Neillsville’s history is closely tied to the white pine forests of the Wisconsin Territory along the Black River and its tributaries. In 1841, these forests drew members of the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints, remembered as the Mormon Loggers, who came to obtain lumber for their temple in Nauvoo, Illinois, 400 miles away. For four years they logged and created clearings for settlements along nearby streams, including one 2 miles south of here named for Elijah Hanks Cunningham, a Mormon logger who drowned in that stream in the spring of 1843. After the June 1844 assassination of their leader, Joseph Smith, the Mormon loggers began to leave, and most had departed by the spring of 1845. In 1845, the same waterways, timber, and clearings attracted James O’Neill to what is now O’Neill Creek. By 1855, he had cleared 50 acres and platted four acres for a village. Logging then drove Neillsville’s growth, increasing its population from 250 in 1860 to 2,104 by 1900. The nation’s growing demand for lumber brought the railroad to the Black River on the west in 1881 and into Neillsville in 1887, encouraging new industries, factories, and businesses. Downtown businesses and grand residences reflected the area’s success, and many of those buildings and homes still stand in Neillsville today because of the white pine forests.