The Portage County Courthouse on March 12, 2016
Portage County was created in 1836 by the territorial legislature from land which had been part of Crawford, Brown, Iowa and Milwaukee counties. The new county was named for the “portage” between the Fox and Wisconsin Rivers which allowed people and good to move between Lake Michigan and the Mississippi River.The county was officially organized in 1844 but underwent many subsequent boundary changes. This is why the city of Portage is no longer in Portage County – it is now the county seat of Columbia County. Given that the county was created in 1836 and organized in 1844, I am somewhat puzzled about why the year 1842 appears on the county seal.
The current county seat is Stevens Point, which is located on the Wisconsin River. It’s named after George Stevens, who operated a grocery and supply business that supported the logging industry along the Wisconsin River. The first plat of the settlement was done in 1847. The original county seat was the area around the present day village of Plover. The county seat moved to Stevens Point in 1868 after a struggle between the two communities which was settled by the state legislature.
The Portage County courthouse is located at 1516 Church Street in Stevens Point. We visited on Saturday March 12, 2016. We were in the Stevens Point area for the annual maple tree tapping ceremony. After lunch at the Hilltop Pub & Grill, we set out for the courthouse. Actually the Portage County courts are located in the City – County building which is on the edge of the downtown area. We approached though a residential area and we a little surprised to see the building in front of us. The building was built in 1959 and it’s a fairly nondescript office building. Ok, there are police cars parked near it, but that’s about it. And it’s just a few blocks from the Wisconsin River.
On our way home we stopped at the Stevens Point Brewery, home of Point Beer, or as we used to refer to it in the 1970s, the “Blue Bullet.” They do have tours, but you need a reservation, and it seemed that a reservation was needed just to visit the tasting room, at least on a Saturday. So we headed to the neighboring village of Plover to visit the O’So Brewing Company. O’So is located in a shopping mall near the interstate which is kind of odd, but their tasting room is very nice.
I don’t have a lot of memories involving Portage County. Two of my high school friends went to UW – Stevens Point, and I remember touring the campus with my parents while I was in high school. But other than that, Portage County is just a county to drive through on my way to somewhere else. Perhaps I should look more into tourism in the Portage County area; it’s not a long drive from home and with the river and the forest there must be some hiking or biking trails that would be fun to do.