PRE-WAR SETTLEMENT Farmers turned the fertile tract into productive farmland and used the adjacent Baraboo Hills for woodlots. In 1941, when the Army announced plans to construct the plant, the former prairies and savannas were relatively treeless—a patchwork of grass hay, rowcrops, small grains, pasture, hedgerows and farmsteads. In the absence of wildfire, small tracts of savanna left unplowed and ungrazed were developing into woodlots. Those parts of the Baraboo Hills oak woodland that hadn’t been cleared were closing in and succeeding to more fire-sensitive, shade-tolerant species like maples and ashes.

The coming of the plant decimated the Sauk Prairie farming community, displacing 80 farm families from 10,000 acres (after the War the Army sold some 2500 unneeded acres to families of veterans, on the east side of the property). Auctions occurred daily in spring 1942, and families moved off. Many farms were assessed at very low values, forcing some families to resort to suing the government at a time when the national psyche was one of government support and personal sacrifice. Hard feelings remain after six decades.

Three one-room schools, three churches and a town hall were absorbed by the plant and, like the farmsteads, were torn down. A few homes were moved to local communities. The two cemeteries on the tract were carefully maintained (and another lone grave discovered), but burials were no longer allowed, leaving some family members interred beside the vacant plots of their survivors.

Early Settlement

War Era

Post World-War II Production

Current Status