Basic Information
- Type of Place
- Independent City or Town
- Metro Area
- Politics c. 1860?
- Don’t Know
- Unions, Organized Labor?
- Don’t Know
Sundown Town Status
- Sundown Town in the Past?
- Probable
- Was there an ordinance?
- Don't Know
- Sign?
- Don’t Know
- Year of Greatest Interest
- Still Sundown?
- Probably Not, Although Still Very Few Black People
Census Information
| Total | White | Black | Asian | Native | Hispanic | Other | BHshld | |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| 1860 | ||||||||
| 1870 | ||||||||
| 1880 | ||||||||
| 1890 | 4222 | 8 | ||||||
| 1900 | 5128 | 1 | ||||||
| 1910 | 6758 | 2 | ||||||
| 1920 | 7992 | 2 | ||||||
| 1930 | 9867 | 1 | ||||||
| 1940 | 10356 | 1 | ||||||
| 1950 | 11867 | 6 | ||||||
| 1960 | 13118 | 1 | ||||||
| 1970 | 14265 | 2 | ||||||
| 1980 | 14149 | 10 | ||||||
| 1990 | 14196 | 19 | ||||||
| 2000 | 15169 | 66 | ||||||
| 2010 | 16214 | 226 | ||||||
| 2020 |
Method of Exclusion
- Unknown
Main Ethnic Group(s)
- Unknown
Group(s) Excluded
- Black
Comments
According to a local college student, a family with black children would stay a year or two, then leave.
Testimony of a resident: “As regards Beaver Dam as a sundown town: While the sign at the city limits features only the rather innocuous warning that the population does not yet exceed 15,000, there are some *very* interesting things about the way race is played out in Beaver Dam.
By your definition it is indeed a sundown town…here is the best documentation I have gotten of formal segregation, it is from a newsletter, “Wayland Greetings” Autumn, 1969, for Wayland Academy, from 1969. In 1969, Wayland Academy appointed a “Black Relations Committee” to “make a study of Wayland throughout this school year to determine the feasibility of admitting Negroes to Wayland” and to visit the town of Beaver Dam to determine problems which might face a Negro as he lives in this *presently nonintegrated community.* If at the end of this study they deem WaylandÆs environment to be receptive to blacks and if the administration is also in accord, then young people [of both sexes and varied backgrounds] of high school age from the Milwaukee area will be selected “to apply for admission.” I spoke to Eli Seighman the man who spearheaded this effort, and he said that Beaver Dam was certainly intentionally all white, in his words, “quite prejudiced” although he was pretty sure that this was going to be difficult to demonstrate, since “it is a silent history.” Joe Green is an alumnus who now works in the advancement office. I spoke with him about his experiences as one of the first African American students at Wayland. He told me several stories about the racism he encountered, and still encounters in Beaver Dam, but more to your purposes, he says that in the four years he was at Wayland, he was told that two black families lived in Beaver Dam, but that he never saw any black people, despite actively riding his bicycle around the town limits looking for them.
“Mr. Reed and Mr. Harris were asked to make a study of Wayland [Academy] throughout this school year to determine the feasibility of admitting Negroes to Wayland…. They plan to visit the town of BD to determine problems which might confront a Negro as he lives in this presently nonintegrated community. More important is their desire to have frank discussions with students, faculty, administrators, and parents to determine attitudes which are prevalent.”
Currently, there are 6000 African Americans living in Dodge County; between 3 and 4 thousand of them live in the Waupun supermax prison. The 2000 census data shows 0% African American population for Beaver Dam, but there are 66 African Americans living here at last count. source is : http://wi.profiles.iastate.edu/census/city/census.aspx?Table=race&CityFips=5900
[Jean Messinger, A Closer Look At Beaver Dam; Guide to Historic Architecture (Colorado Springs: Cottonwood Press, 1981), page unknown.]
“Doc Pitts was himself a unique presence in BD; he was the town’s only Black. Judge Silas Lamoreaux brought Doc Pitts with him when the Judge returned to BD from Washington, where he had served as President Cleveland’s General Land Commissioner. He employed Doc Pitts to take care of the Lamoreux horses. When Doc married, Judge Lamoreux gave him this house, around 1900. Doc Pitts was still seen around BD in the 1930s, a dapper dresser and regular church-goer.”