History

In the late winter of 2004 I had the privilege to deliver an absentee ballot for the upcoming Presidential and County Board of Supervisors primary to Dale Slaback, a former resident of the township, then living in the Bethel Home in Viroqua. I sat to chat for a moment, and during that time, I learned a little bit about the Kickapoo Township.

As Dale recalled......Ed Smith was Dale's grandfather. While serving as assessor for the township beginning in 1928, Mr. Smith had several helpers; his wife helped with the paper work, and Dale and his brother, Merlin rode along. It was the boys' job to jump out, open a gate to let their grandpa through, close the gate and hop on again. Dale remembered with a grin the three road gates on Fodness, a steep road that wound higher and higher. It had three gates to get through before they reached the top. Ed Smith died around 1955.

Dale recalls Russell Miller's first year, "he really got initiated that year." A very snowy winter.

Dale Slaback drove school bus for 37 years; Russell Miller and Keith Larson also drove bus.

The township roads were first graveled in the late 1920s with gravel from Kellogg's (on CTH I) and Slaback's (on T) gravel quarries. (Ken Anderson remembers that Norske Road was graveled in 1938 or 39. He remembers the roads being graveled with a 3-yard box. Trucks now hold 16 yards. The cabs were so dusty that the patrolmen would stand on the running board just so they could breathe!).

At the end of East River Road was Inland Park Dance Hall. According to Dale, it was the "only place to go on Saturday night." More about that in the entry, "There Once Was a Town at Kickapoo Center."

Berry's cemetery is located off of STH 131 near Kickapoo Center. "Only Berrys are buried there."

Dale Slaback died in September 2004.