Town of Kelly Completes First Paved Road

KELLY, Wis. — The town of Kelly, Wisconsin, is turning over a new leaf this fall as people gather at the town hall to celebrate their first fully paved road.

The small town, with a population of just over four hundred residents, according to the 2020 census, was established in 1913. The town’s main road, Maple Ridge Road, was gravel until two years ago, when the town began paving the road, resulting in a fully paved road this fall.

“We applied for and received two separate grants through Wisconsin DOT for Maple Ridge Road. The first one was in 2023, we did about three and a half miles under the LRIP S program, local road improvement program, supplementary,” said Matt Erickson, town chairperson, Kelly. “In 2025, we were granted an ARIP grant, agricultural road improvement program.”

The $3 million project was largely funded by grants, reducing the town’s share to $500,000, slightly more than the towns $400,000 annual budget. Erickson says the borrowed amount will be repaid over the next 10 years, but it is a worthwhile investment for the town of Kelly.

“This, this road was built to a little higher standard with the agricultural roads. It’s built for farming and logging, specifically to target making the road built a little heavier,” said Erickson. “That just gives the farmers the opportunity to be able to come in here, especially in the springtime, and get into their fields and start working.”

The road runs between highway 112 and 63, serving as a main route with consistent traffic from farmers and loggers to residents and by-passers all year long. Paving the road will greatly benefit those who use it frequently, like the local farmers.

“Every minute you have a piece of equipment running, you know, big, heavy diesel equipment is not cheap to run, so being able to have a faster route, it’s hard to put a hard dollar amount on it, but I can say it’s, I mean, it’s 1000s of gallons of fuel a year right off the bat,” said Cole Vernon, farmer at White River Egg Products.