If you drive roughly 15 miles north of Madison to DeForest, you’ll find a quintessential small Wisconsin town. Snowmobiles are allowed on side streets, signs promote church fish fries, lampposts display banners honoring local veterans, and one of its roads is named after a polka radio station.
The village of about 11,000 people sits in the shadow of Interstate 90. The residential streets quickly turn into country roads surrounded by rolling hills of farmland in nearby Vienna, an unincorporated, rural town of roughly 1,600 people.
“I would describe it as close-knit. Everybody knows each other,” said Shawn Haney, a longtime Vienna resident. “Even if somebody’s two or three miles away, we still call them a neighbor.”…