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Portage County, Wisconsin

Historic newspapers, landmarks, and county history layers for genealogists and local historians.

—newspaper titles

—digitized titles

22historic places

—earliest paper

1836formed

70,377pop. 2020

35cemeteries

—CW battlefields

At a glance

Summary

The National Register of Historic Places includes 22 listed properties in the county, first listed in 1974. Most listings are in or near Stevens Point, Plover, Lanark.

Summary generated automatically from the source data on this page.

Newspapers

Library of Congress

Newspaper directory data for Wisconsin is not yet loaded on this site. Browse Portage titles at the Library of Congress.

National Register of Historic Places

NPS NRHP

15 of 22 listings mapped; some locations are restricted by NPS to protect sensitive sites.

22 listed properties

Property	City	Type	Listed
Clark Street-Main Street Historic District	Stevens Point	District	2021
Folding Furniture Works Building	Stevens Point	Building	1993
Fox Theater	Stevens Point	Building	1982
Green, August G. and Theresa, House	Stevens Point	Building	2005
Hardware Mutual Insurance Companies Building	Stevens Point	Building	1994
Hotel Whiting	Stevens Point	Building	1990
Jensen, J. L., House	Stevens Point	Building	1988
Kuhl, Christina, House	Stevens Point	Building	1978
Mathias Mitchell Public Square-Main Street Historic District	Stevens Point	District	1986
McMillan, David, House	Stevens Point	Building	1974
Morgan, J. H., House	Plover	Building	1974
Nelson Hall	Stevens Point	Building	2005
New Hope Norwegian Evangelical Lutheran Church and Cemetery	New Hope	Building	2019
Old Plover Methodist Church	Plover	Building	1980
Pipe School	Lanark	Building	1993
Pomeroy, L. A., House	Amherst	Building	1992
Rising Star Flouring Mill	Nelsonville	Building	2018
Rosholt, John Gilbert, House	Rosholt	Building	2010
Severance-Pipe Farmstead	Lanark	Building	1993
Sisters of St. Joseph Complex	Stevens Point	District	2023
Stevens Point State Normal School	Stevens Point	Building	1976
Temple Beth Israel	Stevens Point	Building	2007

Source: National Park Service, National Register of Historic Places. Property links open NRHP nomination files at the National Archives.

County formation

Newberry AHCB

Portage was formed in 1836 (1836-12-07) from Brown, Crawford, Iowa, Milwaukee.

PORTAGE created by Wisconsin Territory from BROWN, CRAWFORD, IOWA, and MILWAUKEE. PORTAGE overlapped the western part of DODGE, creating a dispute not settled until 12 Jan 1838.

Source: Newberry Library, Atlas of Historical County Boundaries.

Population by decade

Census

Portage County population from 1840 to 2020 (Census historical series).

1840	1860	1880	1900	1920	1940	1950	1960	1980	2000	2020
1,623	7,507	17,731	29,483	33,649	35,800	34,858	36,964	57,420	67,182	70,377

Sources: U.S. Census Bureau historical county population (Forstall 1790–1990) and public-domain / CC0 county population series through 2020.

Cemeteries & historical places

USGS GNIS

35 cemeteries and 1 historical populated places (ghost towns / former settlements) recorded in USGS GNIS for this county.

Cemeteries — 35 of 35 listed

Name	Lat	Lon
Badger Cemetery	44.34475	-89.24383
Bickel Cemetery	44.4542	-89.31517
Buena Vista Cemetery	44.33585	-89.37046
East German Cemetery	44.25794	-89.38721
Elmwood Cemetery	44.31581	-89.27881
Forest Cemetery	44.51069	-89.5683
Greenvale Cemetery	44.24909	-89.24439
Greenwood Cemetery	44.45209	-89.29312
Guardian Angel Cemetery	44.25359	-89.45215
Guardian Angel Cemetery	44.52432	-89.55294
Hillside Cemetery	44.34348	-89.34539
Kimball Cemetery	44.41669	-89.36547
Linwood Union Cemetery	44.46746	-89.65345
Lombard Cemetery	44.42216	-89.42594
Lone Pine Cemetery	44.30208	-89.45859
Lower Amherst Cemetery	44.43432	-89.27466
Maine Cemetery	44.43241	-89.52848
McDill Cemetery	44.49663	-89.53372
Morrill Cemetery	44.4412	-89.48803
Nelsonville Lutheran Cemetery	44.50452	-89.31517
North Almond Cemetery	44.30163	-89.41706
Oak Grove Cemetery	44.45358	-89.269
Pine Grove Cemetery	44.28047	-89.51265
Plover Cemetery	44.45998	-89.55435
Runkle Cemetery	44.63137	-89.76125
Saint Johns Cemetery	44.26603	-89.38448
Saint Johns Cemetery	44.36301	-89.714
Saint Josephs Cemetery	44.52434	-89.55511
Saint Mary of Mount Carmel Cemetery	44.47031	-89.37485
Saint Michael's Cemetery	44.5944	-89.76762
Saint Paul Lutheran Cemetery	44.51163	-89.55539
Saint Peters Cemetery	44.53778	-89.60032
Saint Stephens Cemetery	44.52236	-89.55874
Spiritland Cemetery	44.25795	-89.46379
Union Cemetery	44.512	-89.57488

Historical populated places — 1 of 1

Name	Lat	Lon
Lake Emily	44.47775	-89.33484

Source: USGS Geographic Names Information System (public domain). Cemeteries from the 2021 NationalFile archive; historical places from GNIS HistoricalFeatures topical extract.

Historical markers

HMdb link

Marker text and photos from the Historical Marker Database (HMdb) are not embedded here. HMdb allows non-commercial reuse with attribution, but commercial/compensated use needs written permission; this is a commercial site, so we only link out.

Search HMdb for Portage County, Wisconsin

Terms: hmdb.org/copyright.asp. Linking is encouraged by HMdb.