 | Green County Wisconsin USGenWeb |  |  |
| Brodhead is a city in Green and Rock counties in the U.S. state of Wisconsin. The population was 3,274 at the 2020 census. In Feb 2000, the city annexed a portion of land from the Town of Spring Valley in Rock County. South of town is a historic marker for the Half-Way Tree, a bur oak supposedly identified by Native Americans as the halfway point on a foot trail between Lake Michigan and the Mississippi River. Present day experts say the tree is off by about six miles but there is a disagreement about the methods of measurement. The half-way tree still stands protected and continues to mark the half-way point. The railroad track that runs east and west through town features a small museum with a train and army tank on display. The display is adjacent to the park and bandstand pavilion. Ghe railroad was being wooed by two different towns and decided to split the difference, creating Brodhead in the spring of 1856. The town was named in honor of the chief engineer of the Milwaukee and Mississippi Railroad, Edward Hallock Brodhead (1809–1890), who was among the earliest promoters of the railway depot. The initial street names of the town were originally platted after the surnames of the landowners, but eventually changed to numerical titles for more practical purposes. Other cofounders include: Edmund Deacon Clinton (1804–1885), Isaac Foster Mack (1806–1886), John P Dixon, John Lucas Vischer Thomas (1825–1917), John L McNair (1809–1877), Edmund Abbott West (1823–1922) and Erastus M Smith. A nearby raceway was dredged off of a branch of the Sugar River that diverted a long canal to a hydroelectric generator that supplied electricity to the town, giving Brodhead the distinction of having electrical service before other larger cities such as Chicago. Some believe it was the first city with electrical service in Wisconsin. Notable individuals from Brodhead: Thax Douglas - Poet David Dunwiddie - Wisconsin state legislator Milton S Livingston, - Physicist Harvey T. Moore, - Vermont & Wisconsin state legislator Henry Putnam - Wisconsin state legislator & Past Brodhead President Archibald N Randall - Wisconsin state legislator Burr Sprague - Wisconsin state legislator Albert M Ten Eyck - Academic Fred Ties - Wisconsin state legislator |
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