Meskousing

Meskousing is the name Jacques Marquette recorded in 1673 for the river now called the Wisconsin. One interpretation traces it to a Miami expression for a river running through a red place, perhaps referring to the sandstone cliffs along its course. The river flows south and west toward the Mississippi; a short portage links it to the Fox River and the waters of Green Bay.

Marquette and Louis Jolliet crossed that portage with Indigenous guides during their 1673 journey to the Mississippi. Fur traders later used the same connection between the Great Lakes and the interior. The Menominee held much of the middle Wisconsin River country, while the Ho-Chunk lived farther downstream. In 1828 the United States built Fort Winnebago near the portage, close to a trading post already established there.