Established: 1840
County Seat: Baraboo
Parent: Territorial County

Birth, Death, & Marriage Records:
Earliest Registration Dates*:
Births 1864
Deaths 1876
Marriages 1852

Sauk Register of Deeds
505 Broadway St.
Baraboo, WI 53913-2401
Telephone: (608) 355-3288

SAUK.--Population 13,644.

From: Handbook of Wisconsin by S. Silas, 1855

pg. 99-101

This County lies on the north and west of the Wisconsin River. The soil north of the Baraboo River is rich and well adapted to agriculture. From the Baraboo, south, extending to the Wisconsin, rise the Wisconsin River Bluffs, precipitous and stony, probably the highest lands in the State. The soil on the bluffs is good, though stony, and from its position the land will never be held in high estimatson (sic) for agricultural purposes. The rest of the County is forest, openings and prairies. Some portions are level, while others are rolling and hilly, presenting as great a variety as any other portion of the State. Considerable pine is cut on the Upper Baraboo. There is much good land unoccupied. The County has not made the progress for four or five years past which many other Counties have. Baraboo, on the Baraboo River, is the County Seat, and a place of some business. It has a good water power, which has lain unimproved for two or three years, but arrangements are now being made to use it. Reedsburg is rapidly improving, many new buildings having been erected the present season. Hamilton is a new village,. Delton and Newport are both thriving places. Delton about one and a half miles from the Wisconsin River, on Dell Creek,--Newport at the mouth of the Creek on both sides of the Wisconsin.

Prairie du Sac is on Sac Prairie, on the Wisconsin, the most beautiful village site in the State.

Devil Lake in the Bluffs, is a natural curiosity. Its banks are steep and rocky, rising from 150 to 200 feet. Its waters have no outlets, are clear, abounding in fish, and its depth has never been ascertained.

The La Crose (sic) and Milwaukee Rail Road follows up the north-east side of the Wisconsin River, and crosses into this County at Newport, a thriving village, where a dam is soon to be thrown across the river, which will make an excellent water power.

The County is in the Mineral Point land district.