Denmark State Bank was founded in 1909 to provide banking services to the growing community of Denmark. They completed their first permanent building in November 1909 on Main Street. 

In 1932, construction on the new All Saints Church was well under way. Plans had been drawn up in 1912 for a complete church for the new congregation, which had been founded the year prior, but due to a lack of funds, just the basement had been completed. The congregation worshiped in the basement church for 20 years before deciding to construct a complete church.

This week, The Denmark News would like to introduce a new series entitled the “Historical Question of the Week”. We have teamed up with the experts at the Denmark Historical Society to find puzzling mysteries within their extensive collection and attempt to find the answers.

In the early 1900s, medical treatment was severely lacking compared to the present day, and unsanitary practices did not help in many situations.  

For the first few years after immigrants began settling in the Denmark area, there was no school. In 1854, that changed with the creation of District No. 5 of the town of De Pere.

In the 1950s, many one- and two-room schoolhouses still operated throughout the state.  However, many people were beginning to see the benefits of consolidating into larger school districts with the ability to share a larger high school.

Father Chester Dionne, a longtime pastor at All Saints and Holy Trinity Congregations, celebrated 25 years of service to the Denmark community with a celebration in 1969. On May 18, 1969, the congregation held a Mass of Thanksgiving at 8:15 a.m. followed by an open house from 2:00 p.m. to 4:00 p.m.

As immigrants began settling in the vicinity of Cooperstown, the need arose for a church.  With many of the immigrants coming from Catholic strongholds of Ireland, Bohemia, and Germany, it was natural that a Catholic church would be the first to serve the community.

Today, we take for granted the abundant number of churches in our area. However, this was not the case when immigrants first began to settle in the New Denmark area in the mid-1800s. At the time, the population was very small and could not support a formal church with a resident pastor.

In 1985, St. John Lutheran Church in Maribel was celebrating several milestones. The year marked 130 years since the church’s founding, 60 years in their present church building, and the recent completion of a large renovation project at their school.

In 1966, a new, modern grocery store opened in downtown Denmark. Known as Larry’s Town and Country Super Market, it was owned by Larry George.

In 1926, businessmen in the growing Village of Denmark decided the village could benefit from a second banking option. Since it was founded in 1909, Denmark State Bank was the only financial institution in the village, so a group of local businessmen came together and formed Badger State Bank.

On the night of September 7, 1988, Denmark experienced one of the largest emergencies in its history. As a Chicago & Northwestern Railway freight train was making its way through the Village, the train derailed after it had just passed the Lake to Lake Dairy plant, sending cars off the rails and forcing an evacuation of nearby residents.  

In Denmark’s early years, the village was a small crossroads community. Very few businesses were located in the town, and not that many residents lived here either. Denmark and Cooperstown, just to the south, were comparable in size. Many houses, churches, the first school, and the town hall were located in the vicinity of what is today West Danish Cemetery, about a mile from the present-day village.

In 1980, Our Savior’s Lutheran Church celebrated a huge milestone in their history: the centennial of the founding of Trinity Lutheran Church, which was one of the churches that merged in 1951 to form Our Savior’s.