Prairie du Chien, Wisconsin City of Prairie du Chien Prairie du Chien Post Office Prairie du Chien Post Office Location of Prairie du Chien in Crawford County, Wisconsin Location of Prairie du Chien in Crawford County, Wisconsin Prairie du Chien (/ pr ri du i n/) is a town/city in and the governmental center of county of Crawford County, Wisconsin, United States.
Often alluded to as Wisconsin's second earliest city, Prairie du Chien was established as a European settlement by French voyageurs in the late seventeenth century.
The town/city is positioned near the confluence of the Wisconsin and Mississippi Rivers, a strategic point along the Fox-Wisconsin Waterway that joins the Great Lakes with the Mississippi.
Early French visitors to the site found it occupied by a group of Fox Indians led by a chief whose name Alim meant Chien in French (Dog in English). The French explorers titled the locale Prairie du Chien, French for "Dog's Prairie".
The town/city of Prairie du Chien is positioned between the Town of Prairie du Chien and the Town of Bridgeport.
The first Europeans to reach Prairie du Chien were the French explorers Jacques Marquette and Louis Joliet, who appeared by canoe on June 17, 1673, discovering a route to the Mississippi River.
Later travel between French Canada and the Mississippi River passed through Prairie du Chien, although routes via the Illinois River were also used.
After Americans entered the trade in the nineteenth century, John Jacob Astor assembled the Astor Fur Warehouse, an meaningful building in the county-wide fur trade whose company was done in Prairie du Chien.
The significance of Prairie du Chien as a center of the fur trade did not diminish until the mid-nineteenth century.
In 1763, when Great Britain defeated France in the French and Indian War (part of the Seven Years' War), it took "possession" of the French territory in North America, including Prairie du Chien.
The US was slow to present any authority over Prairie du Chien, but late in the War of 1812 when the government realized the importance of holding the site to prevent British attacks from Canada, it began assembly of Fort Shelby in 1814.
In July, British soldiers captured the fort amid the Siege of Prairie du Chien.
Not wanting another invasion through Prairie du Chien, the Americans constructed Fort Crawford in 1816.
The fort was the site of the negotiations and signing of the Treaties of Prairie du Chien (1825 and 1830), by which the Fox and Sauk ceded much of their territory to the US.
Taylor oversaw the surrender of Black Hawk in Prairie du Chien.
Illustration of Prairie du Chien in 1870 Outside the walls of the fort, early nineteenth century life in Prairie du Chien was still dominated by the fur trade.
Prairie du Chien's most well-known traders amid this time were Michel Brisbois, Joseph Rolette, Nathan Myrick, and Hercules L.
After the fur trade declined in the mid-nineteenth century, Prairie du Chien's consideration shifted to agriculture and the barns .
This lured was temporarily solved by disassembling the trains at Prairie du Chien and ferrying them athwart the river to be put back on the tracks on the other side.
Lawler later donated property to establish two Catholic boarding schools in Prairie du Chien, St.
Mary's College remained in Prairie du Chien until 1928 Campion High School produced a several eminent alumni including Vicente Fox, Congressman Leo Ryan, Governor Patrick Lucey, actors David Doyle, George Wendt, and Kevin Mc - Carthy, and writer Garry Wills.
Prairie du Chien was incorporated as the Borough of Prairie des Chiens on September 17, 1821 by the secretary of the Michigan Territory. It is the only municipality in Wisconsin other than Green Bay to have been known as a borough, clean water a city, town, or village. The borough existed for a several years before the government stopped operating in 1825 In 1828, the Prairie du Chien region became a part of the Town of St.
(Crawford County itself encompassed all of the part of Michigan Territory.) In 1849, the Town of Prairie du Chien was created, consisting of most of present-day Crawford County.
The town/city of Prairie du Chien was then incorporated in 1872. Prairie du Chien is positioned inside the Mississippi River Valley, upon a long triangular plain that is bounded on the west by the Mississippi River, on the south by the Wisconsin River, and on the east-northeast by a series of tall bluffs.
According to the United States Enumeration Bureau, the town/city has a total region of 6.36 square miles (16.47 km2), of which, 5.63 square miles (14.58 km2) of it is territory and 0.73 square miles (1.89 km2) is water. While the city's region encompasses most of the plain upon which it sits, portions of the plain extend outside town/city limits.
Just north of the town/city limits, where the plain forms part of the Town of Prairie du Chien, there is a small unincorporated settlement known locally as "Frenchtown".
While most of these islands are too small and flood apt to have ever been inhabited, one larger island just west of downtown Prairie du Chien formed the city's fourth ward until a 1965 flood prompted a mandatory relocation of the island's inhabitants to higher ground.
The town/city gives its name to the Prairie du Chien Dolomite, a layer of dolomite widely found in Wisconsin.
Marquette, positioned in Prairie du Chien.
Prairie du Chien has five National Historic Landmarks and nine sites on the National Register of Historic Places representing its momentous history.
The Prairie Villa Rendezvous, a gathering to recreate the atmosphere of a 19th-century fur trading camp, has been held annually in the town/city every Father's Day weekend since 1975, it attracts tens of thousands of visitors.
In 2001, Prairie du Chien attained brief nationwide attention for its first annual New Year's Eve celebration, amid which a carp from the Mississippi River was dropped from a crane over Black - Hawk Avenue at midnight.
Prairie du Chien is served by the Prairie du Chien Municipal Airport (KPDC).
Prairie du Chien's twice weekly journal is the Courier Press, which also prints a weekly shopping supplement distributed to region homeholds and businesses.
Prairie du Chien is home to WQPC, a 36,000-watt airways broadcast transmitting at 94.3 - FM.
Other stations with strong reception in Prairie du Chien include WHHI 91.3 - FM, WGLR 97.7 - FM and KCTN 100.1 - FM.
Aside from its somewhat larger than average tourist trade, Prairie du Chien's economy is similar to most other Midwestern metros/cities of its size.
State and small-town government are also primary employers, as the town/city is the site of the Crawford County courthouse and bureaus, as well as a state penitentiary.
Prairie du Chien has one of Wisconsin's busiest ports on the Mississippi River.
The Prairie du Chien School District is a enhance school precinct headquartered in Prairie du Chien, in Crawford County, Wisconsin, United States.
It serves the town/city of Prairie du Chien, the close-by town of Bridgeport, and the village of Eastman.
The precinct consists three schools, all positioned in Prairie du Chien: Prairie du Chien High School (grades 9-12) The mascot of the Prairie du Chien High School is "the Blackhawks," titled after the Sauk prestige Black Hawk, who surrendered at Fort Crawford in Prairie du Chien after the Black Hawk War in 1832.
Maurice Oehler, a high school chemistry teacher from Prairie du Chien, established the National Mole Day Foundation. Prairie Catholic School, a private K-8 school associated with St.
John's Catholic Churches, is positioned in Prairie du Chien.
Prairie Christian Academy, a private K-12 school associated with Bible Baptist Church, is also positioned in Prairie du Chien.
Prairie du Chien Municipal Airport The annual 7-day, 500-mile supported bike tour of Wisconsin known as GRABAAWR begins in Eagle River and ends in Prairie du Chien.
John Muir (1838 1914), conservationist and founder of Sierra Club, working at boarding home in Prairie du Chien before attending University of Wisconsin Madison 1948), actor who portrayed Norm Peterson in tv series Cheers, visited Campion High School in Prairie du Chien 629 https://digital.library.wisc.edu/1711.dl/WI.WIBlue - Bk - 1929 ("Prairie du Chien second earliest settlement in Wisconsin") (June 1932), "The Prairie du Chien Terrace: Geography of a Confluence Site", Annals of the Association of American Geographers, 22 (2): 119 158, JSTOR 2560587 Wisconsin Historical Markers: Marker 116: Prairie du Chien Durrie, "Annals of Prairie du Chien", 1872.
Lucy Eldersveld Murphy, Great Lakes Creoles: A French-Indian Community on the Northern Borderlands, Prairie du Chien, 1750-1860.
Wikimedia Commons has media related to Prairie du Chien, Wisconsin.
City of Prairie du Chien Prairie du Chien Chamber of Commerce County seat: Prairie du Chien Prairie du Chien Bridgeport Clayton Eastman Freeman Haney Marietta Prairie du Chien Scott Seneca Utica Wauzeka
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Prairie du Chien, Wisconsin - Cities in Wisconsin - Cities in Crawford County, Wisconsin - Wisconsin populated places on the Mississippi River - County seats in Wisconsin - Populated places established in 1685 - 1685 establishments in New F
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