Robert Howie (1830-1913) came to Tomah in 1858 from County Ayshire Scotland and homesteaded land. He worked with Robert Gillett and C C Miller surveying the Tomah area and became Tomah's first rural mail carrier. His interest in agriculture and horses led him to donate land for the fairgrounds in 1881, and he helped develop them by constructing exhibition buildings and hauling in clay with horse teams for a racetrack. Howie, his sons Robert Jr. and Wallace, and his nephew Irvine Strozinsky raced horses on the racetrack and down Tomah's Superior Avenue, and he insisted the street be 100 feet wide to allow harness racing. He and his wife Agnes (1855-1942) had eleven children.