History
The Iowa County League was formed in 1927 by six small high schools in Iowa County: [1] Barneveld, Cobb, Highland, Linden, Rewey and Ridgeway. [2] Montfort joined the league in 1929, [3] bringing the roster to seven schools. In 1939, Livingston became members of the Iowa County League as its eighth member school. [4] It was around this time that the Iowa County League established a tradition of being the first in Wisconsin to start league play each season for basketball. [5] Membership was relatively stable over the conference's history, but rural school district consolidation began to have its effect on the conference in the 1950s. The first change was the consolidation of Rewey into Platteville's school district in 1951. [6] Hollandale moved over from the State Line League to replace them and maintain an eight-school circuit. [7] In 1959, Linden was consolidated into Cobb, [8] one year before they merged with Livingston and Montfort to form the new Iowa-Grant High School. [9] The larger high school left the conference and competed independently for one year before joining the Southwest Wisconsin Activities League in 1961. [10] Faced with a four-member conference for 1960, the Iowa County League merged with the Wisconsin River League, who were experiencing a similar loss of members. The two leagues joined forces to form the I-W League and continue interscholastic league competition. [11]
Football
In 1950, four members of the Iowa County League (Barneveld, Highland, Livingston and Montfort) formed the initial lineup for the Iowa County League's eight-player football conference, which represented the first of its kind in southern Wisconsin. [12] Blue River and Hollandale joined for the 1951 season; Hollandale as full members outside of football and Blue River as associate members while keeping their primary membership in the Wisconsin River League. [13] Muscoda joined as the football conference's seventh member in 1954 as an associate member from the Wisconsin River League, which did not sponsor football at the time. [14] In 1955, the league expanded to nine members for football, adding Black Earth from the Suburban Six-Man Football League and Lone Rock, who made their football debut that year. [15] The Wisconsin River League began sponsorship of its own eight-player football circuit in 1956, with three members of the Iowa County League (Blue River, Lone Rock and Muscoda) shifting over. [16] They were replaced by Cobb's new football program for that season to put the membership roster at seven schools. [17] In 1958, Arena made the transition from eleven-player to eight-player football and left the Tri-County League to become associate members in the Iowa County League. [18] As smaller schools began to consolidate, the Iowa County League lost members and only five schools (Arena, Barneveld, Black Earth, Highland and Hollandale) competed in its last football season in 1960.
