H Louis Dousman

Louis Dousman spent his early years in Prairie du Chien, Wisconsin, the city of his birth. In 1870, two years after the death of his father, Dousman used some of his inheritance to dismantle his father's House on the Mound and replace it with a larger and more modern home. The second House on the Mound was designed in the Italianate style by E. Townsend Mix, who also designed the Metropolitan Building in Minneapolis and the Kansas State Capitol in Topeka, Kansas. Louis Dousman did not stay in the home for long; in 1872 he married Nina Sturgis and the couple moved to St. Louis, Missouri, leaving the new house to be occupied by Louis' mother Jane Dousman.

In 1882, after the death of his mother, Louis and his wife returned to the House on the Mound in Prairie du Chien. Louis quickly formulated plans to convert his 25 acre (101,000 m²) estate on an island in the Mississippi River into a farm for the breeding of standardbred racing horses descended from Hambletonian 10. Dousman named the estate the Artesian Stock Farm because of the artesian wells on the property. By 1885, the yet uncompleted farm had gained a reputation as the best stock farm in the Midwest.

Tragedy struck the Dousman Family in 1886, when Louis died unexpectedly of appendicitis just thirteen days into the new year. He was just 38 years old. After Dousman's death, his wife Nina sold the horses and closed the Artesian Stock Farm. Nina Dousman and the couple's five children continued to reside at the House on the Mound, which Nina renamed the Villa Louis in honor of her late husband. Today, the Villa Louis is museum operated by the Wisconsin State Historical Society. It is designated as a National Historic Landmark.