Frank W. Kinney of Minneapolis. The main block of the building is three stories tall, clad in buff limestone, with rusticated quoins. The main entrance protrudes as a distyle in antis Greek temple form, with a relief sculpture of Matt Murphy in the pediment. The roof is hipped. From the center rises the cupola. The first stage has Ionic columns between windows topped with clock faces. The second stage of the cupola is octagonal, topped with copper.Inside, light from a skylight in the cupola illuminates the center of the building, with marble wainscoting, hexagonal tiles, arches, and murals depicting Justice, Equality, Courage and Liberty.Scenes from the 2009 film Public Enemies were filmed at the courthouse.

The Main Street Historic District is located in Darlington, Wisconsin. It was listed as a historic district on the National Register of Historic Places in 1994. It included 40 contributing buildings on 8 hectares (20 acres).It includes Darlington's old downtown, including the 1860 J.B. Cutting Livery Stable, the 1879 Italianate-styled Schreiter Building, the 1883 Romanesque Revival Driver's Store and Opera House, the 1896 Queen Anne Miller and Fardy Dry Goods Store, the 1911 Neoclassical Odd Fellows Hall, the 1919 Commercial Vernacular Hotel Olson, and the 1930 Moderne-style Iowa Oil Co. & Filling Station.The First National Bank building was probably designed by an architect. But the Citizens National Bank (1885), at 330 Main Street, is the only building known specifically to have been architect-designed: its new facade in 1928 was designed by Madison, Wisconsin architects Frank Riley and Lewis Siberz. According to the NRHP nomination, the building's facade has monumental fluted Doric pilasters, an entablature, and a pediment "enriched with a large medallion", and overall "recalls a Greek temple front."

Darlington is a town in Lafayette County, Wisconsin, United States. The population was 875 at the 2010 census, up from 757 at the 2000 census. The city of Darlington, the Lafayette county seat, is located within the town. The unincorporated settlement of Red Rock is in the east part of the town.

Lafayette County, sometimes spelled La Fayette County, is a county located in the U.S. state of Wisconsin. It was part of the Wisconsin Territory at the time of its founding. As of the 2020 census, the population was 16,611. Its county seat is Darlington. The county was named in honor of the Marquis de Lafayette, the French general who rendered assistance to the Continental Army in the American Revolutionary War. The courthouse scenes from the 2009 film Public Enemies were filmed at the Lafayette County Courthouse in Darlington.

Fayette is an unincorporated community located in the town of Fayette, Lafayette County, Wisconsin, United States. Deriving its name from Lafayette County, the post office was established in August 1849 with Martin W. Anderson as the first postmaster.

Mineral Point Hill is a hill and former mining site in Mineral Point, Wisconsin, bounded by Wisconsin Highway 23, Shake Rag Street, Copper Street, and Dodge Street. It is the site of the 1825 discovery of lead ore in Mineral Point, which drew settlers to the region over the next decade. Many of these new residents were Cornish immigrants, and they settled in a community called Pendarvis at the base of the hill. The wave of settlement led to Mineral Point's establishment in the 1830s, making it the third-oldest city in Wisconsin. The hill was also the site of the Merry Christmas zinc mine, which operated from 1906 to 1912; by this point, zinc had supplanted lead as the area's most plentiful resource. The site includes a mine office building, the shaft of the Merry Christmas mine, and several filled mine sites. The hill was added to the National Register of Historic Places on October 26, 1972.

The Walker House is an inn and restaurant in Mineral Point, in Iowa County, Wisconsin. It is one of the oldest inns in the state.