Bluffview Park

Bluffview County Park is located in the Bluffview Community within the Town of Sumpter. Bluffview County Park opened in October 2022 and is approximately 3.58 acres. The site is surrounded by the highly developed landscape of the Bluffview Community. This park contains space for walking, gathering, and an accessible playground. With few available outdoor recreation facilities within the Bluffview Community, the park gives residents improved outdoor opportunities.

Parking is available along East Road, behind the Citgo fuel station. There are no bathrooms available at this park and no entrance fee is required. There are picnic tables available and a scenic overlook of a small pond on the property.

The Bluffview Community’s history is rooted in the Badger Ordnance Works’ (BOW) legacy. Constructed in 1942, the BOW would become at the time the largest ammunition plant in the world. Requiring the clearing of hundreds of acres of farmland, the completed facility would contain over 1,400 buildings across more than 7,000 acres (US Army Joint Munitions Command, 2006, p. 5).

As BOW began ammunition production in World War II, the need for close worker housing became evident. As a result, the federal government constructed the Badger Village development directly across the road from the Badger Ordnance Works. This site would later become the Bluffview Community. Nearly deserted at the end of World War II, the Badger Village would become student housing for many at the University of Wisconsin Madison due to a massive influx of veteran students following the War (University of Wisconsin Madison Campus Voices, n.d.). Students would board buses to the Campus every morning and return in the evening. Students staying at the Badger Village had access to a community center, primary school, post office, shopping center, barber shop, drug store, town council, police force, and branch of the University of Wisconsin Madison Student Union (Verhoff, 1990, p. 10). Community events and celebrations were frequent among residents.

With the onset of the Korean War, the University of Wisconsin would cease all Badger Village student housing in 1952 (Verhoff, 1990, p.11). The federal government would reactivate military housing in 1953 after renovating the quarters for new Badger Ordnance Works employees (Mueller, 1982, p. 97). However, by the end of the Korean War, most of the housing in Badger Village would be abandoned. After being declared surplus property by the federal government in 1960, the property would soon be purchased by a private party (Verhoff, 1990, p. 11). Shortly after the purchase, the development’s name was changed to Bluffview in an effort to both reflect the bluffs characteristic of the area and remove the development’s association with the military (Mueller, 1982, p. 109).