Crime Scene and Trauma Cleanup in Butternut, WI

Butternut is a village in Ashland County in Wisconsin's Northwoods, near the headwaters of the Chippewa River.

Butternut became the terminus of the Wisconsin Central Railroad in 1875, its post office opened in 1877, and the village was platted in 1878.

Butternut was settled largely by German immigrants recruited from the Milwaukee and Cedarburg area, who formed the 'Butternut Colony' of about 120 families by 1881.

Butternut's first school was taught in 1878 by Hannah Tomkins in a log cabin that had previously been used as an ice house, with fourteen scholars.

A sawmill built in 1879 launched Butternut's lumber era, and the village counted 717 residents in 1910, its historical peak.

The 2020 census counted 366 people in Butternut, a small remnant of its lumber-boom size but still one of Ashland County's incorporated villages.

Butternut Lake, about a mile from the village, has long been known for its large muskellunge and black bass fishing.

Butternut sits at about 1,510 feet above sea level on State Highway 13, roughly 34 miles south of Ashland, the county seat on Lake Superior.

The village is served by Bay Area Rural Transit and keeps its own village website under the motto of a small Northwoods railroad town that outlasted the timber boom.