Town of Wheatland, WI

Wheatland is older than Kenosha County. Wikipedia's entry dates the town to May 7, 1842, when it was part of Racine County, and says it moved to Kenosha County on January 30, 1850. The name comes from the wheat the soil was said to grow well. The town's first constable was James B. Powers, the namesake of Powers Lake.

The town used to be twice its size. The Town of Randall's history page says Randall's boundaries were set in 1850 by splitting the Town of Wheatland in half, which is why Wheatland's south line is also Randall's north line, and why it crosses the very top of Powers Lake.

New Munster is the town's center. Wikipedia's New Munster entry says a post office has operated there since 1880, and the Census Bureau made New Munster a census-designated place before 2020, when it counted 286 people. The town hall, the volunteer fire station and New Munster Park are all there. The town's archive page shows a photo of downtown New Munster in 1912.

The town's own Lilly Lake page says serious development on Lilly Lake began in the 1930s, when summer cottages were built along the north shore, and that the lake is named for John Lilly, citing a 2001 Kenosha News article.

There are two Towns of Wheatland in Wisconsin, and search results mix them up constantly. This guide is the one in Kenosha County, with its town hall at 34315 Geneva Road in New Munster. The other is in Vernon County, near La Crosse, and its listings carry ZIP 54624. If a "Wheatland, WI" listing shows 54624, it is not this town.

Wheatland sits in the west-central part of Kenosha County. The town's May 2026 fire and EMS study describes Racine County to the north, Walworth County to the west, the Town of Randall to the south, and the Village of Salem Lakes and the Town of Brighton to the east. The Census Bureau's 2024 gazetteer gives the town 23.671 square miles of land and 0.388 square miles of water. The Department of Revenue counted 3,377 people for 2025, against 3,391 in the 2020 census.

Highway 50 cuts the town in half from west to east. The study cites state traffic counts of about 15,000 to more than 25,000 vehicles a day on the corridor in and near Wheatland. That road is the line between the town's two halves: Lilly Lake, New Munster and the Fox River on one side, and farms, the sand and gravel operation and the Racine County line on the other.

Listings I opened on October 5, 2026 used Burlington 53105 and Salem 53168 mailing addresses, and New Munster has its own ZIP, 53152. The town site moved to wheatlandkenoshaco.gov in 2026, and the old townwheatland.com site says it is no longer updated.

Wheatland is mostly farmland, and its houses cluster in a handful of places. The fire and EMS study puts the main residential areas around Lilly Lake, along the Fox River corridor and in New Munster, with country homes, subdivisions and farms elsewhere.

New Munster is the civic center along Geneva Road (County Highway W), with the town hall, the fire station, New Munster Park and an older grid of houses. The 2020-2024 American Community Survey puts the New Munster place's median home in 1947, though with only about 181 homes the margins are wide.

Lilly Lake is the town's lake neighborhood on the east side. The Census Bureau's Lily Lake place had 508 people in 2020 and, in the 2020-2024 survey, about 266 homes, all detached, roughly 71 of them seasonal. The study notes that some Lilly Lake and Fox River streets are narrow, with limited turnaround space and closely spaced homes.

The Fox River corridor runs north to south through the east side of town. It has riverfront houses, and the town's April 2026 flood notice names Riverside Drive and Shorewood Drive as streets where water reaches some homes in moderate floods. I cover that in the flood section.

The countryside fills in the rest: farms, wooded parcels, newer houses on two to five acres, and farmettes. A listing I opened on October 5, 2026 placed a 16.77-acre farmette in Cranberry Knolls, and another placed a 2017 ranch on 1.7 acres in an R-2-zoned cul-de-sac off 44th Street. The southwest corner reaches the north tip of Powers Lake, covered in my Powers Lake guide.

Wheatland's housing is older than Randall's and more varied. The 2020-2024 American Community Survey counts 1,429 housing units in the town (plus or minus 198): 1,271 detached houses, 77 attached units, 27 units in three- and four-unit buildings and 54 mobile homes. Of 1,242 occupied homes, 997, about 80%, are owner-occupied, and the median gross rent is $1,399. About 117 homes (plus or minus 90) are held for seasonal use, most of them likely on Lilly Lake.

The median Wheatland home was built in 1971. About 292 homes, about 20% of the stock, date to before 1940, and another 192 to the 1940s, so roughly a third of the town is more than 75 years old. Newer building is steadier than dramatic: about 219 homes from the 1990s, 156 from the 2000s and 64 from the 2010s.

The ACS puts the median owner value at $384,600 (plus or minus $42,463), well above Kenosha County's $265,500. It estimates about 233 owner-occupied homes between $500,000 and $1 million, and only a handful above that.

The Department of Revenue's 2025 equalized values show a town that looks like farmland but taxes like a residential one: $553.0 million of Wheatland's $611.2 million in real estate is residential, about 90%. Agricultural-class land is only $2.6 million of value, which is consistent with Wisconsin valuing farmland for its farm use rather than its market price; that is my reading of the numbers, and it is one reason a farmette's tax bill can look low.

Each type has its own inspection list. An old farmhouse brings foundations, wiring and outbuildings. A Lilly Lake cottage brings winterization and additions. A 1990s house on acreage brings roofs, mechanicals and the well and septic.

Lilly Lake is Wheatland's lake. The Wisconsin DNR lists it at 85 acres with a maximum depth of 22 feet, a public boat landing and water clarity it rates "very clear." The town's Lilly Lake page answers the spelling question: the formal name is Lilly Lake, signs use both, and the property owners' association chose "Lily."

The town runs the launch. Its boat launch page lists a $13 daily fee and a $45 seasonal fee. The lake page sums up the rules: no motorboating above wake speed before 10 a.m. or after 8 p.m. or sunset, whichever comes first, counterclockwise travel, no food, drinks or dogs on the beach, and a 25 mph limit on the lake roads.

Lilly Lake has its own government. The Lilly Lake Protection and Rehabilitation District's records on the town's lake districts page go back to its organizational meeting on October 29, 1974. The district runs a multi-year program against Eurasian water milfoil and curly-leaf pondweed, built an outlet control project in 2020 for high water, and posts weekly beach testing; the 2026 results run from May 18 through August 31. The town page says the DNR stocked northern pike in 2006 and 2016, and the lake was restocked with pike in 2025.

Dyer Lake, in the north part of town, is the other named lake. The DNR lists it at 61 acres and 13 feet deep.

Powers Lake barely touches the town. When I overlaid OpenStreetMap boundaries on October 5, 2026, the Wheatland-Randall line ran across the lake's northern tip, with nearly all of the water in Randall and Bloomfield. Wheatland still has a stake: the District of Powers Lake lists 16% of its "lake distribution" in Wheatland, and part of the Powers Lake Census place is in the town. The lake itself is in my Powers Lake guide.

On any of these lakes, state shoreland rules apply. NR 115.05 sets a 75-foot building setback from the ordinary high-water mark, and Wheatland's zoning, including shoreland zoning, is the Kenosha County ordinance. For a new pier, the DNR's Pier Planner allows a pier up to 6 feet wide, a loading platform up to 200 square feet and two boat slips for the first 50 feet of shoreline, with piers placed by April 2012 grandfathered.

The Fox River is the one water feature in Wheatland I would treat as a risk first and an amenity second. The town posted county flood updates in April 2026 on its news page. The National Water Prediction Service forecast the river near New Munster to crest at 14.30 feet, later revised to 13.60 feet on April 18, 2026, a moderate flood stage. The National Weather Service flood warning quoted there says that at 13.5 feet "floodwaters are into the lower levels of some homes in the Town of Wheatland and Village of Salem Lakes areas along Riverside Drive and Shorewood Drive."

The same update said county planning staff expected first-floor flooding in some homes if the river reached about 14 feet, with inspections and, where needed, substantial damage assessments under the National Flood Insurance Program. Highway staff reported erosion along County Highway W near the river. Highway 50 near County W had been raised about 2.5 feet in recent improvements, and the county expected possible impacts to it only above about 16 to 16.5 feet. Afterward the town relayed Red Cross offers of cleaning kits.

For a buyer, a "substantial damage" finding matters. Under NFIP rules it can require a damaged house to be brought up to current floodplain standards before it is repaired, which can mean elevating it. On any river-corridor house I'd want the FEMA flood zone, the elevation certificate if one exists, the flood insurance quote and the seller's disclosure of past water, all before the offer, not after.

Lilly Lake has had the opposite problem at times: high water. The lake district's 2020 outlet control project was built for it, and the town posts lake level records.

Zillow's home value index publishes a Wheatland series for this town (it is mapped to the Chicago metro and Kenosha County). In August 2026 the typical Wheatland home was worth $451,602, up 6.8% from a year earlier and 11.8% over two years. Zillow's August 2026 figures for the neighbors were $479,620 for the Town of Randall, $376,468 for Salem, $634,770 for the Town of Brighton and $337,519 for Kenosha County as a whole. Lake County, Illinois was $399,526.

Wheatland is not a luxury lake market, and I'd rather say that plainly. Its upper tier is acreage and newer houses. On October 5, 2026, Movoto's Wheatland page, filtered to the Kenosha County town, showed a 2017 five-bedroom ranch of 4,528 square feet on 1.7 acres off 44th Street listed at $1,665,000, the 16.77-acre Cranberry Knolls farmette with a farmhouse built around 1900 at $1,195,000, and a 1996 four-bedroom on 3.16 acres on 376th Avenue pending at $879,900.

Below that, the same page showed a 1921 house on 2.33 acres on Geneva Road pending at $339,900, two small 1950s houses on 71st Street at $79,900 and $209,900 (pending), and a 1940 two-bedroom on 336th Avenue pending at $195,000. Vacant land ranged from $215,000 for 2.45 acres on 60th Street to $274,900 for 5.02 acres on Geneva Road and $349,000 for 7.8 acres on 59th Street.

Redfin doesn't publish a Wheatland town series. Its public data for the Lily Lake Census place shows 9 sales in the 12 months through May 2026, with monthly medians from $185,000 to $435,000. New Munster had one recorded sale in that window, at $550,000 in December 2025. With that few sales, I price a Wheatland house from its own comparable sales: lake cottage against lake cottage, acreage against acreage. My guide to how much house you can afford in 2026 is a good place to start on the numbers.

Wisconsin taxes run on assessed value times a mill rate. In Wheatland the assessment side is simple for now: the Department of Revenue's 2025 report puts the town's assessment level at 1.00, so assessed values sit at full market value on average. The DOR's major class comparison had residential assessments at 92.9% of the state's value in 2024. The town's December 2025 tax insert names Associated Appraisal Consultants as its contract assessor.

The rate depends on the high school district. All of Wheatland is in the Wheatland J1 K-8 district, but the DOR's apportionment puts about $486.5 million of the town's value in the Central-Westosha union high school district and about $124.7 million in Wilmot's. Kenosha County's own rate sheet sits behind a site block I couldn't get past, so I worked from the DOR's apportioned levies. My arithmetic puts the 2025 net rate at about $10.69 per $1,000 of assessed value on the Westosha Central side and $11.25 on the Wilmot side, after the school levy credit. The DOR's town-wide figures are 1.245% gross and 1.082% effective.

A worked example. A $450,000 primary residence on the Westosha Central side, assessed at the 1.00 level, would carry a 2025 net bill of about $4,811. The lottery and gaming credit, a $27,000 credit value times the school tax rate, comes to roughly $196 by my estimate, for a net near $4,615, or about 1.03% of value. A second home gets no lottery credit.

Listing tax lines show how much the assessment matters. The 44th Street ranch listed at $1,665,000 shows a 2025 tax of $9,914, and the 16.77-acre farmette at $1,195,000 shows $4,078, so the tax line reflects the assessment and classification of the parcel, not the asking price. Wisconsin's real estate transfer fee is $0.30 per $100 of value.

Paying is split. The insert says the full bill or first installment is due to the town by January 31, and later payments go to the Kenosha County Treasurer, with the second installment due July 31. This is general information, not tax advice; your bill depends on the parcel, its high school district, its classification and your credits.

I found no public water or sewer utility on the Town of Wheatland's website, and its quick links point to DNR well grant information. For a Wheatland house, I'd plan on a private well and septic system unless the seller documents otherwise, then write a well water test and a septic inspection into the inspection period and ask for the septic permit and pumping records. On Lilly Lake lots and river lots, the distance from the system to the water and its age matter most.

Zoning in Wheatland is Kenosha County's. The town's site points to Chapter 12 of the county code, the Kenosha County Zoning and Shoreland Zoning Ordinance (updated April 3, 2019), administered by the county's Division of Planning and Development at the Kenosha County Center in Bristol. The town keeps a comprehensive land plan map, current as of September 1, 2022, and its own building inspector for permits.

Fire service comes from the Town of Wheatland Volunteer Fire Department at 34011 Geneva Road; the town's history page says the department was organized in 1942. The May 2026 fire and EMS study says Wheatland, Randall and Twin Lakes all contract with Twin Lakes Volunteer Fire and Rescue for ambulance service. Because the study describes these as rural districts without hydrants, I'd get a homeowner's insurance quote early on any Wheatland house, especially one far from the station.

Wheatland follows the Wisconsin pattern of a K-8 district feeding a union high school, with a twist: one K-8 district feeds two high schools.

Every Wheatland address is in Wheatland J1, which runs Wheatland Center Elementary, a K4-8 school at 6606 368th Avenue per the federal school directory. The district also serves small parts of Brighton, Randall and Salem Lakes.

For high school, most of the town by value goes to Westosha Central High School, at 24617 75th Street in Salem." The rest goes to Wilmot High School, at 11112 308th Avenue in Wilmot." The town's schools page lists all three.

By the DOR's 2025 apportionment, about 80% of Wheatland's value is in the Central-Westosha district and about 20% in Wilmot's. I don't have a map of the line. Listing pages I opened on October 5, 2026 showed Central for the 44th Street, 376th Avenue and Cranberry Knolls listings. The high school also sets about $0.55 per $1,000 of the tax rate, so I'd confirm it on the tax bill and with the district before an offer.

Highway 50 is Wheatland's road out: west to Lake Geneva, east to Interstate 94 and Kenosha. County highways run north to Burlington and south through Randall toward Illinois.

I ran free-flow routes on the OSRM routing engine, which uses OpenStreetMap roads and no traffic, from New Munster on October 5, 2026. Treat these as best-case estimates.

From New Munster, Vernon Hills is about 34 road miles and 55 minutes. Downtown Chicago is about 68 miles and 90 minutes. O'Hare is about 63 miles, and the router gave 101 minutes, which looks long against the Loop time. Downtown Milwaukee is about 42 miles and 64 minutes, closer than it is from Randall. Interstate 94 at Highway 50 is about 14 miles and 22 minutes. Burlington, Wisconsin is about 8 miles and 13 minutes, and Lake Geneva about 12 miles and 20 minutes.

From Lilly Lake the numbers are nearly the same: about 33 miles and 55 minutes to Vernon Hills, 48 miles and 64 minutes to downtown Milwaukee.

Coming from Lake County, Illinois, the thing buyers notice is that Wheatland sits between two metros. It is the one town in this corner of Kenosha County where Milwaukee is about as reachable as the Illinois suburbs. The trade is Highway 50 itself, which the town's fire study says generates a substantial share of fire and EMS calls, citing high volumes and intersections without signals.

Wheatland has no passenger rail. Wikipedia notes that the former Wisconsin Central main line, now Canadian National, runs through the town and once had a station, but it carries freight. The practical options are Metra, and I counted trains in Metra's GTFS schedule data for service in effect through October 4, 2026.

Antioch, on the North Central Service line, is about 13 road miles and 19 minutes from New Munster by the same free-flow router. It has 7 weekday trains each way, with morning rides to Union Station of 92 to 103 minutes, and no weekend service.

Kenosha, at the north end of the Union Pacific North line, is about 22 miles and 36 minutes from New Munster. It has 10 weekday trains to Ogilvie and 9 back, with rides of 92 to 102 minutes, and 8 each way on weekends.

Fox Lake, the end of the Milwaukee District North line, is about 16 miles and 27 minutes away, with 16 weekday trains each way, morning rides of 88 to 102 minutes, and 9 each way on Saturdays and Sundays.

From Wheatland, a train commute to the Loop runs about two hours door to door. Antioch is the shortest drive, Kenosha the one with weekend service on the same line, and Fox Lake the most trains.

Wheatland's biggest amenity is open land. The town's fire and EMS study describes the New Munster Wildlife Area, which it says people commonly call New Munster Marsh, as a DNR property of about 1,226 acres of marsh, wetlands, creeks, woodland, grassland and fields, used for hiking, hunting, fishing, canoeing and wildlife viewing. It lies east of Lilly Lake toward the Fox River.

Lilly Lake has the town launch and a public beach with weekly testing, and the Fox River offers paddling when it is at normal levels. New Munster Park sits in the town center, and an OpenStreetMap extract I pulled on October 5, 2026 shows Kenosha County Veterans Memorial Park on the town's south line with Randall, with a boat ramp on Freedom Lake.

Errands run out of town. Burlington is about 13 minutes north of New Munster by the free-flow router, Lake Geneva about 20 minutes west, and Highway 50 runs east into Salem Lakes and Paddock Lake. The town's shopping and dining page has no listings yet.

The biggest open question in Wheatland is a battery storage plant. The town's Robin Energy Battery Storage page tells the local story. After a four-hour public hearing on January 13, 2026, the town Plan Commission gave the project an unfavorable recommendation, and on January 14, 2026 the developer sent a letter withdrawing its local applications. In April 2026 the town board approved a letter to the state Public Service Commission. The page's October 1, 2026 update links the developer's state filing.

That filing changes the venue. Robin Energy Storage LLC's application to the Public Service Commission, docket 9842-CE-100, received September 30, 2026, describes a 200-megawatt, four-hour battery system (800 megawatt-hours) on a 59.6-acre private parcel at the northeast corner of Highway 50 and 392nd Avenue, with a footprint of about 18.5 acres behind a 7-foot fence or sound wall. Its schedule targets an in-service date in the second quarter of 2029. The developer's 2025 open house FAQ says the site was chosen because it sits next to the existing Balsam substation.

For a buyer near Highway 50 and 392nd Avenue, that is a live item to follow in the PSC docket. I'd read the filing's site maps before buying anywhere within sight or sound of the parcel.

The second item is fire and EMS. The May 2026 Public Administration Associates study recommends that Wheatland, Randall and Twin Lakes form a joint fire and EMS department with two stations and partly career staffing, and the town's May 13, 2026 news post records the meeting where it was presented. Nothing is adopted yet.

Beyond those, the study expects slow and steady residential growth rather than large-scale development, and it notes a large sand and gravel operation on the north side of town as the main industrial use.

The Town of Wheatland doesn't list a police department of its own. It has a municipal town constable who enforces town ordinances and a municipal court, and fire service comes from the Town of Wheatland Volunteer Fire Department. Law enforcement in unincorporated Kenosha County towns comes from the Kenosha County Sheriff's Department. I don't characterize any town or neighborhood. Anyone who wants the data can ask the Sheriff's Department or look up any agency on the FBI's Crime Data Explorer.

Lilly Lake gives you a town-run lake with its own district and rules. The countryside gives you acreage at prices well below comparable Lake County land.

The trade-offs are specific. The Fox River corridor floods, and in April 2026 water reached homes on Riverside and Shorewood drives. A 200-megawatt battery project is before the state for a site on Highway 50. High school assignment splits the town between Westosha Central and Wilmot. Expect wells and septic, county zoning, volunteer fire service under review, and errands in Burlington, Salem Lakes or Lake Geneva.

The one thing I would never skip here is pulling the tax bill, the flood zone and the high school district for the exact parcel before anyone falls for a view.