Travel Reference
In-Depth Information
To secure the strategic viability of the Fox and Wisconsin River corridors, the U.S. military
started hacking a road and stringing forts through the wilderness to put a damper on the
pesky Indians—and the British and French interlopers. Prairie du Chien, chronologically
the second-oldest settlement after Green Bay, would become the westernmost point of that
chain of forts.
NativeAmericansoriginallyinhabitedtheislandsintheMississippiRiverchannels—up
to several thousand on this site. Nicholas Perrot showed up not long after Marquette and
Joliet and may or may not have erected a fort on one of the islands, by now a main node
on the fur-trade network. The name comes not from a ubiquity of prairie rodents, but from
a respected Indian chief who was honored by French settlers. It was at one time a major
“clamming” center—clams were all the rage as buttons, and the oysters could command
thousands in eastern markets.
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Villa Louis
One of the state's most respected historical sites is
Villa Louis,
in its time likely the most
ostentatious and opulent home in all the Upper Midwest. Fort Shelby was originally con-
structed on this island site immediately after the War of 1812 to protect the lucrative trade
routesfromtheBritish.(NativeAmericanshadusedtheislandfornumerousburialmounds,
and the structures were built right atop some of them.) In 1840, Hercules Dousman, a phe-
nomenally wealthy fur trader (he's known as Wisconsin's first millionaire), originally built
a home here—the House on the Mound, in a nice slap to the face of Native Americans. His
son, H. Louis Dousman, for whatever impels otherwise rational folks to do such things, de-
cided to raise the most palatial estate of them all. Like all great acts of such caliber, this
one went belly up. The estate underwent extensive (and expensive at $2 million) restora-
tion work, begun in an attempt to correct earlier historical renovations; the friendly inva-
sion force even used the original designs and implements, some in vaults in London. Even
better, curators have managed to relocate original artwork and furniture. Its collections are
now unparalleled in the country. The
museum
(521 N. Villa Louis Rd., 608/326-2721,
www.villalouis.wisconsinhistory.org
,
9:30am-5pm daily mid-May-late Oct., $10) conducts
tours on the hour 10am-4pm. The grounds are always open, and nearby on the same island
is a Victorian historical education walk.
Other Sights
Somewhatlesserknownisthe
Prairie du Chien Museum at Fort Crawford
(717S.Beau-
mont Rd., 608/326-6960, 9am-4pm daily May-Oct., $5 adults), the remainder of the fort
