William Winston built and occupied the first store in the place north of Union, shifting business from the village of Union.

The evidence

• “Up to 1848 the principal center of business for the whole country between Janesville and Madison was the village of Union, three miles north of the present site of Evansville. In that year, however, William Winston built and occupied the first store in the place, which had then neither name nor postoffice.”

  1908-brown-rock-county/31-smaller-cities-villages-towns.md, Vol. 2, PDF p. 153 / book p. 661

  Brown, William Fiske, editor. Rock County, Wisconsin: A New History of Its Cities, Villages, Towns, Citizens and Varied Interests, from the Earliest Times, Up to Date. Chicago: C. F. Cooper & Co., 1908. 2 vols. archive.org/details/rockcountywiscon01brow, archive.org/details/rockcountywiscon02brow.

  Grade A: Found on a page of one of our sources