The Lafayette County courthouse on Wednesday August 12, 2015
Lafayette County was created by the Wisconsin Territorial legislature in 1847. This was the final partition of Iowa County: it was divided into two parts and the southern part became Lafayette County. The new county was named after Marie-Joseph Paul Yver Rock Gilbert du Motier, Marquis de La Fayette, a French nobleman and general in the Continental Army during the Revolutionary War.
The first Wisconsin Capitol buildings are located outside of Belmont. This was the first home of the Wisconsin Territorial government in 1836. The government then moved to Burlington, in what is now the state of Iowa before eventually winding up in Madison.
Darlington is the county seat. The first European settler established a residence in the area in 1836. The village of Centre was laid out by 1847 and organized in 1849. In 1857 the county seat was moved from Shullsburg. The name of the town was changed to Darlington in 1869 in honor of Joshua Darling who had purchased the land in 1850.
The current Lafayette County courthouse is located at 626 Main Street in Darlington, right across the street from the Darlington City Hall. The courthouse dates back to 1907 and it is a beautiful building located on a small hill a few block up Main Street form the downtown area of Darlington and the Pecatonica River. We visited on the afternoon of Wednesday August 12, 2015. The weather was perfect, so we were able to take some nice pictures before having lunch at the Towne House restaurant on Main Street.
From there we drove to Belmont to visit the First Capitol State Park. The two buildings are where the territorial legislature met and lodged during the 1836 territorial legislative session. There is not a lot to see beyond the two restored buildings and some historical markers and this is not even the original site of the two buildings; they were moved here during the 20th century as part of the restoration process. But it was fun to visit the first capitol buildings at their current site in a corn field.
I don’t have a lot of memories of Lafayette County. I’m positive that this was the first time I had ever visited Darlington for example. But I do remember visiting the First Capitol State Park when I was a child. It had to be after 1965 but so I was probably around 10 years old when my family came to see the restored capitol buildings on a day trip from Madison.
And I guess I should mention that my parents lived in Benton right after they were married. My father taught at Benton high school before he went back to Madison to work on his Masters degree at the University of Wisconsin.