Settled predominantly by English, Irish and Welsh people, Genesee Depot became a thriving settlement when the Milwaukee and Mississippi railroad laid tracks through the area in the early 1850s. Settler John Magee was instrumental in bringing rail service there after it had originally been planned for the community of Genesee to the southeast, where land prices were considered too high. After the railroad depot was constructed, Benjamin Jenkins built a store and warehouse, and the post office also moved. With many nearby dairy farms, the growing area became known as Genesee Depot and became the largest milk-run shipping station on the line until 1908. Many buildings there date to the 1800s and help the area retain the charm of that earlier period, including old St. Paul's Catholic Church built in the early 1870s, the Union House Hotel circa 1860, the Proctor house dating to the 1860s, the Genesee Woolen Mill that stood behind it, the railroad depot built in 1897 after the first one burned, and the Town Hall built in 1912. In more recent times, Genesee Depot was home for many years to Alfred Lunt and Lynn Fontanne, America's noted first couple of theatre.