Custer or Dawson

Very little history has been written about Custer, the small unincorporated community off of Highway 10 in the town of Stockton. But on an afternoon in one of the community’s three taverns, theories abound.

One longtime resident of the community said he believes the community was named after Lt. Col. George Armstrong Custer, who was defeated during the battle of the Little Big Horn in 1876. “I think this community was called something else and when Custer lost at Little Big Horn, people decided to rename this community Custer,” said Mark Skibba from his seat at Custer’s Last Stand, a Custer tavern that derives its name from that event.

In his book “Our County Our Story,” Malcolm Rosholt agrees. The Custer post office was established in December 1876, just six months after Little Big Horn and was probably named after Lt. Col. Custer, Rosholt wrote. Other theories include that Custer visited the community before his death or that early Indian settlers named it Custer for reasons unknown.

Custer’s original name was Dawson, an Irish name given to what was then a predominantly Irish community, said Jim Bannach, whose family came to the area from Prussia in the late 1870s. Bannach says he remembers his father, Florian Joseph Bannach, telling him stories about Dawson, although no one in his family knew of the community’s namesake. One clue may come from documents owned by St. Mary’s Church on Highway Q in Custer, which was established in 1875.

One document, dated Aug. 8, 1854, is a land deed marking the sale of a large chunk of land in the area near the church to Michael Dawson from the United States. There is no biographical information about him in St. Mary’s documents, but Rosholt tells of a Michael Dawson that was elected to the town of Hull Board in 1859 and to the town of Sharon Board in 1860.

In Dawson’s will dated 1897, he gave his entire estate to his son, John. To his wife, Catherine, he bequeathed a cow named “Big Red Cow,” and to seven of his children he left $1 each. To his daughter, Bridget, he left $100, payable within 10 years of his death.

On Oct. 26, 1904, John Dawson and his wife, Gussie, sold about 1/2 acre of land for $150 to the town of Stockton, presumably near where the church is now. The Custer school was probably built the next year, says Deacon Dutch Hirsch of St. Mary’s.

Skibba’s father, 76 year-old Raphael Skibba, was born and raised in the area and he remembers Custer as a thriving community in the 1920s and 1930s. There were four taverns, two service stations, a blacksmith shop, a post office, a creamery, a ballroom and four potato warehouses, Raphael Skibba says. In the 1960s, Custer featured three grocery stores, Mark Skibba says. One of them was owned and operated by his aunt.

Life was good back then, although money was tight, the elder Skibba says. “This town was so poor. When a crow flew from Stevens Point to Waupaca and stopped here, it had to carry a lunch,” he jokes. At age 16, Raphael Skibba said he used to haul potatoes into town and sell them. The price was 30 cents for 100 pounds.

Railroad tracks were laid in the town of Stockton in 1871, Rosholt writes, and the community of Custer must have began shortly after that. “Custer came along when the railroad came along,” the Raphael Skibba says. “People would ship their potatoes and cattle all over.”

The community also featured a passenger depot, which no longer exists, and a two-room school house for grades one through eight, which is now owned and operated by St. Mary’s for their religion classes.

But hauling potatoes wasn’t Raphael Skibba’s first job. At age 9, he started making moonshine, he says. He still remembers the recipe 67 years later and doesn’t mind reciting it, if given the opportunity. And at Custer’s Last Stand, he gets plenty of opportunity.