Editing Lublin, Wisconsin (section)

==History==
U.S. government surveyors walked through the forested area around the future Lublin in 1847 and again in 1854, marking section lines and assessing timber and mill sites.<ref>{{cite web|title=Field Notes for T30N R3W|url=http://digicoll.library.wisc.edu/cgi-bin/SurveyNotes/SurveyNotes-idx?type=PLSS&twp=T030NR003W|work=Original Field Notes and Plat Maps, 1833-1866|publisher=Board of Commissioners of Public Lands|accessdate=April 9, 2025}}</ref><ref>{{cite web|last=Daugherty|first=William E.|title=Interior Field Notes (June 1854)|url=http://digicoll.library.wisc.edu/cgi-bin/SurveyNotes/SurveyNotes-idx?type=article&byte=2133169&twp=T030NR003W|publisher=Board of Commissioners of Public Lands|accessdate=9 April 2025}}</ref>

Loggers followed, with settlers close behind. James O'Neill started his sawmill at what would become [[Neillsville, Wisconsin|Neillsville]] in 1847,<ref>{{cite news|title=Life of Founder of Neillsville|url=https://wisconsinhistory.org/Records/Newspaper/BA2610|access-date=2024-04-09|agency=Neillsville Press|date=1925-01-22}}</ref> and Michael McAffrey settled in what would become [[Thorp, Wisconsin|Thorp]] in 1871.<ref name=Courier>{{cite news|title=Comprehensive History of Thorp - 1993|url=http://www.usgennet.org/usa/wi/county/clark/0data/0/179.htm|access-date=2025-04-09|agency=Thorp Courier|date=1993-06-03}}</ref> By 1897 the Northwestern Lumber Company's railroad was at Mitterhofer, seven miles west of the future site of Lublin, with a temporary logging spur reaching to a mile south of Lublin, hauling logs out to Northwestern's mill in [[Stanley, Wisconsin|Stanley]].<ref>{{cite book|last=Nagel|first=Paul|title=S.M.&P. Ry. - the Stanley, Merrill and Phillips Ralway|date=1979|page=10}}</ref>  Some of the first settlers in Roosevelt were Konczak, Rajewski, Twardowski,<ref name=CK>{{cite book|last=Kulinski|first=Chris|editor1-last=Kalmon|editor1-first=Stephen Lars|title=Our Home, Taylor County - a Topical History of Our Roots - Vol III|date=2014|publisher=Taylor County History Project|chapter=Lublin - Its History and Its People}}</ref>{{rp|pages=16}} and four Ogurek brothers, who in 1902 bought land from a lumber company and started a sawmill at Whipple Dam four miles southwest of the future site of Lublin. The purchase was facilitated by land agent Marion Durski.<ref name=CK/>{{rp|pages=4-6}}

Durski and his family had immigrated from [[Poland]] to America in 1887. By 1900 he lived in [[Chicago]], working for Northwestern Lumber. In 1904 or 1905 when the J.S. Owen Company was preparing to build the railroad line from [[Owen, Wisconsin|Owen]] to [[Ladysmith, Wisconsin|Ladysmith]] through what would become Lublin, Durski surveyed a village near where the railroad passed the [[Eau Claire River (Chippewa River tributary)|Eau Claire River]]. He named the community ''Lublin'', after the [[Lublin|city in southeast Poland]], and from the start planned a church named All Saints, which would be renamed St. Stanislaus. The 1905 census counted 275 in the town of Roosevelt,<ref name=CK/>{{rp|page=4}} with 80% of the heads of household reporting Poland, Poland-Russia, or Poland-Germany as their birthplace.<ref>{{cite book|title=1905 Wisconsin State Census - Roosevelt, Taylor County|date=1905|publisher=US Census Bureau}}</ref>

Land agents other than Durski sold land around Lublin for other land companies. Some were less than honest, assuring the immigrants in their "old country" language that an inexpensive forty in this strange land would easily become a bountiful farm, when the reality was that it would take decades of hard work to untangle fields from stumps and rock.<ref name=CK/>{{rp|pages=7-8}}

Things began to happen fast with the arrival of the railroad. Lublin's first school opened in 1906, and was replaced with a larger school a few years later.<ref name=CK/>{{rp|page=10}} Several saloons and a general store opened the following year.<ref name=CK/>{{rp|pages=16-17}} In 1908 All Saints [[Catholic]]<ref name=churches>{{cite book|editor1-last=Kalmon|editor1-first=Stephen Lars|title=Our Home, Taylor County, Wisconsin - a Topical History of our Roots - Vol II|date=2014|publisher=Taylor County History Project|chapter=History of Taylor County Churches}}</ref>{{rp|page=48}} and Holy Assumption [[Orthodox Church in America|Orthodox]] churches were built.<ref>{{cite book|last=Wasylko|first=Mary|editor-last=Kalmon|editor-first=Stephen Lars|title=Our Home, Taylor County, Wisconsin - a Topical History of our Roots - Vol II|date=2014|publisher=Taylor County History Project|page=116|chapter=History of Taylor County Churches}}</ref> The railroad used a box car for a depot until 1911, when it built a permanent depot. A sawmill opened, which converted to a box factory and ran into the 1930s.<ref name=CK/>{{rp|pages=16-17}} 
Over the years the village had a [[blacksmith]], a butcher shop, a hotel/boarding house, a wagon builder, a [[Livery yard|livery]], a [[Horse harness|harness]] shop, restaurants, a hardware store, feed mills, grocery stores, a [[creamery]], a bank from 1919 to 1933, a dance hall, the Lublin-Club theater, and other businesses.<ref name=CK/>{{rp|pages=9,13}} 

Lublin incorporated as a village in 1915, with 236 people.<ref name=CK/>{{rp|page=5}} St. Mary's [[Polish National Catholic Church|Polish National Catholic]] church was organized in 1926.<ref name=churches/>{{rp|page=15}}  [[Northern States Power Company]] electrified the village in 1927.<ref name=CK/>{{rp|page=12}} By 1930, the Fraternal Order of the Polish Lithuanian Union had 300 dues-paying members.<ref name=CK/>{{rp|page=9}}

Lublin's old wooden elementary school burned in the 1950s and was replaced with a two-story brick building, which served the community until the 1970s, when the school was closed and students were bused to Gilman.<ref name=CK/>{{rp|page=10}} The town was already shrinking. By 2014 people still worshiped at all three churches, but the businesses had dwindled to not much more than an auto garage, the post office, the Legion/VFW hall, a bar, and a cabin rental business. Canadian-National trains still roar through town on the right-of-way built in 1905.<ref name=CK/>{{rp|page=18}}