Blood, Trauma, and Biohazard Cleanup in Milton, WI

Milton is a city in Rock County in south-central Wisconsin, just northeast of Janesville near the Rock River.

Milton was founded in 1838 by Joseph Goodrich, a Seventh Day Baptist abolitionist who built his settlement where the Chicago-to-Madison military road crossed the road from Janesville to Fort Atkinson.

Milton was named for John Milton, the English poet who wrote Paradise Lost.

In 1844 Goodrich built the Milton House, a hexagonal stagecoach inn made of poured grout that is regarded as the first grout building in the United States and the oldest concrete building still standing in the country.

The Milton House was a station on the Underground Railroad, and a tunnel of roughly 45 feet linking the inn to the Goodrich cabin let freedom seekers slip into hiding places in the inn's cellar.

The Milton House was designated a National Historic Landmark in 1998 and is the only documented Underground Railroad site in Wisconsin open to the public as a museum.

Goodrich also founded Milton Academy in 1844, which grew into Milton College — for much of its life the oldest college in Wisconsin — before financial troubles closed it in 1982 after 138 years.

Milton College's name lived on after its closing through 1980 graduate Dave Krieg, who went on to become a star quarterback for the Seattle Seahawks.

A second community, Milton Junction, grew up one mile west of Milton where two railroads crossed in the 1850s, and the two communities operated separately until they merged in 1967.

Because of that dual origin, Milton still has two distinct downtown areas today: Parkview Drive on the east side and Merchant Row in the old Milton Junction.