History of Stonefield

The 1900s farmhouse at Stonefield
reflects the style of the era.

Interest in specialty museums that would interpret unique themes in Wisconsin history fueled the evolution of the Wisconsin Historical Society's first historic sites in the early 1950s. When the Society opened house museums at Villa Louis in Prairie du Chien in 1952 and Wade House in Greenbush a year later, history enthusiasts in southwestern Wisconsin donated funds and furnishings to begin the interior restoration of Nelson Dewey's reconstructed home in Cassville for use as a museum. In 1953 the Legislature designated the Dewey homestead as site of "the state farm and craft museum," culminating lengthy deliberations aimed at establishing a museum of rural life in the state. The new historic site officially opened in Dewey's former horse stable on July 4 of that year.

Stonefield continued to grow as an agricultural museum, and in 1954 the Society envisioned construction of a typical, but re-created, rural Wisconsin farming village at the site. Construction of the village and a period farm continued through the 1960s and '70s, while the museum's rapidly growing collections of antique farm implements spurred construction of a new home for the agricultural collections. In 1969 a new building raised on the foundations of Dewey's original sheep barn opened as the State Agricultural Museum. Today it houses Wisconsin's largest collection of farm tools, models, and machinery that detail the state's agricultural past. The Dewey homesite, largely unchanged from the day of its opening, continues to provide a focal point for Stonefield's colorful heritage as the former home of Wisconsin's first governor.