Biohazard and Pathogen Disinfection in Genoa, WI

Genoa is a small Mississippi River village in Vernon County, Wisconsin, located within the surrounding Town of Genoa — it is not the much larger Genoa City on the Illinois border.

Genoa was originally named Bad Axe, after the Bad Axe River, and took its present name in 1868.

Genoa had 232 residents at the 2020 census, down from a peak of 351 in 1930; the 2010 census counted 253 people in 110 households.

Lock and Dam No. 8 on the Upper Mississippi River stands at Genoa — built starting in 1933 and put into operation in April 1937, its 934-foot dam creates Pool 8 and its lock measures 110 feet wide by 600 feet long.

The Genoa National Fish Hatchery, a U.S. Fish & Wildlife Service multi-species conservation hatchery, sits about three miles south of the village on Highway 35, the Great River Road, and hosts the Great River Road Interpretive Center.

The hatchery's interpretive center tells the story of the Battle of Bad Axe of 1832, the final battle of the Black Hawk War, which took place just south of the hatchery site.

Genoa hosted the La Crosse Boiling Water Reactor, one of the nation's early nuclear power plants, which was shut down in 1987; the Genoa coal plant at the same site retired on June 1, 2021, after more than 50 years of service.

Genoa's weather station has recorded extremes of 109 degrees Fahrenheit in July 1995 and minus 43 degrees in January 1951, according to NOAA.

Genoa students are served by the De Soto Area Schools district.