Bagley is advertised as a "Sportsman's Paradise - Come spend
a day, a week or a lifetime". It is a resort town with a permanent
resident population of about 200 people, but the population grows to twice that number during the tourist season. The area can attract up to 3,000 people on a holiday weekend.
During the 1930's, The Corp of Engineers developed a lock and dam system along the Mississippi River to maintain the channel depth at nine feet. This created a network of lakes and sloughs that made Bagley an ideal place for fishing and hunting.
Bagley is located near the river on flat sandy loam soil where good water can be obtained by driving a sand point into the sand and attaching a pump. It is
surrounded by picturesque bluffs dotted with deciduous and conifer trees. Bagley can only be reached by traveling down one of the many hollows leading to the town.
The people of the town are very concerned about their own people, and come to their aid in times of trouble. They are proud of the accomplishments of those people who have left Bagley, but were once part of their lives. One of those celebrities was Patrick Lucy, who became Governor of Wisconsin; another was Thornton Kipper who became a baseball pitcher for the Philadelphia Phillies.
The early settlers of Bagley were mostly retired farmers. Many of the homes had a small barn and chicken house nearby where they would keep a cow and a few chickens. They were very proud of their productive gardens that grew well on the warm fertile soil.
The first inhabitants were predominantly German. They soon built a Lutheran Church to meet their spiritual needs. The first Methodist Church services were held in the public school in 1893 until the church was built in 1902. The first school house was built in 1860. Bagley was incorporated in 1920. The town was named after one of its early settlers, Alfred Bagley, who was born in 1824 and died in 1874. He married Mary Ann Clark, the great granddaughter of Abraham Clark, one of the 56 signers of the Declaration of Independence. The people were attracted to the area by the water transportation nearby.
With the coming of the Chicago Burlington and Northern Railroad in 1884, the Bagley area was offered an opportunity for accessibility, both to and from
large areas of population. This
was a great boost for Bagley for automobiles were scarce or non-existent. It became possible to go to Prairie du Chien to shop on the morning train and return on the afternoon train for only 12 cents round trip.
It was not long before a stock yards sprang up in Bagley, and a cooperative shipping association was formed in 1916. As many as 18 car loads of livestock were shipped from there every day to the Union Stockyards in Chicago. Herds containing up to 50 cattle were driven in from the surrounding area. Farmers would ride in the caboose of the freight train to see their cattle sold at the stockyards. They would then be given tickets to return to Bagley on the passenger train.
The railroad brought with it a class of people not familiar to the town folks of Bagley. Women and children were frightened by the hobos, or penniless drifters, that would come off of the trains to get a free meal. One of these drifters was known as Old Smokey who lived along the Glen Haven dug way, and was often seen carrying a sack over his back, walking up the tracks to buy a few necessities at Charlie Calkins' store in Bagley. Smokey wore a long gray beard, tattered clothing and seldom spoke to anyone. The popular belief was that he had gold in a cave, but this was no doubt a myth for he died a pauper in the County Home.
The railroad discontinued stopping at Bagley in 1950. The depot that once employed three depot agents would no longer be used. The barns and chicken houses have disappeared, but the well kept gardens, neat homes and caring people are still an important part of the little village of Bagley.
Source - Bagley Through the Years written in 1975 by the senior
citizens of Bagley, Betty Cohen and Barbara Vorwald.