Fargoville began as the hamlet of Hamilton Mills, founded in 1864 when brothers Thomas and Joseph Hamilton and another business partner built a saw and grist mill on Willow Creek. The Hamilton brothers, who also operated a general merchandizing firm in Berlin, Wisconsin, and owned 960 acres of nearby cranberry marsh, gave the settlement its first name. As settlers moved in and the population grew, businesses followed, including a blacksmith shop, a firm selling wagons and implements, and a general merchandise store, along with a post office, dance hall, and school. By 1880 the brothers had dissolved their partnership, and Thomas E. Decker purchased the mills from Thomas Hamilton. In 1882 Decker built a cheese factory near the artesian well, served as Warren township chair and county board supervisor, and in 1885 secured 2000 dollars, half from the county and half from the township, to build a bridge over Willow Creek near his mill. He sold the cheese factory to J.R. Wilcox the next year, and in 1895 it became the Warren Cheese and Butter Company. Thomas Hamilton remained active in improving and building roads for local transportation. In 1893 the town was renamed Fargoville, but ten years later the post office closed. In the early twentieth century, Waushara County entered a long population decline that severely affected Fargoville and nearby small towns including Terrill, Sonora, and Howe’s Corners. The Fargoville School on the north side of Willow Creek operated into the 1930s before closing, and over time the town’s ice house, hotel, and Hamilton Hall fell into disrepair. The hotel, the last standing building in Fargoville, was torn down in 1949.