Biohazard and Crime Scene Remediation in Durand, WI

Durand is a city in Pepin County, Wisconsin, and serves as the county seat — notable because Pepin is the smallest county in Wisconsin by land area.

The city's motto is "On the Banks of the Chippewa": it sits on the Chippewa River about 15 miles upstream from where the river joins the Mississippi River.

Durand was first settled in 1856, when 21-year-old Miles Durand Prindle came up the river in a keelboat named the "Dutch Lady" and took government land on the site of the present city.

The settlement was originally named Bear Creek, and it was incorporated as Durand — taking its founder's middle name — on April 12, 1887.

Durand fought the village of Pepin for the Pepin County seat in the 1860s, and a court decision rendered in 1865 declared Durand the legal county seat.

The Old Pepin County Courthouse in Durand, built in 1873-74 for about $7,000, served as the county courthouse until 1985 and now operates as a museum listed on the National Register of Historic Places.

Durand's population peaked at 2,103 in 1970 and has eased downward since; the 2020 census counted 1,854 residents, and the 2010 census counted 838 households in the city.

Despite its small size, Durand has its own hospital — AdventHealth Durand, a 25-bed critical access hospital and Level IV trauma center.

Local students attend Durand Middle/High School and Caddie Woodlawn Elementary School.

In the early 1950s, Durand drew statewide attention when school consolidation left some Catholic school buildings serving as public schools, sparking a church-and-state controversy covered in the Milwaukee press.