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From the Backroads of Wisconsin's Past

Jerry Davis For Agri-View
Jan 7, 2025
Jan 7, 2025

1 of 6

Karl Gant offers a size comparison with a large root cellar attached by an underground hallway to the building's first floor.

Jerry Davis/For Agri-View

The 60-foot by 30-foot limestone – yellow stone – structure built in 1860 as a hostel has limited use in modern farming but keeps history alive.

Jerry Davis/For Agri-View

The building’s first floor houses a few beef calves. It was previously a dairy barn and hog-farrowing facility.

Jerry Davis/For Agri-View

Karl Gant keeps an old Illinois Central Railroad boundary post; the railroad bypassed Yellowstone Valley. An area of the building's second floor was in 1860 home to two-room apartments.

Jerry Davis/For Agri-View

The stones on the building’s front and back walls have a finished look while the side-wall stones, far left, are rubble stones.

Jerry Davis/For Agri-View

The stairs where Karl Gant sits lead from the second floor up to the third floor. They are steep – and no hand rail.

Jerry Davis/For Agri-View

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Jerry Davis For Agri-View

YELLOWSTONE, Wis. – Karl Gant says he’s proud of a 30-foot by 60-foot limestone building that’s been part of his entire 80-year life in Lafayette County’s unincorporated community of Yellowstone. He has spent thousands of dollars tuck-pointing the entire outside four walls that corral three stories of history. It began life as a hostel or hotel, but visitors no longer came after the railroad took a turn and left the structure to find other uses.

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Jerry Davis is a freelance outdoors writer. Contact him at sivadjam@mhtc.net or 608-924-1112 for more information.

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