Ellsworth is a village in and the county seat of Pierce County, Wisconsin, United States. The population was 3,348 at the 2020 census. The village was initially called Perry, in honor of the War of 1812 hero, Oliver Hazard Perry, but was renamed in 1866 in honor of Col. Elmer E. Ellsworth, the first Union officer to die in the Civil War. A close friend of Pres. Abraham Lincoln, Ellsworth died while removing a highly visible Confederate flag from the roof of a hotel overlooking the Potomac River in Alexandria, Virginia. The incident received national attention, and at least one other town, Ellsworth, Michigan, was named in his honor.
Downtown Ellsworth's location atop a steep hill is the result of an 1861 dispute between Pierce County's two major towns, Prescott and River Falls, over which should be county seat. The compromise reached was to draw lines on a map connecting the corners of the county, northwest to southeast and northeast to southwest. The intersection of these lines at a densely forested site at the top of a ridge determined the placement of the new town. A log building was hastily erected to serve as a courthouse, then replaced by a wood-frame structure about two years later. The current Pierce County Courthouse, built 1905, was designed by the noted St. Paul firm of Buechner & Orth. The structure exhibits characteristics of both the neoclassical and Beaux-Arts styles, topped by a large dome above a five-story hexagonal rotunda.
Geography
According to the United States Census Bureau, the village has a total area of , all land.
Ellsworth is located at (44.73261, -92.480177).
Ellsworth is along U.S. Highways 10 and 63, and Wisconsin Highways 65 and 72.