Stanley

History

Stanley was settled and platted in 1881 when the Wisconsin Central Railroad built its line through Chippewa County. The settlement was named for Lemuel C. Stanley, a merchant and railroad man from Chippewa Falls who was involved in that first plat. The post office was established in 1881. Charles Levesqua opened the first saloon, Matthew Shilts opened the first store, and Peter Durand built the first hotel. The first religious organization was a Union Sunday School begun in 1883, which initially met in a warehouse. A school was organized the following year. which converted local wood to charcoal that was then shipped by rail to fire the company's smelter at Black River Falls. The Northwestern Lumber Company had a distributing warehouse in Stanley during the early 1880s. In 1889 a four-room school was built to replace the one-room building. The company built a new mill at Stanley and spawned the Stanley, Merrill and Phillips Railway to haul logs out of the country to the north and south. (The railway never reached Merrill or Phillips; its furthest reach was Walrath, to the north of Jump River.) The mill in Stanley sawed wood until 1920, when Northwestern's timber holdings in the area were largely exhausted. Over that period, the mill is estimated to have sawed 850 million board feet of lumber. Through the 1890s the population of Stanley increased from 500 to 2500. In 1897, attracted by rail connections and the supply of hemlock bark, the United States Leather Company opened a tannery in Stanley which employed 200 men and by 1908 tanned 75,000 hides shipped in from Chicago to South America. Stanley's other big early industry was the Big Four Canning Factory where immigrant farmers brought wagonloads of peas, cabbage, corn and beets grown on the logging cutover. In 1914…

Geography

According to the United States Census Bureau, the city has a total area of , of which is land and is water. Stanley is located primarily on the north side of Wisconsin State Highway 29. It is mostly in Chippewa County, but parts of the east side are in Clark County.

Race & ethnicity

Most-observed species

• American Crow

  Corvus brachyrhynchos C.L.Brehm, 1822 · Aves
  201
• Red-winged Blackbird

  Agelaius phoeniceus (Linnaeus, 1766) · Aves
  188
• Mourning Dove

  Zenaida macroura (Linnaeus, 1758) · Aves
  152
• American Robin

  Turdus migratorius Linnaeus, 1766 · Aves
  149
• Blue Jay

  Cyanocitta cristata (Linnaeus, 1758) · Aves
  137
• Canada Goose (canadensis Group)

  Branta canadensis (Linnaeus, 1758) · Aves
  135
• Black-capped Chickadee

  Poecile atricapillus (Linnaeus, 1766) · Aves
  131
• American Goldfinch

  Spinus tristis (Linnaeus, 1758) · Aves
  125

Largest nearby schools

• Cadott Elementary
  Elementary · Cadott · 442 students · 13:1 ratio
• Stanley Elementary
  Elementary · Stanley · 436 students · 12.8:1 ratio
• Stanley-Boyd High
  High · Stanley · 339 students · 14.1:1 ratio
• Cadott High
  High · Cadott · 258 students · 13.6:1 ratio
• Stanley-Boyd Middle
  Middle · Stanley · 252 students · 16.8:1 ratio
• Cadott Junior High
  Middle · Cadott · 102 students · 12.8:1 ratio
• Boyd Elementary
  Other · Boyd · 62 students · 31:1 ratio
• Stanley Correctional Institution
  High · Stanley