Milo Jones Date in History: 1830s
Milo Jones was born in Vermont and grew up on a dairy farm there. In 1832 he traveled west to Michigan Territory to work as a government surveyor, and by 1834 he was in Milwaukee surveying the future Blue Mound Road. A few years later he was surveying in our area and was so impressed with the land here that he joined a group of men in forming the Rock River Land and Claim Co., and bought for himself 600 acres along the Rock River for a whopping $1.25 an acre.
In 1838 he brought his young family to live here, staying with the Fosters while they built a log home on their property. Milo would go on to start one of the first dairy farms in Wisconsin, and become one of Fort Atkinson’s most prominent citizens, serving over the years as Postmaster, Justice of the Peace, our delegate to Wisconsin’s Constitutional Convention in 1848, and our very first mayor.
This historic document aired on the radio as an Historic Minute on 07/11/2005.