MONROE - After two years and many hours of reading and typing, Matt Figi has completed an extensive history of Monroe during the 1850s, titled "Becoming a Village: Monroe, Wisconsin in the 1850s." Figi acquired in-depth information about Monroe during the 1850s by reading the Monroe Sentinel newspapers at the Monroe Public Library and by traveling to the State Historical Society library in Madison several times to read the 1860 census records of Monroe. He started this project shortly after the "Pictorial History of Monroe, Wisconsin" book was released in 2006.This project, planned as a sesquicentennial project, would have been available earlier in the year if Figi had not had two injuries to his right arm.