Fox River (Wisconsin) - History

History

Since the recession of the glaciers that once covered much of Wisconsin, the Fox River has supported several Native American cultures, with its fisheries, waterfowl, wild rice, forests, and water. Archaeologists have determined that early peoples lived in the Fox River area as early as 7000 BC.

Prior to European settlement in the late 17th century, the shores of the Fox River and Green Bay were home to roughly half the 25,000 Native Americans who lived in what is today Wisconsin. The first Europeans to reach the Fox were the French, beginning with Jean Nicolet in 1634. In 1673 explorers Jacques Marquette and Louis Joliet canoed up the river as far as Portage. Here they made the short portage from the Fox to the Wisconsin River and then canoed on towards the Mississippi River, establishing an important water route between the Great Lakes and the Mississippi River known as the Fox–Wisconsin Waterway. This route was used frequently by fur traders during the French colonization of the Americas. The French-Canadian men who established homes on the Fox River married First Nation women, producing a mixed-blood population similar to the Metis of Canada.