page_title: Prairie du Chien, Wisconsin
section_title: History
hierarchical_section_title: Prairie du Chien, Wisconsin / History
caption_attribution_description: English: Historic Francois Vertefeuille House on Crawford County Road K near Prairie du Chien, Wisconsin
context_page_description: Prairie du Chien is a city in and the county seat of Crawford County, Wisconsin, United States. The population was 5,911 at the 2010 census. Its ZIP Code is 53821.
  Often referred to as Wisconsin's second oldest city, Prairie du Chien was established as a European settlement by French voyageurs in the late seventeenth century. The city is located near the confluence of the Wisconsin and Mississippi rivers, a strategic point along the Fox-Wisconsin Waterway that connects 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. The French explorers named the location Prairie du Chien, French for "Dog's Prairie". Originally this name applied only to the plain upon which the settlement is located, but it was later applied to the city as well. The city of Prairie du Chien is located between the Town of Prairie du Chien and the Town of Bridgeport.
context_section_description: The first known Europeans to reach Prairie du Chien were French explorers Jacques Marquette and Louis Joliet, who arrived by canoe on June 17, 1673, discovering a route to the Mississippi River. Later travel between Canada and the Mississippi River continued to pass through Prairie du Chien, although routes via the Illinois River were also used. In 1685, the French explorer Nicolas Perrot established a trading post in the area as part of the large and lucrative French fur trade industry. After Americans entered the trade in the nineteenth century, John Jacob Astor built the Astor Fur Warehouse, an important building in the regional fur trade, which was centered 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, when European demand declined, as did game stock.
  In 1763, after 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 east of the Mississippi River, including Prairie du Chien. During the American Revolutionary War, the city was used as a meeting point for British troops and their Native American allies. After the American victory, the Treaty of Paris (1783) granted the area to the new United States of America, but the British and their Loyalists were slow to withdraw. Only after the War of 1812 did the city become fully American.
  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 construction of Fort Shelby in 1814. In July, British soldiers captured the fort during the Siege of Prairie du Chien. The British maintained control over the city until the war's end in 1815.  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 land to the US. Representing them and the United Nations of the Chippewa, Ottawa and Pottawatomie in the 1829 negotiations was Billy Caldwell, of Scots-Irish and Mohawk descent.  He became involved with the Pottawatomie after moving to the US as a young man from Canada.
  In 1829, the army doctor William Beaumont carried out many of his famous experiments on digestion in the hospital of Fort Crawford. Beaumont's discoveries are still the basis of current knowledge on the human digestive process.
  Col. Zachary Taylor, who later became the 12th U.S. President, was the commanding officer at Fort Crawford during the Black Hawk War of 1832. Taylor oversaw the surrender of Black Hawk in Prairie du Chien.  Lt. Jefferson Davis, who later became president of the Confederate States of America, was stationed at Fort Crawford at the same time.  Here Jefferson Davis met Zachary Taylor's daughter, Sarah "Knoxie" Taylor, whom he married in 1835.
  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 during this time were Michel Brisbois, Joseph Rolette, Nathan Myrick, and Hercules L. Dousman. Dousman built a fortune in the fur trade, which, combined with income from investments in land, steamboats, and railroads, propelled him to become the first millionaire in Wisconsin. Dousman died in 1868, and his son, H. Louis Dousman, inherited much of his fortune. In 1870 Louis Dousman used his inheritance to construct a luxurious Victorian mansion over the site of the former Fort Shelby. When Louis died unexpectedly in 1886, his family renamed the home "Villa Louis" in his memory. The Dousman family continued to occupy the home until 1913. Nearly 40 years later, in 1952, the mansion became Wisconsin's first state-operated historic site.
  After the fur trade declined in the mid-nineteenth century, Prairie du Chien's attention shifted to agriculture and the railroad. Although the city wa
caption: The Francois Vertefeuille House in the Town of Prairie du Chien was built in the 1810s by fur traders. A rare example of the pièce-sur-pièce à coulisse technique once common in French-Canadian buildings, it is one of the oldest buildings in Wisconsin and is listed on the National Register of Historic Places.[8]
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