Dane County made the largest land conservation purchase in county history of 625 acres along the Sugar River in the Towns of Verona and Montrose for the Sugar River Wildlife Area, according to a Dane County press release. The land is located just north of Paoli, Wisconsin, a small unincorporated community that has become a rural Wisconsin travel destination.

The Dane County Land and Water Resources Department works with landowners along the Sugar River, implementing conservation practices that combat farm and nutrient runoff and soil loss, according to department watershed manager Kyle Minks. The clean-up efforts transformed the Sugar River from a watershed ridden with pollutants into a healthy, vibrant ecosystem.

“The goal there has been to try to keep the nutrients on the landscape, as well as the soil, to protect that water quality,” Minks said.

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Through Dane County’s recent land acquisition, two previously acquired county properties will be connected. This will provide a contiguous block of around 840 acres of county-owned land for ecosystem rehabilitation and public recreation along the Sugar River watershed, according to the Dane County press release.

“This is the largest conservation acquisition Dane County has made to date,” Dane County Executive Joe Parisi said in the press release. “We are thrilled to preserve and restore this land along the popular Sugar River corridor for the public’s future use and enjoyment. The Sugar River corridor is a natural resource gem for the Dane County community.”

The acquired land is currently used as farmland, but will soon be reverted to prairie. This will help prevent further land erosion along the Sugar River and keep runoff out of the water, Minks said. It will also work to reduce the amount of carbon dioxide in the air, as prairies sequester carbon, or remove it from the air through absorbing and storing it, Minks said.

The restored land will provide area residents with greater access to activities such as kayaking and canoeing in the Sugar River, plus hunting, trapping, snowshoeing and cross-country skiing along the river’s banks, Minks said. More fishing areas will be available to the public as well.

“It [the Sugar River] is one of … the most successful fishery-related … success stories in our region,” Minks said.

The trout population in the river started to bounce back in the 1990s as conservation efforts increased, according to Minks. Today, the river is full of life, exhibiting its health.

The Sugar River runs through the heart of Paoli, just 20 minutes from the University of Wisconsin campus. Nicolaas Mink is the owner of Seven Acre Dairy, a space that includes an inn, a restaurant and café, event spaces and a micro-dairy plant where Seven Acre produces their own butter and ice cream. The building Seven Acre calls home was an established dairy factory for nearly a century, Mink said.

Mink submitted the building to the National Register of Historic Places in 2021 and re-opened it to the public in hopes of making it a vibrant place once more by keeping dairy as its central theme, Mink said.

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“Its [the original Paoli dairy factory] life cycle … really followed the history of Wisconsin dairy,” Mink said. “It had this incredible importance … it was making some of the best Swiss cheese in the state of Wisconsin in the 1930s and 1940s. It was making some of the best butter in the state of Wisconsin almost throughout the entire 20th century.”

Mink also highlighted the connection between the dairy factory and the UW campus. The original dairy factory was one of the largest and most important near Madison, allowing for growth and learning between UW and the factory, Mink said. 

If Mink could go back to his own college days at UW, he would have spent more time away from campus exploring the quaint and historically rich communities surrounding Madison, like Paoli, he said. He hopes students at UW get the chance to explore Paoli themselves.

“Students would love [Paoli],” Mink said. “There’s incredible eating, there’s incredible drinking, there’s incredible music, there’s incredible recreation, there’s all sorts of cool shops. It’s a snapshot of rural Wisconsin in its best form.”

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The Sugar River has been central in Paoli’s history for economic reasons, providing a water source for the town’s businesses. One hundred to 150 years ago, the river formed the core of the town’s industrial production, Mink said.

Today, the tide has turned, and the Sugar River has broken free of its previous industrial uses, being utilized in a different way by providing a social and recreational outlet, fostering the community’s growth, Mink said.

“The dairy factory [Seven Acre Dairy] is on the river … the old mill which is now the brewery and music area is on the river because it needed a water source,” Mink said. “It’s there because of the Sugar River, and today, it’s there because of the Sugar River in a very different way. Paoli is a river town, and it always has been … the river speaks to people who come to visit.”