Throughout the latter half of the twentieth century, rail service began to decline.  Passenger rail service dropped off significantly, and freight declined, as well, owing to the ease of transporting goods by truck and airplane. The Chicago & North Western Railway that ran through downtown Denmark was once a bustling line with multiple passenger trains a day.

Very few airplanes, if any, ever make their way to Denmark. That changed in 1957 when Denmark was visited by a pilot traveling through the area.

After World War II, one-room school districts began a general decline as people increasingly moved from rural areas to villages and cities. Because the one-room school districts were falling well below capacity, a movement began to consolidate the thousands of small school districts throughout the state into larger, more efficient districts centered around the local high school.

In 1914, St. James Catholic Church and School in Cooperstown were destroyed by a fire. While several items from the church were able to be saved, the buildings were total losses. Despite the significant setback, the congregation resolved to rebuild.

In 1960, All Saints Parish hosted a regional Holy Name Rally bringing thousands of people to Denmark for an hour of prayer.

In 1916, Steve Siudzinski began operating the Langes Corners Cheese Factory, which later became known as Steve’s Cheese. As Steve’s business grew and modernized, a new and larger cheese plant became necessary.

In 1918, only three years after the Village of Denmark incorporated, the village constructed its first sewage treatment system. The initial system consisted of an Imhoff tank housed in a “barn-like structure hidden in the woods”. The Imhoff tank functioned much like a septic tank doing “little more than [removing] solids from the liquid sewage”.

During the 1950s, the Denmark School District worked on projecting their enrollment growth over the next several years to plan for the future. They realized that by 1960, the area would experience a lot of population growth which would translate into a 20-30 percent increase in the incoming freshman classes in the high school.

In 1979-1980, the village of Denmark constructed a brand new wastewater treatment plant that would be able to accommodate village growth for years to come.

In 1956, Our Savior’s Lutheran Church was in the early stages of the planning process for a new church building. Since Calvary and Trinity Lutheran Churches merged in 1951 to form Our Savior’s and consolidated operations in the Calvary building, the congregation realized the building was far too small to meet the needs of the newly-combined congregation.

In the mid-1950s, Our Savior’s Lutheran Church was in the midst of a building campaign to build a new church building. The building they were in at the time was far too small to meet the needs of the growing congregation.

The first Danish settlers, and the second settlers overall, in what would become the Town of New Denmark were Niels and Laurentine Gotfredsen. They were the pioneers of what would become one of the first large-scale Danish settlements in the United States. Because of this, the couple was referred to as the “King and Queen of Denmark”.

In the very early days of the New Denmark settlement, life was not easy. Without easy access to large towns or modern conveniences, the early immigrants had to make do with what they had.

Denmark State Bank was founded in 1909 to provide banking services to the growing community of Denmark. They completed their first permanent building in November 1909 on Main Street. 

In 1932, construction on the new All Saints Church was well under way. Plans had been drawn up in 1912 for a complete church for the new congregation, which had been founded the year prior, but due to a lack of funds, just the basement had been completed. The congregation worshiped in the basement church for 20 years before deciding to construct a complete church.