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History · Pepin

21% of Pepin’s homes were built before 1940

Below: 4 old photos and papers, maps from 1932 on, and the census since 1890.

0on the National Register
21%homes built before 1940
4old photos & papers
Add an old photoShare a memory
From Pepin’s archive · credits on each photo

What stands out about Pepin’s past

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

A history waiting to be writtenOnly 4 old photos are in the public archives. The rest are in attics and albums.Lost villages1 post office opened and closed inside today’s Pepin, and 4 old place names are still on the map.
★ What stands out · Help out

Start Pepin’s collection

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

Decades since 1900 with photos
00s10s20s30s40s50s60s70s80s90s
2 of 10 decades. The empty ones are waiting for someone’s album.
Retake an old viewReplica of "The Little House in the Big…: stand where they stood+15Share a family photoSign in to add one+10
Places that used to be

Lost post offices, old corners and burying grounds

Another post office, Lund, opened and closed inside today’s town.

Hamlets and corners on the map
Barry CornerHawkins CornerLakeportLund
2cemeteries and burying grounds inside Pepin
Mission CovenantOakwood

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

The story

How Pepin came to be

From Wikipedia’s history of Pepin.

Read it all →

By the mid-17th century, the French had begun to send expeditions into Wisconsin via the Great Lakes and Saint Lawrence River. King Louis XIII of France is believed to have granted a huge area of land in the Upper Mississippi River Valley to two brothers, Etiene Pepin de la Fond and Guillaume dit Tranchemontagne. Two of Guillaume’s sons, Pierre Pepin and Jean Pepin du Cardonnets, later explored and traded in this area, and their surname became attached to the lake, and ultimately to the village and the county.

Text from Wikipedia, licensed CC BY-SA 4.0.

From the old history books

What they wrote about Pepin in 1919

Passages that mention Pepin, cut from the printed page as they were published.

Pepin County has one city, Durand, two incorporated villages, Pepin and Stockholm, and several hamlets such as Arkansas and Lakeport. DURAND Durand, the judicial seat of Pepin County, is a prosperous incor¬ porated city of about 1,600 population, located on the Chicago, Milwaukee & St. Paul Railway…
History of Buffalo and Pepin Counties Wisconsin (Volume 2)1919 · page 985Read the page →
Read the text

Pepin County has one city, Durand, two incorporated villages, Pepin and Stockholm, and several hamlets such as Arkansas and Lakeport. DURAND Durand, the judicial seat of Pepin County, is a prosperous incor¬ porated city of about 1,600 population, located on the Chicago, Milwaukee & St. Paul Railway, 30 miles from Eau Claire and 20 miles from the Missis¬ sippi River. The location is very picturesque. It is on the east side of the Chippewa River, which is more than a quarter of a mile wide at this

Text read by machine from the scan; it may contain errors.

Scans and text from the Internet Archive. Books published in 1930 or earlier, which are in the public domain.

Timeline

Pepin, 1889 to 1995

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

  1. 19th century
  2. 1889Post officeThe Lund post office opens
  3. 20th century
  4. 1907Post officeThe Lund post office closes
  5. 1932On the mapFirst mapped by the U.S. Geological Survey
  6. 1980In the archiveReplica of "The Little House in the Big Woods" at the Laura Ingalls Wilder House
  7. 1995In the archiveGreat River Road - Aesthetics in Roadway Design
By decade

Pepin, decade by decade

2 decades in the archive, from the 1980s to the 1990s. Scroll each row; tap a photo for its story.

1980s–1990s4 items
Replica of "The Little House in the Big Woods" at the Laura Ingalls Wilder House1980Replica of "The Little House in the Big Woods" at the…Round barn in need of repair1980Round barn in need of repairGreat River Road - Aesthetics in Roadway Design1995Great River Road - Aesthetics in Roadway DesignGreat River Road - Little House In The Big Woods1995Great River Road - Little House In The Big Woods
Today2 recent
Great River Road - Depot Museum in2006Great River Road - Depot Museum inWIMap-doton-Pepin2004WIMap-doton-Pepin
On the map

Pepin on the map, 1932 to 1974

Every edition of the U.S. Geological Survey’s map of Pepin. Tap a year, or press play to watch the town change.

Pepin on the 1932 USGS mapPepin on the 1951 USGS mapPepin on the 1974 USGS map1932Wabasha sheet · 1:62,500

U.S. Geological Survey historical topographic maps (public domain), via Esri’s collection of the scans. The red ring marks the center of Pepin.

Then & now

Stand where they stood

No then-and-now pairs yet. Take a photo from the same spot as an old one and they appear here side by side.

Replica of "The Little House in the Big Woods" at the Laura Ingalls Wilder House
Retake this viewReplica of "The Little House in the Big Woods" at the Laura Ingalls Wilder House, 1980

Find the spot, match the angle, and add your photo. It becomes the first then-and-now pair on Pepin’s page.

Retake this view · +15
People over time

Pepin, census by census

02004006008001900192019401960198020002020Peak: 890

Between 369 and 890 people in every census since 1890.

14 censuses, 1890–2020.

U.S. Census Bureau decennial counts, from the census table on Pepin’s Wikipedia page.

Stories next door

History across the town line

Each neighbor’s History grade, on the same three inputs.

NelsonIts storynot graded: under 1,000 residents or part of its townStockholmIts storynot graded: under 1,000 residents or part of its townFrankfortIts storynot graded: under 1,000 residents or part of its townMaiden RockIts storynot graded: under 1,000 residents or part of its town

Questions about Pepin’s history

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 (6), Wikipedia, U.S. Geological Survey historical maps, U.S. Census counts (via Wikipedia), the US Post Offices dataset (Blevins & Helbock), the USGS Geographic Names Information System and old county and town histories (Internet Archive). Archive images are copied here with their credits and licenses, shown on each photo’s page. Refreshed monthly.