05/04/2026
Optimists Hear Badger Update â25 Years Laterâ
Curt Meine of the Sauk Prairie Conservation Alliance spoke to the Sauk Prairie Optimist Club on April 28 about the 25-year journey of the former Badger Army Ammunition Plant (BAAP, also known as âBadgerâ locally) to what is now the Sauk Prairie Recreation Area. The 14,500-acre Sauk prairie was originally the home of Indigenous people, primarily the Ho-Chunk, then taken over by Euro-Americans in the late 1830s. The Euro-American farmers were displaced in 1942 by the US Army for a massive ammunition plant to serve the WWII war effort.
The 7,354-acre ammunition plant was active during WWII, as well as the Korean and Vietnam Wars. It employed more than 12,000 at its height during the WWII, at a time when the population of Sauk County was less than 35,000. The plant was officially decommissioned in 1998, after which much discussion and potential uses of the site, many acres of which were contaminated, were proposed. Competing interests included environmentalists, displaced farm families, and the Ho-Chunk Nation.
In 2000, Representative Tammy Baldwin secured funding to establish a committee to determine the future use of the Badger site, then left the various groups to work it out on their own. Astonishingly, within nine months the various diverse groups - which never voted on anything, but operated by consensus â developed a shared vision for reuse, centered on nine Key Values. The most important of these was âReusing the property in a way that contributes to healing and resolving past conflicts.â
A 10-week Lecture Series on the Reuse Plan was held at the Sauk Prairie River Arts Center, the first such series ever held there, in 2000, with 250 - 300 attending each session. The Final Report was issued in March 2001. The Plan established three primary owners of the land:
⢠The Ho-Chunk Nationâs 1553-acre Sacred Earth Reservation or Maa WĂĄkÄ
cÄ
k, the largest single parcel of land reclaimed by the Nation;
⢠The WDNRâs 3385-acre Sauk Prairie State Recreation Area;
⢠The 2105-acre Dairy Forage Research Center field station;
⢠In addition, 163 acres comprise the Bluffview Sanitary District and a few acres are owned by the WI Department of Transportation including the Great Sauk State Trail and new highway realignments.
Apple trees from the farms of families dislocated by BAAP have been carefully cared for and relocated to relatives of the farmers and other public places, including Culver Park and the Sauk Prairie Healthcare Hospital Campus, as living memorials to the displaced farm community. The history and re-use of the former Sauk prairie land is remarkable for its speed, scope, and consensus. The Museum of Badger Army Ammunition is open 10-4, Tuesday-Saturday at 7560 US Hwy 12, North Freedom, WI 53951 (across from Bluffview between Sauk City and Baraboo.) The Badger History Group also offers free lectures, with a new series starting in the fall of 2026.
Starting June 3, the Sauk Prairie Optimists will meet on the first Wednesday of the month at noon and the third Wednesday of the month at 7am. All meetings will be at the 6:8 dining room and visitors are welcome.
Pictured: Optimist Member Nancy Breunig with Curt Meine, Sauk County environmentalist and author, at the April 28 Sauk Prairie Optimist Meeting.
