Mendota

Lake Mendota lies among a chain of lakes in southern Wisconsin, separated from its neighbours by narrow stretches of land and marsh. The Ho-Chunk knew the lake as Wąąkšikhomįkra, “where the person rests.” Glacial waters once filled a much larger basin here; as the water fell, separate lakes and marshes emerged. Indigenous communities lived around these waters long before the town of Madison was laid out on the isthmus between Mendota and Monona in the 1830s.

The later city of Madison lies here.