Peter Faenger and a group of German settlers first occupied the area in 1836. One of the first buildings erected by the early settlers was a church served by a priest from Green Bay. According to the few extant memoirs from the time, "the farm houses were made of hewn logs, chinked with mud, roofed with hand split shingles, floored with rough planks, and gathered in small groups, along the highway." In 1859, a petition "good and sufficient" was presented to the Brown County Board asking that a town be set off from the town of Green Bay, and that the town be called the Town of Preble. Thus, on the morning of July 13, 1859, the County Board ordered that the new town be established.
