Around Eagle

The village of Eagle is a small town with a big smile. Located within the southern Kettle Moraine Forest and a large prairie, the town is identified by its yellow, smiley-faced water tower. Eagle's modern history began in 1836, when three prospectors came across an expansive prairie with a large bald-headed eagle hovering over it. The early pioneers settled in small communities that blurred into the neighboring towns of Ottawa, North Prairie, Mukwonago, East Troy, and Palmyra. In 1851, the railroad made Eagle Centre the metropolis, thus stifling Jericho, Palestine, Melendy's Prairie, and Eagleville. Eagle was nearly named Diamond City when it became known that a diamond had been discovered there in 1876. The 1900s saw a transition from wheat and sheep to dairy farming and then to crops of corn and soybeans. Some land was returned to nature as the Kettle Moraine State Forest, and others turned into housing developments and industrial parks. The 21st century brought the acceleration of urban sprawl to once rural areas.