During the end of the last Ice Age, the normal drainage of the Wisconsin River was blocked and a huge lake of melt water pooled in Central Wisconsin, including this area. Periodically, the lake rose high enough to break out and drain through the Black River, to the northwest, and on into the Mississippi.
Cranberries are a major crop in the wetlands.
Natives used the local area sparsely because of poor drainage. Whites began to arrive in the 1840s, and the railroad came through in 1856. Target Bluff, south of the base, was used as a marker for railroad surveyors. In 1864, James Douglas left the train here and set up a wood cutting camp to produce firewood for the railroad. When a second railroad came through, he moved his operation to the junction, and it became known as Douglas' Camp.