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Wisconsin Highway 72

state highway in Pierce and Dunn counties in Wisconsin, United States

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General referenceInterpretive dossier study · Crown Archives visual atlas
Record originEnglish Wikipedia
Text licenseCC BY-SA 4.0
Source revisionDec 19, 2025
Entity authorityQ841455 ↗
Source-derived summary

State Trunk Highway 72 (often called Highway 72, STH-72 or WIS 72) is a 29.44-mile (47.38 km) state highway state highway in Pierce and Dunn counties in Wisconsin, United States. It runs in west central Wisconsin from US Highway 10 (US 10) and US 63 east of Ellsworth east to WIS 25 in Downsville. The road is maintained by the Wisconsin Department of Transportation (WisDOT).

Route description

WIS 72 begins at an intersection with US 10 and US 63 in the Town of Ellsworth in Pierce County, east of the village of the same name. From here, the highway heads east running concurrently with US 63. The roads pass through a rural area together until US 63 splits off to the north. WIS 72 continues eastward, intersecting County Trunk Highway DD (CTH-DD) before entering the Town of El Paso. After crossing the Rush River, the highway briefly follows the river's edge before continuing eastward. The road passes through the communities of Waverly and Rock Elm, then turns northeast toward Elmwood. In Elmwood, the highway intersects WIS 128 at that route's southern terminus, then turns east and leaves the village.

Editorial summary

This brief starts where responsible research should: with the source description of “Wisconsin Highway 72” as state highway in Pierce and Dunn counties in Wisconsin, United States. Everything that follows is an evidence route, not borrowed authority.

Editorial reviewA practical starting point whose main value is the path it opens into stronger specialist and primary sources. The current 189-word lead offers orientation but no explicit four-digit date, so chronology should not be assumed. The selected authority fields contribute no independent date. The account is most persuasive where Wisconsin, Highway and state can be independently traced.
Editorial analysis

Why this record matters

The subject matters to the general reference register because the source frames it as state highway in Pierce and Dunn counties in Wisconsin, United States. Its deeper value depends on whether names, dates, institutions and citations support that framing.

Evidence profile

Named sources, stable identifiers and responsible institutions provide the strongest route from overview to verifiable evidence. The source revision retrieved here is dated Dec 19, 2025. The linked authority identifier is Q841455. None of the 0 selected statements returned an explicit reference.

Critical limits

The absence of detail may reflect summary conventions rather than a lack of surviving documentation. The lead is largely declarative, so disagreement and counter-evidence require a deliberate search beyond the opening account. Authority statements aid reconciliation but still require their own references, qualifiers and ranks to be checked.

How to read it

Use the entry as an orientation point, then follow its citations and revision history. Names, dates and institutional relationships should be checked against the original record.

Best used for
  • Subject orientation
  • Search vocabulary
  • Locating named sources
Verify next

The closest primary source, responsible institution and strongest cited specialist reference.

Three-step research path

  1. Establish the record: confirm the title “Wisconsin Highway 72”, its source revision and the description used here.
  2. Expand the search: follow Wisconsin Highway 72 primary sources, Wisconsin Highway 72 archive and Wisconsin research across catalogues and specialist indexes.
  3. Test the account: compare the strongest cited source with the responsible institution’s current record and note any disagreement.

Questions for further research

  1. Which source most directly establishes the central claim about “Wisconsin Highway 72”?
  2. Which institution is responsible for the underlying evidence?
  3. Which cited source is closest to the event, object or claim?
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Source & attribution

This entry incorporates text from “Wisconsin Highway 72” on English Wikipedia. Contributors are listed in the page history. Text is available under the Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike 4.0 License. Selected authority identifiers and statements are retrieved from Wikidata under CC0; their references and qualifiers remain part of the verification path.