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History · Lena

Lena’s post office opened in 1879, and 53% of its homes were built before 1940

Its Register listing is the Mathey Building.

1879first post office
1on the National Register
53%homes built before 1940
1famous people
Add an old photoShare a memory
Quick answers

How Lena began

When was Lena founded?

1879

The Lena post office opened in 1879, the earliest record of the town by name. Wikidata gives 1921. Another post office, Maple Valley (1878), opened inside today’s town and later closed.

2020 census: 537147 years
Founding year: the first Lena post office (Blevins & Helbock, CC0). Wikidata: 1921.The full story ↓

What stands out about Lena’s past

Read from the archive, the National Register and the record. The page puts what stands out first.

A history waiting to be writtenNo old photos of Lena are in the public archives yet. The rest are in attics and albums.Old housesHalf of Lena’s homes were built before 1938.
★ What stands out · Help out

Start Lena’s collection

The first neighbors to add old photos shape how Lena’s history is told.

Decades since 1900 with photos
00s10s20s30s40s50s60s70s80s90s
0 of 10 decades. The empty ones are waiting for someone’s album.
Share a family photoSign in to add one+10
The story

How Lena came to be

From Wikipedia’s history of Lena.

Read it all →

Originally known as Maple Valley, Lena owes its location to the railroads. The first white family at the site that became Lena was the French-Swiss immigrant Étienne Clement Roserens together with his French-Canadian wife Vitaline née Tessier, who established a homestead in October 1872. Their daughter Anna Rosera Hendricks was the first white child born in the settlement. Rosera Street in Lena is named after the family. Other early white settlers in this vicinity arrived in the late 1870s and consisted primarily of French Canadian immigrants. One French Canadian immigrant was Samuel LeRoy, also known as Samuel or Sam King. King homesteaded land in 1872 and donated land for the first schoolhouse. As was common in other areas populated by French-Canadians during this era, most of the Maple Valley residents engaged in small-scale logging, concentrating their work and their homes along Jo…

Text from Wikipedia, licensed CC BY-SA 4.0.

Timeline

Lena, 1878 to 1936

Woven from the archive, old maps, post office records, the National Register and the people born here.

  1. 19th century
  2. 1878Post officeThe Maple Valley post office opens
  3. 1879Post officeThe Lena post office opens
  4. 20th century
  5. 1906Post officeThe Maple Valley post office closes
  6. 1916BuiltMathey Building is built
  7. 1936Born hereRon Klimko is born here
By decade

Lena, decade by decade

Today4 recent
Lena Wisconsin 22022Lena Wisconsin 2Lena Wisconsin 12022Lena Wisconsin 1Lena Wisconsin - Rosera 22022Lena Wisconsin - Rosera 2Lena Wisconsin - Rosera 12022Lena Wisconsin - Rosera 1
On the National Register

1 historic place in Lena

The country’s official list of buildings and places worth saving.

place listed
1
National Historic Landmarks
0
none yet
historic buildings protected
1
each building in a district counts
first listed
1999
Mathey Building
Mathey Building, built 1916
Buildings
Mathey BuildingBuilt 1916

National Park Service, National Register of Historic Places. Photos from Wikimedia Commons, credited on each place’s page.

Places that used to be

Lost post offices

Lena’s post office has been open since 1879. Another post office, Maple Valley, opened and closed inside today’s town.

Maple Valley
1878–1906
Lena
1879–today
18701950today

US Post Offices dataset (Blevins & Helbock, CC0). Places and cemeteries from the USGS Geographic Names Information System (2021).

Questions about Lena’s history

What year was Lena founded?

The Lena post office opened in 1879, the earliest record of the town by name (U.S. post office records). Wikidata gives 1921.

What is on the National Register in Lena?

One place: the Mathey Building (listed 1999).

Memory lane

What the archives can’t tell you, neighbors can.

Town Square →
Start a conversation
Sources

Where this page comes from

Founding dates: Wikidata, Wikipedia, the U.S. post office records of Blevins & Helbock (CC0) and the Census. Homes by year built: Census ACS 2020–24. National Register of Historic Places: National Park Service (list of May 22, 2026). Old photos, postcards and papers: Wikimedia Commons, the Library of Congress and other public archives, credited on each item’s page. Maps: U.S. Geological Survey historical topographic maps (via Esri) and Sanborn fire-insurance maps (Library of Congress). History text and census tables: Wikipedia (CC BY-SA 4.0). Places that used to be: USGS Geographic Names Information System (2021). How TownRatings grades history →

From Wikimedia Commons (4), Wikidata (1), the National Register of Historic Places (1), Wikipedia, Wikidata and Wikipedia for famous people, the US Post Offices dataset (Blevins & Helbock) and the USGS Geographic Names Information System. Archive images are copied here with their credits and licenses, shown on each photo’s page. Refreshed monthly.