Crime Scene and Trauma Cleanup in Colfax, WI

Colfax is a village in Dunn County named for Schuyler Colfax, vice president of the United States under Ulysses S. Grant.

The first settlers reached the Colfax area in 1858, and founder J.D. Simons settled in 1865 at the junction of the Red Cedar River and Eighteen Mile Creek, where he built a grist mill in 1869.

So many rutabagas were grown around the settlement that before it took the Colfax name, locals called it "Begga Town."

Lumberman Andrew Tainter first surveyed the village site in 1874, the Wisconsin Central Railway (later the Soo Line) arrived in 1884, and Colfax incorporated as a village in 1904.

On June 4, 1958, a powerful F5 tornado tore through Colfax, heavily damaging or destroying its southern and northeastern sections and killing at least 28 people in the area.

High-quality sandstone discovered west of the village in 1900 launched a quarrying industry that employed many Colfax-area residents.

Colfax is unusually rich in railroad history for its size: it preserves two of the three depots built in the village, and the Colfax Railroad Museum operates on East Railroad Avenue.

Colfax had 1,182 residents at the 2020 census, up slightly from 1,158 in 2010.

The 2010 census counted 478 households in Colfax, a village of about 1.4 square miles set on the Red Cedar River along Wisconsin Highways 40 and 170.