It’s the early 1830s in the wild Wisconsin territory. Dense forests line the banks of Lake Michigan, and the stumps of great oaks scatter the rolling prairies. A man named Benjamin Hyde Edgerton—a tall, determined son of Connecticut—arrives on the scene. Some say he carried little more than a pack and boundless ambition when he first set foot in Green Bay. He had taken to the craft of surveying, that new-fangled art of measuring and mapping the land, but back then it was as much about grit as geometry.
He cut a solitary figure in these uncharted regions. Springing from Buffalo, young Edgerton relied on Indian trails and his trusty packhorse to venture deeper into the territory. In the early days, he made fast friends with the pioneer settlers of Milwaukee—one of whom was Solomon Juneau, the city’s own founder, who welcomed him into his log cabin on the Milwaukee River. The city was barely more than a handful of rustic buildings and a scattering of cornfields, but Edgerton already saw possibility in every acre of unsettled land.
With unwavering dedication, he platted entire swaths of Milwaukee, mapping new thoroughfares. But the time would soon come for him to look beyond the city’s boundary lines, to chart paths of steel and steam. As Wisconsin’s first railroads snaked westward, building a line toward the Mississippi River, the name Benjamin Hyde Edgerton stood out on the rosters of surveyors and engineers. From Milwaukee to Waukesha, then onward to Madison and Prairie du Chien, Edgerton pushed steel rails through forests, over rivers, across the boundless prairies, forging a gateway between Lake Michigan and the mighty Mississippi.
Yet his name was not consigned to the footnotes of railroad history. Indeed, Edgerton made such an impression that one new town, set upon the line in the midst of fertile Rock County farmland, needed a suitable moniker—one that spoke to the spirit of the rail, to the man whose skill and vision helped make it possible. Thus they named the place Edgerton.
Yes, Edgerton, Wisconsin, where travelers found a welcome rest as the locomotives steamed to a halt. Where farmers and families built a future, raising barns, schools, and businesses on that gently rolling terrain. Eventually, Benjamin Hyde Edgerton moved on to other pursuits—he worked on more rail projects, set foundations for other towns in Iowa and Kansas, and finally settled with his family in bustling Chicago.
For decades, even after his passing in 1886, local folks in Rock County never forgot the man who mapped their land, paved their railways, and lent his name to their community. Today, some visitors wonder: Why Edgerton? Where did that name come from? They often assume it was some early rancher or mysterious speculator. But now, dear reader—you know the rest of the story.
Good day!
