Port Washington is a town in Ozaukee County in the U.S. state of Wisconsin. It surrounds the northern and western side of the city of Port Washington. As of the 2000 census, the town population was 1,631. The unincorporated communities of Druecker and Knellsville are also located in the town.
History
The area that became Port Washington was originally inhabited by the Menominee, Potawatomi, and Sauk Native Americans. The 1830s saw the forced removal of Wisconsin's Native American population, followed by land speculation by merchants and investors. One of these land speculators was General Wooster Harrison, who purchased the land that would become the Town of Port Washington in 1835. Harrison's wife, Rhoda, died in 1837 and was the first white settler to be buried in the town. The settlement was abandoned that same year.
In 1843, Harrison returned with a party of settlers. The Town of Port Washington was formed in January 1846 and until 1847 included the surrounding areas of what is currently Fredonia, Saukville, and Belgium. At the time, the land was part of Washington County, and in the late 1840s, Port Washington was a candidate for the county seat. However, the community was far from the county's other early settlements, including Mequon, Grafton and Germantown. In 1850, the Wisconsin legislature voted to bisected Washington County into northern and southern counties, with Port Washington and Cedarburg as the county seats, respectively. County residents failed to ratify the bill, and in 1853 the legislature instead bisected the county into eastern and western sections, creating Ozaukee County. Port Washington became the seat of the new county, and the Washington County seat moved to West Bend. The bisection was controversial. When Washington County officials from West Bend arrived in Port Washington to correct relevant county records, they were run out of town, and Ozaukee County officials refused to hand over the records for several months.
The town population reached 2,500 in 1853 and continued to increase, with an influx of immigrants from Germany and Luxembourg between 1853 and 1865.
In the 1860s, William Knell developed the Knellsville community in the northern part of the town as a stagecoach stop on the Green Bay Road. In the 1870s, dairy farming became increasingly popular among Port Washington's farmers, and the Pauly Cheese Factory opened in Knellsville in 1878. In the 20th century, Pauly's Cheese became a nationally distributed brand. Knellsville grew to serve the town's farmers with a feed mill, a cannery, and a foundry.
The City of Port Washington incorporated out of some of the town's land in 1882.
While dairy farming dominated the local economy in the 20th century, accounting for 80% percent of agriculture in the early 1940s, the Town of Port Washington was also one of several Ozaukee County communities to have prosperous fur farms in the 20th century. The 10-acre Johannes Mink Ranch north of Knellsville opened in 1926, and annually produced 6,000 mink pelts at its height.
Knellsville declined in the mid-20th century for several reasons. The Knellsville Canning Co. closed in 1955, and the Johannes Mink Ranch sold its last pelts in 1969. Additionally, as the City of Port Washington grew and suburbanized, annexing more land from the town, demand for access to the Interstate Highway System grew. Knellsville was close to the city outskirts, and in the mid-1960s, the southern part of Knellsville was demolished to construct Interstate 43's Exit 100.
Geography
According to the United States Census Bureau, the town has a total area of , of which, is land and (11.63%) is water. The City of Port Washington is located in what was formerly the southeastern part of the town. The Town of Port Washington is bordered by the Town of Belgium to the north, Lake Michigan to the east, the Town of Grafton to the south, and the Town of Saukville and Village of Saukville to the west. The unincorporated communities of Druecker and Knellsville are located in the town.
The town is located on the western shore of Lake Michigan. The coastline is characterized by clay bluffs ranging from in height with deep ravines where streams flow into the lake. Clay bluffs are a geological formation characteristic of the Lake Michigan shoreline and are found in few other areas of the world. Much of the coastline adjacent to the bluffs has mixed gravel and sand beaches. There are valleys lower than the surrounding bluffs in the City of Port Washington's historic downtown where Sauk Creek flows into the lake and in the Town of Port Washington where Sucker Creek flows into the lake.