----Source: 1918 History of Clark County, Wisconsin

LOUIS NICKEL, a successful farrner and respected citizen of Fremont Township, was born on a farm near Milwaukee, Wis., Sept. 9, 1861, son of Daniel and Kate (Hamme) Nickel. The parents were born in Germany, but married in Wisconsin, Daniel Nickel coming to the United States in 1851, by sailing vessel, being six weeks on the ocean.

After their marriage Daniel followed farm work, taking a tract of land, which he cleared from the timber, he and his wife residing in A log cabin. Their farm was located in Milwaukee County, near Wauwatosa, and there they spent the rest of their lives, bringing up a family of nine children, of whom Louis was the fourth in order of birth. He was educated in the district school, growing to manhood on the farm. For awhile he followed various occupations, carpenter work included. He then located in Wauwatosa, where he was fireman for four years at the county poor farm, afterwards serving as engineer there for eleven years. At the end of that time, or in 1895, he came to Clark County, reaching here April 26. Here he bought eighty acres of land in Section 31, Fremont Township, it being mostly covered with stumps. There was, however, a house and barn on it, which saved him the trouble of building. Later Mr. Nickel bought forty acres more of wild land, and still later another tract of eighty acres across the road in the same section, the latter being covered with stumps. All this land he has so improved that his farm now shows smiling and fruitful fields where it once presented to the eye unsightly stumps. He raises a good grade of stock and is doing a prosperous business in general agriculture. He is a member of the co-operative elevator company at Chili, the Farmers' Co-operative Company at Neillsville, and of the Wausau Packing Plant. Mr. Nickel was married to Mary Kagler, of Waterloo, Wis. He and his wife have four children. Delma, Daniel, Raymond and Eleanor.