In 1848, New York native and Milwaukee merchant John S. Pardee hired agents to oversee his Fox River land holdings and establish business operations from this location. Yates Ashley, the most notable of Pardee's agents, managed the on-site operations and surveyed and platted the town in 1850. Although railroad tracks were laid here in 1857, real growth did not begin until after the 1870s. By 1899, Pardeeville had two hotels, a flour mill, a grain elevator, a creamery, several potato warehouses, a lumber yard, and a bank. Built in 1909 beside Pardeeville's railroad depot, the three-story Belmont Hotel served travelers from the six daily trains that passed through the village at the time. Constructed of concrete block, it is the most prominent example of Pardeeville's concrete block commercial buildings. In 1973, Mrs. Myrtle Lintner-Spear donated the thirty-two room building to the Columbia County Historical Society for use as a museum, and the Belmont Hotel was listed in the National Register of Historic Places in 1993.