History:

The village of Maiden Rock, Wisconsin, began as a logging settlement that was first known as Harrisburg. In l854, John D. Trumbull, together with a partner Albert Harris, purchased a mile-long stretch of the Mississippi River shore from Rush River downstream to "Rattlesnake Hollow." While Albert and his brother, Amos, had the privilege of naming the future community "Harrisburg", Trumbull set about establishing a steam-powered sawmill and constructing buildings. In 1855 Trumbull, the Harris's and others began living here permanently; thus marking the birth of the village.

In 1856, Trumbull added grist and shingle mills to his operation and renamed the village Maiden Rock after a bluff four miles downstream. The Indian legend of the bluff called Maiden Rock, which has some basis in historical fact, concerns a young Dakota Indian woman, Winona, who leaped to her death from the top of the most prominent bluff in the region rather than marry the brave her father, Chief Red Wing, had chosen for her.

By 1857, the village had a number of houses and commercial buildings, including a boarding house and two stores. Trumbull also boasted of a good steamboat landing. By this time had had bought out the Harris interest and had surveyed and platted the village. Soon a school was established, a church appeared, and a sailboat and a steamboat were built at Maiden Rock to keep the community in touch with other communities up and down the river.

The village grew gradually to a population of slightly over 300 by 1900. While it became a vital commercial and social center for a wide region of Pierce and Pepin Counties, its growth was hampered by its geography. Wedged on a narrow strip of land between the widening of the Mississippi called Lake Pepin and the 400 foot high bluffs, there was insufficient space for a large village or city. Moreover, the early steamboat traffic tended to pass it by as the river bends significantly away from the village. Thus the shortest route from Lake City, Minnesota, to Red Wing is on the Minnesota side of Lake Pepin, passing by Maiden Rock more than two miles distant across the water.