Named in honor of President Franklin Pierce -- Hist. No. Wis., p. 707.

Description from John W. Hunt's 1853 Wisconsin Gazetteer: "PIERCE, County, includes all that part of St. Croix county south of the north line of town 27, and was set off from St. Croix, March 16, 1853. It therefore is bounded on the west by St. Croix river, by which it is separated from the Territory of Minnesota. This county holds out very great inducements to immigrants, a large amount of the 500,000 acre grant, given by Congress to the State for schools, is in this county, and is sold at one dollar and twenty-five cents per acre, the settler being allowed thirty years pre-emption. The lands are about half prairie and half timber -- the prairies a black loam, producing as great a yield of wheat, oats, corn, and other grain, as any other part of the West. The timber is of an excellent quality, oak, ash, butternut, black walnut, sugar maple, &c. Steam boats pass up, during the season of navigation, near to the homes of the inhabitants. It is to be fully organized at once, and is attached to the sixth judicial circuit, and to the same representative districts as St. Croix, Polk and La Pointe."

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Pierce County, Wisconsin

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[Source: Kellogg, Louise Phelps. "Derivation of County Names" in Proceedings of the State Historical Society of Wisconsin for 1909, pages 219-231.]