(Taken from New London Buyers' Guide/Hortonville Centennial, August 16, 1994. Posted with permission from the Press-Star, New London/Hortonville, Wisconsin.)

Perhaps Hortonville's most famous citizen was Gerald Nye.

He was a former editor of the Hortonville Review who became a leading opponent of America's entry into World War II as a Republican senator from North Dakota.

Nye was born in 1892 in Hortonville but his family moved to Wittenberg when he was two.

He became editor of the Hortonville Weekly Review when he was 19 and stayed until 1913.

After leaving Hortonville he lived a short time in Iowa and then moved to North Dakota where he edited a country newspaper in Coopertown.

He was appointed to his first Senate seat in 1925 and gained fame as chairman of the Public Lands committee which investigated the Teapot Dome scandal.

As an isolationist he urged President Franklin Roosevelt to seek a negotiated peace in Europe before Japan's attack on Pearl Harbor.

After the attack, Nye voted to declare war with the rest of the Senate but said Roosevelt was responsible for maneuvering the country into conflict.

In 1944, Nye was defeated for re-election and failed to win renomination in 1946.

Later he formed Records Engineering Inc. and served as a Federal Housing Administration specialist on housing for the elderly.

He died in 1971 after undergoing surgery for vascular difficulties.