From its first settlement by Fourierite communards in the 1840s, before Wisconsin became a state, Ripon has had a long and distinguished history, swept by and nourishing important currents of the nation's saga. The party of Abraham Lincoln was born here in 1854, in the nation's first public gathering to call itself "Republican Party." On the eve of the Civil War, Ripon's "Booth War" brought the city to national attention as a hotbed of abolitionism. Ripon is the birthplace of suffragette Carrie Chapman Catt and department store pioneer H. Gordon Selfridge. Its stately homes and neighborhoods...
From its first settlement by Fourierite communards in the 1840s, before Wisconsin became a state, Ripon has had a long and distinguished history, swep...
