Wild flowers and powerful rivers carved out the landscape, and the beauty of the Baraboo Bluffs touched the pioneers' spirits. Ships full of immigrants plowed across the ocean, while dreams, faith, and courage helped families into the oxen-drawn wagons that carried them to Juneau and Sauk Counties. As the forces in their homelands pushed them toward south central Wisconsin, brother wrote to brother, mother to son, neighbor to former neighbor, bringing people from the same communities in the Old World to settle near each other in the new.

Highway 12 in Sauk Prairie became known as Yankee...