A large brick warehouse on Decker Street, built in the early 20th century by the Northern Wisconsin Cooperative Tobacco Pool. For decades, Vernon County's small organic-style tobacco farmers brought their cured leaf here to be graded, baled and shipped to cigar-makers on the east coast. The building is on the National Register and a tangible reminder that this was once Wisconsin's tobacco country, before the crop disappeared in the late 20th century.
Northern Wisconsin Co-op Tobacco Pool Warehouse
1920s tobacco warehouse, a relic of Vernon County's farming past
A story
Vernon County was the centre of Wisconsin's tobacco-growing region — small farmers grew the wrapper leaf used in cigars, and the Northern Wisconsin Co-op was their selling pool. Tobacco farming faded after the 1980s, but the warehouse, vacant for decades, has been preserved as a reminder of an unlikely Midwestern crop.