Tales of our Beginnings

Cadott • Cornell • Lake Holcombe areas

The little corner of the world, originally known as Cadotte Falls, was named after John Batiste Cadotte and the falls on the Yellow River. The original settlement was also sometimes identified as the “Sigel Settlement.” Ken Kenealy, one of the original founders of the Cadott Area Historical Society, wrote a comprehensive article about how the town was named. The Cadott Post Office appeared in the publication of the Cadott Centennial 1895-95. According to Kenealy’s research, Robert Marriner, first settler and first postmaster in Cadott, wanted the village name to be Sigel. That was the name originally written on the application to the United Postal Service in 1873, asking that a post office be established in the area. Prior to that, Cadott’s mail was delivered from Chippewa Falls and Drywood. The name Sigel, however, was crossed off the application and was replaced with the name Cadott. A note in the margin (in handwriting other than Marriner’s), read, “There are several Sigels in the state.” Kenealy also noted that “To this day, Cadott remains the only post office by this name in the United States. It is also the second oldest of the nine remaining post offices in Chippewa County.”

Again, according to Kenealy, the proposed location of the original post office included a fairly lengthy legal description. Plat maps of the time, along with Marriner’s geographical diagram, places the first post office on the flats of the Yellow River, approximately three quarters of a mile west of the current Main Street bridge. Courtesy of the Cadott Area Historical Society