User:StabatMater/dover

Dover, Wisconsin
Ghost town
Dover
Coordinates:
Country	United States
State	Wisconsin
County	Iowa
Area
• Total	6.55 acres (2.65 ha)
Elevation	764 ft (233 m)
Population (1855)
• Total	156
• Density	15,000/sq mi (5,900/km2)
Time zone	Central (CST) (UTC-6)
• Summer (DST)	CDT (UTC-5)
ZIP code	53960
Area code(s)	608
GNIS feature ID	1563617

Dover (previously known as Gorstville and East Arena) is a ghost town located in Iowa County, Wisconsin, United States, between Arena and Mazomanie. Established and settled originally by members of the British Temperance Emigration Society, at its peak in 1855, Dover had a population of 215. When Dover was bypassed by the railroad, it slowly dwindled. Today the only landmarks remaining are the Dover school house and the Culver Cemetery.

Geography

Dover was located at along the southern side of what is today US Highway 14. An original plat map, filed in 1849, describes a small village consisting of three blocks with a total of 28 lots, each sixty feet wide by one hundred forty feet deep. The village limits were demarcated by Main and South Streets on the north and south, and Dane and Chestnuts Streets on the east and west, with two additional interior north-south streets and an east-west bifurcating alley. In all, as platted Dover comprised a six-and-a-half-acre quadrangle extending 1054 feet west from the Dane-Iowa county line, and 271 feet south from Hwy 14.

However, Dover was never realized as described on the plat. Property records from the Iowa County land office suggest the village never grew beyond a one-street town and a single row of businesses and residences nestled along the south side of Hwy 14.

Demographics

In 1847, a census of the Wisconsin Territory was taken. Data from the Arena Precinct of Iowa County enumerated only a family name, the numbers of white males, white females, colored males, colored females and a total. Dover in the 1847 census consisted of 24 families and a total population of 91.

By 1850 Wisconsin had become a state and was enumerated in the 1850 US census. Census data from Arena Township suggests a Dover population of 119, for a 30% increase.

Wisconsin conducted a state census in 1855, with Arena Township canvassed on June 1 of that year. The census finds a total of 116 males and 99 females in Dover for a total population of 215. This was to be Dover's high water mark.

The final census from which reasonably certain data for the village of Dover can be derived is the 1860 US census. The data indicate the Dover population had declined to 75 persons representing fifteen families.

By the time of the 1870 US census it has become difficult to distinguish a specific Dover population, but the data suggest possibly eleven families comprising a total population of 44. However, plat maps from 1870 and 1873 suggest Dover had spilled over the county line into Dane County, and so population figures from the 1860 and 1870 census could be understated by a dozen or so persons.

By 1880 all that remained of the population around Dover was a scattering of farms.