Erhart Mueller (pronounced Miller) was a farmer, local historian, and resident of the Sauk Prairie area of Wisconsin from his birth on August 25, 1911 until his death on July 2, 1992. In addition to farming, Mueller was the clerk of the Town of Sumpter for 37 years, and for six years he was the clerk of the Stone's Pocket School district.
For about the last twenty-five years of his life Mueller devoted himself to local history, an avocation which resulted in the publication of a series of books about Sumpter and its residents: Only in Sumpter, Also in Sumpter, Always in Sumpter, Badger Village and Bluffview Courts, Forever in Sumpter, The History of Stone's Pocket, The History of the Salem Church of Honey Creek, The Ochsner Story, and Tri-County Farmer's Co-op. This interest was one which Mueller gained from his mother, although Mueller developed his hobby to a much greater degree, eventually becoming the preeminent local historian-collector of his era in Wisconsin. Although he began collecting materials for a memory book while a high school student and clipped extensively about the Badger Ordnance Works during World War II, Mueller really did not begin his pursuit of local history until the Stone's Pocket School closed in 1962. Then, encouraged by his mother, he completed a history of the district. In 1969 he wrote a history of his church, the Salem Church of Honey Creek, for its 125th anniversary. During the mid-1970s Mueller fulfilled a lifelong dream by enrolling as a student at the University of Wisconsin-Baraboo but he soon decided instead to devote his retirement to collecting materials for his multi-volume history of Sumpter. The first of these volumes, Only in Sumpter, was published in 1977.
For his research Mueller searched public documents and old newspapers, conversed with many residents of the area, took extensive notes, and organized the results into scrapbooks, binders, and files that eventually filled most of his living quarters. He also assembled a substantial personal collection of publications and original papers and records.
