In 1850, a group of Norwegian settlers from Koshkonong, the foremost Norwegian settlement colony in the United States at the time, left their southern Wisconsin home and migrated north, settling here in "Roch-a-Cree" or Roche-a-Cri. Imbued with . . . — — Map (db m36123) HM
This prominent butte, perhaps the steepest hill in Wisconsin, was called La Roche-a-Cri by 17th and 18th century French voyageurs. Rising 300 feet above the surrounding plain, this landmark undoubtedly guided Indians and early pioneers. Indians of . . . — — Map (db m19822) HM
William Daniel Leahy was born in Iowa in 1875 and his family soon moved to Wisconsin. He graduated from Ashland High School in 1892 and for the rest of his life considered Ashland his home town.
Leahy graduated from the Naval Academy and served . . . — — Map (db m204096) HM
North Wisconsin Academy, founded in 1892 by the Congregational Churches, provided the first high school education available to young people of the small, isolated lumber camp, sawmill and farm communities in the area known as the Great Lakes Pinery, . . . — — Map (db m209668) HM
A crude structure of boughs of trees “layed acrosse, one upon an other” was erected near here by Pierre Radisson and Medart Groseilliers in 1659. The two French traders came to Chequamegon Bay from Montreal and Radisson's account of . . . — — Map (db m48410) HM
You are now on the great divide which separates the two principal drainage areas of Wisconsin. Water falling to the north of this point finds its way into Lake Superior, then down through the Great Lakes and the St. Lawrence River 2,000 miles into . . . — — Map (db m47222) HM
The largest of the Apostle Islands was one of the earliest areas of Indian settlement, fur trade, missionary activity and commercial fishing in the interior of North America. It was discovered by French explorers in 1659. Trading posts were built . . . — — Map (db m234580) HM
Vast forests of virgin white pine were the treasure which brought the first wave of white settlers to Northern Wisconsin. The farms came later, but for half a century the forests were local history.
In 1847, the Knapp, Stout & Co. purchased . . . — — Map (db m45069) HM
The congregation for this church traces its roots back to 1870 when people first held services in their homes in what was originally called Stanfold. This community later became Dobie. Their first Catholic church was built in 1876 but was destroyed . . . — — Map (db m45151) HM
The Tuscobia State Trail represents the history of the railroad in the development of northern Wisconsin. The route was first conceived as a rail line in 1899, but construction did not end until 1914. The Chicago and North Western Railroad ran on . . . — — Map (db m199897) HM
Listed on the National Register of Historic Places
In the waters off Outer Island lies the wreck of the Pretoria, one of the largest wooden vessels ever to sail the Great lakes. On September 1, 1905, Captain Charles Smart and nine crew . . . — — Map (db m98244) HM
Once upon a time, according to an old Indian legend, the sand beach on the east side of this bay was a favorite camping ground. One spring a few lodges of Chippewa from La Pointe encamped here. When their chief, Bi-aus-wah, returned from the hunt, . . . — — Map (db m194929) HM
When the community sought funding for a new gymnasium and town hall, they looked to the Work Progress Administration, a depression-era program, which utilized local materials and labor to create jobs for unemployed workers. Architect Roland C. Buck . . . — — Map (db m36553) HM
As the 20th century began, logging operations were in full swing in this area and the small log schoolhouses could not handle the increasing number of students. Some classes were held in churches but additional facilities were needed.
T.N. . . . — — Map (db m30845) HM
To the east is Madeline Island, known to the Ojibway as Moning-wunakauning, “The Home of the Golden Breasted Woodpecker.” The French soldier Pierre le Sueur built his post there in 1693. In 1718 a fort was erected which remained France’s principal . . . — — Map (db m208926) HM
This park, built to portray and preserve Wisconsin's beginnings, is located on a site that is itself a part of history. On this 40-acre site stood Camp Smith--a temporary location of Fort Howard--part of the pioneer settlement known as Shantytown, . . . — — Map (db m240687) HM
This house of wattled construction is the oldest standing house, in Wisconsin, built in 1776 by fur-trader Joseph Roi, one of the first seven settlers of La Baye (Green Bay).
It was sold in 1805 to Jacques Porlier, another French-Canadian . . . — — Map (db m240688) HM
Here in June, 1673, an expedition headed by Jesuit priest Jacques Marquette and his companion Louis Jolliet departed from St. Francis Xavier Mission to find and explore the upper Mississippi River. In September they returned here to record their . . . — — Map (db m151961) HM
The rapids at De Pere were well known to all early travelers along the Fox and Wisconsin rivers, which provided the best access to the Mississippi. Despite Indian domination, the waterway served explorers, fur traders and voyageurs, missionaries, . . . — — Map (db m11053) HM
This building was erected in 1836 to serve as the office of the Fox River Hydraulic Company, which was chartered by Wisconsin's first Territorial Legislature to construct a dam at Rapides des Peres. Following the 1837 financial crisis, notes issued . . . — — Map (db m10887) HM
In 1848, immigrants from Langeland, Denmark, seeking economic opportunity and plentiful farmland, settled in this vicinity. The Danes purchased land here and called their early settlement "Copenhagen," later changed to Denmark. In subsequent years, . . . — — Map (db m222658) HM
Upon this site stood Cnesses Israel Synagogue, the first Jewish congregation in Brown County dedicated September 4, 1904 (24 Elul 5664). Designed by local architect Henry A. Foeller, the synagogue was Moorish in design and had two octagonal towers . . . — — Map (db m51362) HM
The Green Bay Packers, an institution and a legend, are unique.
The only publicly-owned club in professional sports, they were founded as a town team in 1919 by E. L. "Curly" Lambeau, who coached them to six world championships. They acquired . . . — — Map (db m37200) HM
On this site Morgan L. Martin (1805-87) built this home in 1837, after his marriage to Elizabeth Smith of Plattsburgh, N.Y. It was a center of social, literary and political accomplishment for nearly a century. Coming here in 1827 as a young . . . — — Map (db m37202) HM
In 1829, citizens of the Green Bay area petitioned Congress to build a road to Chicago. Following an ancient Indian trail, the military road to connect Fort Howard at Green Bay with Fort Dearborn at Chicago was surveyed by the U.S. War Department . . . — — Map (db m68166) HM
Many of the explorers who followed Columbus were more interested in finding an easy route to Asia than they were in exploring and settling this continent. In 1634 Jean Nicolet, emissary of Gov. Samuel de Champlain of New France, landed at Red Banks . . . — — Map (db m22457) HM
This site is part of a 4800-acre tract patented to Eleazer Williams by the United States. In 1882 Williams led a delegation of New York Indians to the Fox River Valley, hoping to set up an Indian Empire in the West. A year later he married the . . . — — Map (db m57219) HM
James Powlis, whose Oneida name Tewakatelyλ·thale! means "I'm Worried", was born around 1750, probably in New York State. In 1777, after the disintegration of the Iroquois Confederacy's neutrality, Congress sought to offset the allegiance of . . . — — Map (db m11097) HM
The Beef Slough was a sluggish branch of the Chippewa River that provided an excellent storage pond for the logs floated downstream by numerous logging companies. Here loggers were employed to arrange the mixed-up logs into orderly rafts to be towed . . . — — Map (db m10103) HM
During the last Wisconsin glaciation the advance of the Grantsburg sublobe blocked drainage, resulting in the formation of Glacial Lake Grantsburg. Natural succession eventually formed the extensive peat marshes known today as Crex Meadows.
Prior . . . — — Map (db m68641) HM
The Brothertown (Brotherton) are descendants of the Pequot and Mohegan (Algonquin-speaking) tribes in southern New England. They became a tribe in 1769 when seven Christian and English-speaking communities organized and moved to land in upstate New . . . — — Map (db m31792) HM
"If I cannot be the citizen of free Germany,
then I would at least be a citizen of free America"
--Carl Schurz, German Revolutionary Leader, 1848
In 1848, a small group of immigrants from the Schleswig-Holstein area of . . . — — Map (db m46184) HM
In 1853, a group of German Catholics from Silesia, Prussia, emigrated to the Charlestown area. By 1866, the congregation had built a log church where they could assemble for services. They erected the current church in 1875, using limestone from a . . . — — Map (db m145723) HM
Around A.D. 1100, there was a large Native American village on the north side of Stockbridge Harbor. The pottery recovered from archaeological excavations at this site indicates that the villagers came from two formerly distinct cultural groups. . . . — — Map (db m31799) HM
On Sunday, May 2, 1937, Wisconsin Power Cooperative was organized by an assembly of farmers for the purpose of developing a generating and transmission facility to provide low-cost electric service for the rural areas of Buffalo, Chippewa, Clark, . . . — — Map (db m13798) HM
Before the 19th-century social reform movement, developmentally disabled people were relegated to almshouses and county poor farms where the “indigent, insane, epileptic and “idiotic” were housed together without regard to . . . — — Map (db m13297) HM
Primarily rural in the 19th century, Wisconsin promoted the state fair to advance better state farming practices. Since 1851 to the present, this fair has been held in southern Wisconsin. Recognizing the impracticality of entering or attending the . . . — — Map (db m223294) HM
The Cobban Bridge, constructed in 1908 by the Modern Steel Structural Company of Waukesha, is a two-span Pennsylvania overhead truss type bridge and is the oldest of its kind in Wisconsin. Originally it crossed the Chippewa River just upstream from . . . — — Map (db m12761) HM
In 1912, after a permanent dam was built across the Chippewa River near this location, the Cornell Wood Products Company, a large paper milling operation, began production here. The company manufactured paper products, cardboard and wallboard. The . . . — — Map (db m45015) HM
This wayside is part of the old McCann farm, childhood home of Old Abe, the War Eagle. In the Spring of 1861 a band of hungry Chippewa came to the McCann farm and traded a young eagle for corn. The eagle became a family pet. When Company C, Eighth . . . — — Map (db m13984) HM
A 1928 act of Congress made obsolete World War I weapons available to municipalities and veteran's organizations for commemorative purposes. The Stanley American Legion Post requested this 5-inch bore artillery piece and it was dedicated on Memorial . . . — — Map (db m42131) HM
At his father's cheese factory about one mile south and one mile west of here, Joseph F. Steinwand in 1885 developed a new and unique type of cheese. He named it for the township in which his father, Ambrose Steinwand, Sr., had built northern Clark . . . — — Map (db m9189) HM
Side A Neillsville has strong ties to the majestic white pine forests of the Wisconsin Territory. These forests along the Black River and its tributaries drew members of the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints in 1841. Remembered . . . — — Map (db m185567) HM
St. Hedwig's
In 1891, a wooden church was built and named St. Hedwig's for a queen of Poland. In 1904, the present-day structure was built and accommodated the growing congregation with seating for 700 people. Members of the congregation . . . — — Map (db m48771) HM
Governor James Taylor Lewis · 1819 – 1904
Governor James T. Lewis, the ninth Governor of Wisconsin (1864-66), led the state through the tumultuous conclusion of the Civil War. He was born in New York State and in 1845 settled in . . . — — Map (db m22918) HM
Merrimac’s first permanent settler, Chester Mattson, obtained a territorial charter in 1848 to provide ferry service across the Wisconsin River. The State Legislature of 1851 authorized a road, subsequently to become State Trunk Highway 113, to . . . — — Map (db m1932) HM
Historic Pardeeville
In 1848, New York native and Milwaukee merchant, John S. Pardee hired agents to oversee his Fox River land holdings and to establish business operations from this location. Yates Ashley, the most notable of Pardee's . . . — — Map (db m215748) HM
In the autumn of 1828 a permanent fort was built on this site by the First Regiment of the United States Infantry under the command of Maj. David E. Twiggs, later a general in the Confederate Army. The fort was constructed primarily to control the . . . — — Map (db m2364) HM
Considered the most important historian of the United States in the twentieth century, Frederick Jackson Turner brought a new understanding to the meaning of the American experience. He was born in Portage; his father was Andrew Jackson Turner, a . . . — — Map (db m216262) HM
Ketchum’s Point, named for a local family, stands above the low, marshy Portage connecting the Fox River and Great Lakes with the Wisconsin and Mississippi rivers. This waterway served as a vital thoroughfare for supplies and furs during the fur . . . — — Map (db m2407) HM
On June 14, 1673 Jacques Marquette and Louis Jolliet started the portage (1.28 miles) from here to the Wisconsin River, which led to their discovery of the Upper Mississippi June 17, 1673 at Prairie du Chien. The expedition, in two birch bark . . . — — Map (db m2341) HM
Near here in 1849 Thomas Twiggs began a settlement of unemployed potters from Staffordshire, England. To help farmers on both sides of the Fox River reach his store and blacksmith shop at Twiggs' Landing, he operated Emancipation Ferry, named to . . . — — Map (db m20084) HM
This 137 building district is bounded, in part, by Emmett, Cass, Wisconsin and MacFarlane streets. Most of the houses were constructed between 1870 and 1910 and are in the Italianate and Queen Anne architectural styles.
Society Hill reflects . . . — — Map (db m20042) HM
Zona Gale was born August 26, 1874, in Portage. She graduated in 1899 from the University of Wisconsin-Madison with a Masters in Literature. Gale then spent six years as a journalist in Milwaukee and New York.
Her visits to Portage . . . — — Map (db m20009) HM
John Muir (1838-1914), world famous naturalist and "father of the national park system," often stopped to rest and admire this view as he walked from his home in Marquette County to the University of Wisconsin. Muir loved the wilderness from which . . . — — Map (db m20148) HM
Early roadside rest areas were rural school grounds and country churchyards with their two little houses in back.
In Wisconsin, by 1920, curves were built to eliminate sharp road corners. Local garden clubs, with the American Legion and . . . — — Map (db m22690) HM
Wisconsin has a unique heritage as the birthplace of circuses. More than a hundred had their beginnings in Wisconsin, with Delavan providing winter-quarters for twenty-six between 1847 and 1894. New York brothers Edmund and Jeremiah Mabie brought . . . — — Map (db m109259) HM
Before the introduction of the railroad, the Wisconsin River
provided one of the most practical means of transporting lumber
and farm products to distant markets. The old Village of Dekorra was
beautifully situated to take advantage of this . . . — — Map (db m165534) HM
Wallis/Wallace Rowan (1800-1847) was born in Kentucky of Scotch Irish descent. He was a lead miner, trader, innkeeper, land speculator, farmer, and mill owner. In 1818 he married Elizabeth “Betsy” Metcalf in Illinois. By 1828 Rowan was . . . — — Map (db m67233) HM
The mounds of this group are a fairly representative sample of those built by the people of the Effigy Mound Culture between A.D. 700-1000. It has been through excavation of other burial mounds quite similar to these that archeologists have learned . . . — — Map (db m7731) HM
Perry G. Stroud, a young attorney from New York, established this early bank in Kilbourn City, now Wisconsin Dells, in ca. 1870. Over his thirty-year career as the town's first attorney, Stroud preserved much of the city's early documentary history. . . . — — Map (db m7850) HM
This plot of land, locally known as "Potter's Field", served as the final resting place for nearly 250 residents of the Columbia County Asylum. Indigent asylum residents left unclaimed by family members were buried here from 1871 until 1971, nearly . . . — — Map (db m185566) HM
Major Elbert Dickason
Major Elbert Dickason founder of Wyocena, was born in Virginia in 1799. He moved to Illinois where he joined their militia during the Black Hawk War. Representing a Milwaukee land investor, he founded Columbus in 1839. . . . — — Map (db m22839) HM
Wyona Park
This site has traditionally been a popular picnic area for Wyocena residents. As early as 1905, approximately 1,000 people attended an insurance company picnic at this location. In 1948, Gordon Spear, a lifetime Wyocena resident, . . . — — Map (db m36448) HM
Patrick J. Lucey was born in La Crosse on March 21, 1918, to Ferryville parents, Gregory C. and Ella McNamara Lucey. He was educated at Campion Academy, College of St. Thomas, and the University of Wisconsin.
Lucey served in the U.S. Army . . . — — Map (db m35407) HM
Farmers in this area learned early that the land on both sides of the Kickapoo River offered excellent conditions for apple-growing. In 1905 John Hays and Ben Twining collected apples from eight or ten farmers around Gays Mills for exhibit at the . . . — — Map (db m31676) HM
After 1837 the vast timber resources of northern Wisconsin were eagerly sought by settlers moving into the mid-Mississippi valley. By 1847 there were more than thirty saw-mills on the Wisconsin, Chippewa, and St. Croix river systems, cutting largely . . . — — Map (db m23456) HM
On August 2, 1832, the Black Hawk War effectively ended when the U.S. Military massacred many followers of Sauk Indian leader Black Hawk at the Battle of Bad Axe, located about 35 miles north of here. Black Hawk, known as Ma-ka-tai-me-she-kia-kiak, . . . — — Map (db m43531) HM
The Second Fort Crawford Military Hospital was built here in 1831. In 1934 this portion of it was restored with original stone as a memorial to William Beaumont, M.D. (1785-1853), pioneer military surgeon.
Among prominent military personnel . . . — — Map (db m43641) HM
In 1673, Louis Jolliet, Canadian fur-trader and explorer, and Father Jacques Marquette, French Jesuit Missionary, with five French Canadian boatmen, were the first white men to enter the upper Mississippi River.
Indians directed them to the . . . — — Map (db m43530) HM
In prehistoric times water from melting glaciers cut a wide valley between the bluffs of the Mississippi River to form a broad flood plain. On it French explorers, traders and missionaries found a large and well-established Fox Indian village. The . . . — — Map (db m43529) HM
The first Fort Crawford was built in 1816, and stood on the site now occupied by the "Villa Louis." After a decade of Mississippi River flooding, the U. S. Army relocated Fort Crawford to this site, constructing the new fort of locally quarried . . . — — Map (db m43532) HM
On the site of old Fort Crawford, Col. Hercules Louis Dousman, important agent in John J. Astor's fur company, built his "house on the mound" in 1843. Later it was named Villa Louis. Today this luxurious mansion appears much as it did in the days . . . — — Map (db m23589) HM
This hilltop mansion commands a sweeping view of a landscape steeped in history. Descendants of pioneer fur trader Hercules Dousman built the house in 1870 atop a mound overlooking the Mississippi River, which drew European explores to this spot in . . . — — Map (db m23586) HM
Although Prairie du Chien belonged to the United States after the American Revolution, its pioneer residents were tied by trade, tradition and family to the French-British community at Mackinac and to the St. Lawrence River ports.
During the . . . — — Map (db m23591) HM
Product of a small American community, James O. Davidson's life illustrates the romance of citizenship in a democracy. Born 1854 in Norway, where he received little formal education, he emigrated in 1872 and was a farmer and tailor before coming in . . . — — Map (db m31671) HM
In late July, during the Black Hawk War of 1832, Sac Indian leader Black Hawk led his starving followers through this area in their escape from the General Henry Atkinson and his military forces. After Black Hawk's brilliant delaying tactics at the . . . — — Map (db m31659) HM
In the mid-nineteenth century, many newly arrived Norwegian immigrants in southern Wisconsin depended upon the spiritual and practical guidance of itinerant Lutheran ministers to help successfully adapt to the new land. One of the most influential . . . — — Map (db m55047) HM
Ebenezer Brigham (1789-1861), first permanent white settler of Dane County, came here as a prospector in 1828. The inn he built for his miners became popular with travelers on the old Military Road, and Blue Mounds became a well-known landmark. . . . — — Map (db m224706) HM
Located on one of Dane County's earliest and most successful tobacco farms, the cream-brick-Italianate McCoy Farmhouse was built by Benjamin Brown in 1861. Tobacco growing began here in 1853 and boomed during the Civil War when Southern tobacco . . . — — Map (db m239104) HM
On this campus pioneer research and experimentation in "wireless" led to successful transmissions of voice and music in 1917, and the beginning of broadcasting on a scheduled basis in 1919.
Experimental station 9XM transmitted telegraphic . . . — — Map (db m33629) HM
From these historic grounds went forth Wisconsin's sons to fight for the preservation of the nation in the American Civil War -- 1861-1865. More than 70,000 men trained for service within the boundaries of this camp named after Alexander W. Randall, . . . — — Map (db m31743) HM
Marker Front:
Dean House
This simple flat-roofed cream brick structure with wood cornice and dentils was built by the Dean family as their country home. After 1871, the home was used by tenant farmers and in the 1920's as the Monona . . . — — Map (db m144039) HM
Once the centerpiece of a 130 acre farm, this stone house and adjacent outbuildings were built by New York native John Mann in 1856. Of classical proportions, the vernacular Mann House displays a mixture of Greek Revival and Italianate architectural . . . — — Map (db m33643) HM
The first building erected by the University of Wisconsin-Madison was North Hall, opened as North Dormitory for men on September 17, 1851. It was built of Madison sandstone at a cost of $19,000. Initially, the first three floors housed from 50 to 65 . . . — — Map (db m31583) HM
Once located here, Peck Cabin -- Madison's first residence, business and post office -- was built by entrepreneurs Ebenezer and Roseline Peck in 1837. Constructing their cabin with adjoining additions near the new territorial capitol site, the Pecks . . . — — Map (db m31701) HM
Dedicated to the conservation, advancement and dissemination of the American heritage, the Society was founded in 1846, chartered in 1853. Legislative support, the first bestowed in any state, began in 1854; the Society became a state agency in . . . — — Map (db m31582) HM
On July 20th, during the Black Hawk War of 1832, Black Hawk led about 700 Sac, Fox and Kickapoo Indians past this point and through the “Third Lake Passage,” the juncture of the Yahara River and Lake Monona. By sunset, the military also . . . — — Map (db m167062) HM
On July 21, 1832, during the Black Hawk War, the U.S. Militia "passed through the narrows of the four lakes," Madison's Isthmus, in pursuit of Sac Indian leader Black Hawk and his band. Near this location, the Militia shot and scalped an old Sac . . . — — Map (db m31700) HM
In January 1903, the leader of Madison's park development and President of the Madison Park and Pleasure Drive Association, John M. Olin, presented a grand development plan for the Yahara River to city leaders. The plan called for deepening, . . . — — Map (db m32644) HM
Nineteenth century cemeteries were sometimes relocated as a community expanded. In 1845, land was purchased for a cemetery in the Greenbush neighborhood of Madison where St. Mary's Hospital is located today. The cemetery became overcrowded with . . . — — Map (db m144093) HM
Once located at this site on North Blount Street, the Ceramic Arts Studio of Madison operated from 1940 until its closing in 1956. Founded by Lawrence Rabbitt and Reuben Sand, the company was one of the largest manufacturers of figurines in the . . . — — Map (db m31833) HM
On July 21, 1832, during the Black Hawk War, Sac Indian leader Black Hawk and his band left Pheasant Branch, west of Madison, retreating ahead of the military forces commanded by Colonels Ewing and Dodge. The band fled north following a route past . . . — — Map (db m31806) HM
In 1850, the Milwaukee and Mississippi Rail Road Company began building a line to span the lower third of Wisconsin between Milwaukee and Prairie du Chien. Chief Engineer Edward Brodhead concluded that this area's topographical features were ideal . . . — — Map (db m239041) HM
Stephen Moulton Babcock came to the University of Wisconsin faculty in 1887 and remained until his death in 1931. His life was filled with a great eagerness to know and a persistent desire to serve. He is best known for the perfection of the . . . — — Map (db m71752) HM
On the night of July 20th, during the Black Hawk War of 1832, Sac Indian leader Black Hawk and his followers camped near this location. Desperate for food and frightened by the approaching military, the Indians fled northwest towards the Wisconsin . . . — — Map (db m31753) HM
Royal Airport
The site of an airplane landing field, hangars, flying schools and stunt shows, this field was the center of Madison aviation from 1926 to 1938, mainly through the efforts of Howard Morey and his founding of Madison Airways . . . — — Map (db m37008) HM
The Monona Mound is believed to have been built by the ancestors of the Ho-Chunk between AD 700 and 1100. The long tapering mound is often interpreted as an abstract turtle or water spirit. In 1988, due to the efforts of many local groups, this . . . — — Map (db m185576) HM
The largest of nineteen conical, oval and linear mounds once located in this vicinity, the Outlet Mound was constructed as a burial place by Woodland Indians about 2,000 years ago. It was saved from destruction by the Wisconsin Archaeological . . . — — Map (db m19958) HM
Nathaniel Ames, whose grave is near the crest of this hill, was born on April 25, 1761, in Scituate, Rhode Island. He first enlisted in the Continental Army at the age of 18 and served several short enlistments under General George Washington over . . . — — Map (db m35341) HM
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