At the time of its founding, Rock Springs was known as Ableman, after Stephen Van Rensselaer Ableman,[REF] who settled there in 1851 [REF].
Surrounded by cliffs of Baraboo Quartzite, the village is two miles south of a notable rock formation located in Ableman Gorge, Van Hise Rock, which was used to explain the processes of structural geology by University of Wisconsin-Madison professor Charles R. Van Hise.