Wikipedia doesn’t have a history of Prairie Farm yet. The photos, dates and memories neighbors add here are how it gets written.
Prairie Farm is a village in Barron County in the U.S. state of Wisconsin. The population was 494 at the 2020 census. The village is located within the Town of Prairie Farm, on eastern shore of the Prairie Farm Flowage, a reservoir on the Hay River.
Its population held steady between the last two censuses: 564 in 2010, 566 in 2020.
Intro from Wikipedia. Population: U.S. Census Bureau.
From the old history books
What they wrote about Prairie Farm in 1922
Passages that mention Prairie Farm, cut from the printed page as they were published.
The first postoffice in Barron county was established at Prairie Farm in 1866. The number increased in the next few years to accommodate the lum¬ ber camps and settlements. In the early seventies there were offices at Prairie Farm, Rice Lake, Barron, Chetek, Sioska (old Sumner) and Stanfold (the French settlement north of Rice Lake).
Text read by machine from the scan; it may contain errors.
March 30, 1869, although Oliver Demers, appointed county superintendent of schools by the Governor in 1868, had taken office Jan. 1, 1869. On March 30, 1869, the first district was created by the town board of Barron. It consisted of township 32, range 13 (now Prairie Farm), except sections 1, 2, 3, 10, 11 and 12. The records of May 28, 1869, mention a schoolhouse in section 26, in the southern part of Prairie Farm township, in this district.
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.
By decade
No old photos in the archives yet
Weddings on Main Street, storms, parades, school pictures, the old store. If it’s in your family album, it belongs here.
Be the first to add onePhotograph a print flat, in daylight, no flash.
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 U.S. Geological Survey historical maps, U.S. Census counts (via Wikipedia), 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.
