History
Curtiss was established as a rural railroad station in 1882 and is named after the chief engineer who built the railroad. The village of Curtiss was platted November 17, 1882, having been surveyed by Edwin Parks. The surrounding area was occupied primarily by Norwegian and German emigrants. The primary industries were dairy farming and lumber. By the 1890s, several cheese factories were established in the surrounding townships of Mayville, Hoard and Colby. Additionally, A. D. Bass operated a large sawmill in the southern part of the village. An application for incorporation of the village was made to the State of Wisconsin on October 14, 1914: however, actual incorporation was not granted until March 30, 1917 (Curtiss Centennial Booklet). A two-room school served elementary grades until 1966 when the school was consolidated with the nearby Abbotsford Public Schools.
Perhaps the most famous person to come out of the Village of Curtiss was Army Colonel Franklin Matthias, who oversaw the construction and early operation of the Hanford Site during World War II. The young Colonel Matthias was so proud of his work the he accompanied the first plutonium produced at Hanford to Los Alamos.
On June 8, 1905, a hail storm damaged nearly every building in the village.
On October 15, 1974, Curtiss was the site of a protest by the National Farmers Organization. NFO farmers slaughtered and buried in a trench 638 calves, mostly less than two weeks old. The protest was in response to the low price of veal. At the time, veal calves were selling for $0.17 per pound, resulting in a net loss to the farmer due to high feed costs. Public backlash against the NFO and the protest was great, with even President Ford weighting in to call it senseless.
In 1976, the US EPA aided the village with a grant to establish a municipal sewer and water system. The system has been expanded in the 1990s and again in the 2000s to account for industrial growth related to the meat packing industry.
Read more about this topic: Curtiss, Wisconsin
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