East Troy
Jacob Burgit and Austin McCracken laid out their village in 1847, on each side of the territorial road from Milwaukee to Janesville, making Main
street of that part of the highway lying within village limits. Running from its eastern beginning nearly southwest by westerly (making an angle of
58½° with the meridian line), this street makes an angle of 157° at its Church street crossing and leaves the western limit at an angle of 8½°
with an east and west line. This one irregularity lends a slightly metropolitan aspect to the village plat, the other streets lying in the direction of section
lines. The site was well chosen, affording short drainage lines, and the soil permitting dry cellars of any desired depth. Lots were sold on easiest
terms to buyers, and as there were already a few dwellings and stores, the village had a healthy and hopeful infancy.
In the first period of railway building one line from the lake to the river parsed by ten miles northward and another about as far southward, and the Milwaukee & Beloit Company, in 1857, brought but delusive hope to villagers.
Several years later a line from Chicago crossed the township five miles eastward, and the branch line from Elkhorn to Eagle is nearly as far westward.
East Troy for more than forty years lay in a rail-less area. The village worked, hoped, waited, and respected itself, and at last rejoined the long
lost world in 1907 by way of an electric line to Milwaukee. In spite of this long want of railway connection the village was always fair in the
eyes of visitors, and its quickened prosperity has added something to its earlier attractions.