Prairie du Chien

Prairie du Chien, city, seat (1818) of Crawford county, southwestern Wisconsin, U.S. It is considered to be the state’s second oldest settlement (after Green Bay). It lies on the Mississippi River just above the influx of the Wisconsin River, about 100 miles (160 km) west of Madison. Fox, Sauk, and Ho-Chunk Nation (Winnebago) Indians were early inhabitants of the area. In 1673 the French explorers Jacques Marquette and Louis Jolliet traveled from Green Bay down the Fox and Wisconsin rivers to the Mississippi. In 1685 the French fur trader Nicolas Perrot established a fort near the city site. The British took over the area in 1763. Named for a Fox chief, Alim (“Dog,” or chien in French), it became known as Prairie du Chien. As the western terminus of the Fox-Wisconsin river route to the Mississippi River system, it was long a rendezvous for explorers, missionaries, and traders. The Americans built Fort Shelby there during the War of 1812 and Fort Crawford (where Black Hawk surrendered to the United States in 1832) in 1816. In 1820 Prairie du Chien became a depot for the American Fur Company. Villa Louis (c. 1870), a state historic site and museum, was built by the son of Hercules Dousman, a fur trader and Wisconsin’s first millionaire, on the site of Dousman’s original 1843 mansion.

The city is now a distribution point for agricultural produce. Major manufactures include sponges, chemicals, custom homes, automotive parts, lumber, and audio equipment; a large catalog-sales distribution centre is also in the city. Tourism contributes to the local economy. The Prairie du Chien Museum at Fort Crawford, a restored military hospital (where William Beaumont continued his experiments with the digestive system), is a national historic landmark. Wyalusing State Park is just south of the city. Nelson Dewey State Park, about 20 miles (30 km) south, includes Stonefield, a 2,000-acre (800-hectare) state historic site that re-creates an early 20th-century farming village and also contains the Wisconsin State Agricultural Museum. Inc. 1872. Pop. (2000) 6,018; (2010) 5,911.