Spooner is a city in Washburn County, Wisconsin, United States. The population was 2,573 at the 2020 census. The city is located mostly within the southwest corner of the Town of Spooner, with a little portion extending into the Town of Beaver Brook on the south, the Town of Bashaw on the southwest, and the Town of Evergreen upon the west. The city’s nickname, Crossroads of the North, is a hint to the city’s location at the junction of two U.S. highways, 53 and 63, and State Highways 70 and 253.

Originally a town in the year 1889, and thereafter officially incorporated a city in the year 1909, Spooner’s history is alongside interlaced taking into consideration that of railroad history. In the year 1879, the North Wisconsin Railway was constructed due north of the present-day city of Spooner. Following that, the operations of that railroad were moved south where it then associated the Chicago and Northwestern at what was after that coined as Chicago Junction.

The community, then initially forlorn a station, was named by the general executive for the Chicago and Northwestern, Edwin W. Winter, for John Coit Spooner (1843 – 1919), who at the epoch was a distinguished railroad attorney from what is now the city of Hudson in St. Croix County, northwestern Wisconsin. Spooner would superior serve in the Wisconsin State Assembly and represent Wisconsin in the United States Senate (1885-1891, 1897-1907). He was a skillfully favoured politician of his times and even served as advisors to U.S. Presidents Benjamin Harrison, William McKinley, and Theodore Roosevelt.

Eventually, the lines were absorbed by the Chicago & North Western Railroad. Passenger serve ended in the upfront 1960s under the CNW ownership. In 1992, the Wisconsin Great Northern Railroad was incorporated, to assist as a freight hauler from Spooner to Trego, a easily reached town, with a relationship to the CNW. Although the freight idea didn’t behave out, they began operating wealthy passenger expression trains in 1997 (following the example of the easy to use Duluth & Northern Minnesota Railroad which began passenger excursions in Duluth single-handedly a few years before), and were an instant success. The passenger trains were categorically successful, and after the 1995 takeover of the CNW by the Union Pacific, UP in 1998 announced intentions to step next to from the parentage from Hayward Junction where it associated to the Wisconsin Central 13 miles (21 km) to the north through Spooner all of the showing off down to Chippewa Falls. The company bought the allocation of the line between Spooner and Hayward Jct in 1999, which greatly expanded passenger operations. To this day they run utterly popular robbery, western style, cowboy, and buffet style as without difficulty as more formal dinner trains. More recently, the Great Pumpkin train nearly sold out and now runs annually approaching the epoch of Halloween. The antiquated CNW Spooner Railroad Depot now serves as the town’s Railroad Memories Museum.