Kenneth L Kraemer

The Other Cramers Kenneth L Kraemer

This book is an important piece of the history of the village of Plain, Sauk County, Wisconsin. It focuses on the Cramer family pioneers whose name first defined the village as "Cramer's Corners" because two Cramer families owned all the land on both sides of what became Main Street, and north of the present Wachter Avenue or State Highway 23. The Cramers came in the early 1850s and hence were among the earliest pioneers in the area. The first generation were all farmers, but the second generation of one family were carpenters who built the beautiful farm shown on the front cover. They went on to build many houses and barns throughout Sauk County. In the early 1890s, they built brickyard, sawmill, grist mill and timber/lumber businesses in Plain. Many houses and buildings are adorned with brick from the Cramer B rickyard and built from lumber cut at the Cramer Sawmill. In the early 1900s, three Cramer brothers built "The Big Store" as it was called - the large department store shown on the front cover. It provided all manner of goods from food staples to household goods to farm equipment and supplies. With the death of the family patriarch, Solomon Cramer, the Cramer brothers started divesting of their land and business holdings and were all gone from Plain by 1922. Their story and the reasons for the Cramer Exodus are explored in the book, which is full of photos and documentation. It includes Oscar John Cramer's 1980 "The Cramer Family Tree," which is a narrative on all the Cramer families to that date.