The Indian Agency House at Fort Winnebago

The Indian Agency House at Fort Winnebago. Built in 1832. , This home, constructed for Indian sub-agent John H. Kinzie, served as an embassy between the Federal Government and the Hoocak (Ho-Chunk, Winnebago) Nation during a turbulent period of cultural convergence and the initiation of the Hoocak Trail of Tears. The site on which you are standing witnessed weighty councils and annual tribal assemblies at a time marked by intense political debate, conflict, moral testing, trauma, and stark transformations of the cultural and physical landscape. , Within these walls are lessons we must never forget. , [Captions:] , Built on Hoocak land just across the Fox River from Fort Winnebago, the agency overlooked the Wawa aija (portaging) trail connecting the Fox and Wisconsin Rivers- an ancient crossroads of geography, culture, and history., Construction costs totaled $3,497.18 in Federal funds with workmen from St. Louis (718 river-miles south); timber floated from 70-80 miles north; and additional materials sourced from Green Bay and the local area. , Rescued and restored in 1931-2, the house was opened as a museum in October, 1932, by the National Society of the Colonial Dames of America in the State of Wisconsin. , Juliette Magill Kinzie, the sub-agent's wife, penned a firsthand account of the story which unfolded here, titled Wau-Bun: The "Early Day" in the Northwest. This memoir of her experiences in the Hoocak homeland remains a key eyewitness record of pre-state Wisconsin.