Fort Atkinson, Wisconsin, United States

🇺🇸 Fort Atkinson is a city in Jefferson County, Wisconsin, United States. It is on the Rock River, a few miles upstream from Lake Koshkonong. Fort Atkinson is the largest city located entirely in Jefferson County, as Watertown is split between Jefferson and Dodge Counties. Fort Atkinson is a principal city of the Fort Atkinson-Watertown micropolitan statistical area which is in turn a sub-market of the larger Milwaukee-Waukesha-Racine CSA.

History Fort Atkinson was named after General Henry Atkinson, the commander of U.S. forces in the area during the Black Hawk War (1832) against a mixed band of Sauk, Meskwaki and Kickapoo peoples. The city developed at the site of Fort Koshkonong, which was used during that war. A replica of the original 1832 stockade has been built just outside town, although not at the original site. The fort was located to control the confluence of the Rock and Bark rivers.

The settlement grew rapidly in the mid-19th century, after the migration of pioneers from the east, especially New York State and the northern tier. They were among the many migrants carrying New England Yankee culture west across the northern tier of states.

The history and natural history of Fort Atkinson and the surrounding area are presented at the Hoard Historical Museum and National Dairy Shrine Museum. William Dempster Hoard founded the nationally distributed dairy farm magazine Hoard's Dairyman in Fort Atkinson in 1885. The museums include the Frank and Luella Hoard House, the Dwight and Almira Foster House, and the Knox Research Library and Archive. The Dairy Shrine portion of the complex portrays the past, present, and future of the dairy industry.

The oldest manmade features near Fort Atkinson are a cluster of prehistoric earthworks indigenous mounds just south of town. Early European settlers named them the General Atkinson Mound Group. The mounds are a remnant of the Woodland Period in present-day Wisconsin. They are effigy and geometric mounds, different from the platform mounds at nearby Aztalan State Park, built by peoples of the Mississippian culture, which reached its peak around 1300. They had settlements throughout the Mississippi Valley and its tributaries, extending from central Illinois northward to the Great Lakes and also to the Southeastern United States. Materials were traded within the culture from the Great Lakes to the Gulf of Mexico. A 125-foot (38 m) long panther intaglio, the Panther Intaglio Effigy Mound, appears on a mound west of town, the last remaining intaglio in the state.

Fort Atkinson's 19th- and early 20th-century building history is preserved in the Main Street and Merchants Avenue historic districts. Other Registered Historic Places include the Fort Atkinson Water Tower, David W. and Jane Curtis House, Hoard's Dairyman Farm, and Jones Dairy Farm.

Geography According to the United States Census Bureau, the city has a total area of 5.80 square miles (15.02 km²), of which 5.66 square miles (14.66 km²) is land and 0.14 square miles (0.36 km²) is water.

The city developed along the river, which provided the earliest transportation pathways for trade and travel. Occasionally the downtown area is flooded when the Rock River exceeds its banks. Just east of the city, the Bark River enters the Rock and can add considerable volume in certain seasons. The Rock River is a tributary of the Mississippi River, which it joins at Rock Island, Illinois.

Economy The city's largest employer is Fort HealthCare, an integrated hospital and health system. Fort Atkinson Memorial Hospital has 82 licensed beds and more than 100 physicians on staff. Fort Medical Group, a subsidiary of Fort HealthCare, employs more than 60 physicians, nurse practitioners, and other healthcare providers. The city is also home to Cygnus Business Media, NASCO, Spacesaver and Jones Dairy Farm.

Fireside Dinner Theatre draws thousands of visitors each year. Another tourist attraction is a reconstruction of the original fort.

Media Fort Atkinson is home to a daily newspaper, the Daily Jefferson County Union, as well as two radio stations, WFAW and WSJY. Fort Atkinson shares a radio market with the Janesville-Beloit area and is also served by stations from Milwaukee and Madison. A small student newspaper and website called "the Signal" is also run in the Fort Atkinson High School. Which focuses on local events that affect students in the district. Fort Atkinson is a part of the Milwaukee television market with stations from Madison also available over the air and on cable.

Healthcare Fort Memorial Hospital is a 49 bed hospital located in Fort Atkinson. There are 45.6 primary care physicians per 100,000 population in the area. Fort Atkinson is designated as both a mental health and primary care Health Professional Shortage Area (HPSA) qualifying the area as a medical desert. By 2035, Fort Atkinson is expected to have a 50.3% deficit in primary care physicians, the seventh largest expected deficit in Wisconsin. There are two behavioral health professionals in Fort Atkinson.

Education Fort Atkinson School District has four elementary schools, a middle school and a high school. Barrie, Rockwell, Purdy, and Luther elementary schools serve grades kindergarten to 5, Fort Atkinson Middle School (FAMS) grades 6 to 8, and Fort Atkinson High School grades 9 to 12. The high school's mascot is the Blackhawk, named after the Sauk leader Chief Blackhawk.

Crown of Life Christian Academy (2K–8) and St. Paul's Lutheran School (3K–8) are Christian schools of the Wisconsin Evangelical Lutheran Synod (WELS) in Fort Atkinson.

Saint Joseph's school is a private catholic school that teaches kindergarten through 8th grade. It is located in the south-west portion of the town on the corner of hackbarth road and Endl Bulevard. The school is located in the Roman Catholic Diocese of Madison

The Dwight Foster Public Library, established in 1892, serves as Jefferson County's resource library. It serves residents of Fort Atkinson and its surrounding communities.

Transport Primary automobile transportation is provided via Highway 12, Highway 26, Highway 89 and Highway 106. Highway 26 provides easy access to Interstate 94 (to the north in Johnson Creek), leading to downtown Milwaukee in about an hour; and to Interstate 90 (to the south in Janesville) leading to downtown Chicago in about 2.5 hours. Highway 12 provides access to the Madison metro area in about 45 minutes. Fort Atkinson was a stop on the C&NW Milwaukee to Madison line. There is no public transportation available within city limits.

Transport: Air Fort Atkinson is served by the Fort Atkinson Municipal Airport (FAA LID: 61C).