Cataract Wisconsin Map

About Cataract, Wisconsin

Cataract is a locality in Monroe County, Wisconsin, United States. It is a small community with a population of 220. The population density is 143.0 people per km². Cataract is located at 44.0877°N, 90.8424°W. It observes the Central Time (America/Chicago) timezone. ZIP codes: 54656, 54620.

Cataract emerges from the low-slung, unglaciated folds of the land where the earth seems to hold its breath in the quietude of the Welsh Valley. It lies 9.4 miles northwest of Fort McCoy, WI (from Fort McCoy, WI: bearing 305°T), and is situated 10.0 miles north of Sparta. Rathbone Creek carves a narrow, persistent path through the terrain, its waters moving with a deliberate, muddy sincerity that defines the floor of the valley. To the west, the distant, hazy spine of Putnam Ridge rises like a sleeper’s shoulder against the horizon, anchoring a landscape that otherwise dissolves into soft, cultivated slopes and dense pockets of timber. The light here at dusk possesses a peculiar, amber weight, catching the silt in the creek and turning the surrounding fields into a bruised violet, as if the soil itself were absorbing the day's long, slow heat.

Cataract maintains a stillness born of deep-rooted agricultural patterns and the steady, unsung labor of those who work the surrounding dairy country. Life moves in alignment with the Big Creek Fishery Area, which marks the local topography with a quiet focus on the preservation of the wild, untouched corners that remain between the farmsteads. While the memory of the mills and the early settlers lingers in the names etched into old property boundaries, the modern pulse of the place is found in the communal tables of local supper clubs, where the ritual of the Friday fish fry remains a stubborn, necessary tradition. Though the roar of Polly Falls lies miles away, the persistent trickle of water remains the constant, rhythmic heartbeat of this corner of the state, grounding the people of Cataract in a geography that demands little but offers a profound, unspoken stability.

About This Cataract Map Page

This page provides an embedded street and satellite map of Cataract, Wisconsin. Coordinates: 44.087741, -90.842359. Live weather conditions are sourced directly from the National Weather Service. Real-time local and world news feeds keep the page current.

Detailed location data for Cataract includes the ZIP code (54656, 54620), telephone area code (715), county seat of Monroe County (Sparta), and school district assignment (Sparta Area School District).

Location data is drawn from the USGS Geographic Names Information System (GNIS) and cross-verified against 2020 US Census records by coordinate proximity. Population figures are sourced from the 2020 US Census.