Bird's eye view of Prairie du Sac, Sauk County, Wisconsin 1870. Chicago Lithographing Co.
Historic panoramic view map of Prairie du Sac, Wisconsin, drawn by Albert Ruger in 1870, reprint.
Features numbered references to the following locations:
- Academy.
- Public School.
- Steamboat Landing.
- Clifton.
- MiddleTown.
- Cemetery.
CHURCHES:
- Presbyterian.
- Universalist.
- Congregational.
An article entitled "Early History of Prairie du Sac" appeared in the Sauk County News in July of 1904, reminding readers of the Native Americans who once lived in the region (not included with map):
"As we look out upon this beautiful village of ours and the magnificent surroundings that Nature has so bountifully lavished upon us, it is hard for the younger generation at least, to realize that until the year 1838 all this was inhabited by the Sac Indian; that his wigwams were scattered throughout this prairie; his canoes went noiselessly up and down the winding Wisconsin; that this was his stream, his bluffs, and his land.
Let us think for a few moments of Sauk County without its White men and their habitations, and imagine if we can what the Red man lost when the march of civilization pushed him westward.
First there was the prairie of about sixty square miles surrounded by high bluffs covered with the beautiful silvery birch, which furnished materials for his canoe, the oak, the stately poplar, the pine with its dark evergreen branches contrasting so vividly with the snow of the winter, maples gorgeous in their autumn tints, the graceful elm, the fragrant dedar, the basswood, and shrubs of every sort, from the witch-hazel growing near the spring, dogwood with its feathery blossoms and its glistening red berries, the woodbine and the bittersweet, to the little wintergreen with its sweet berries, growing at the foot of the pines.
The Potsdam sandstone of which the sides of the bluffs are partly composed, contains numerous caverns, affording homes for wild animals, and nesting places for some of the birds that made the forests ring with their sweet music. There were partridges, pigeons, quail, prairie chickens, ducks, geese, squirrels, rabbits, gophers, chipmunks, raccoons, deer, bears, wildcats, wolves, foxes, badgers and woodchucks. To "Lo the poor Indian whose untuted mind sees God in clouds and hears him the the wind", this must have been the ideal of his future "Happy Hunting Ground".
In the spring and summer wild flowers bloomed in profusion, and there was the picturesque beauty of the Baraboo Bluffs with the grandeur of the scenery of Devils Lake, which now draws tourists from all over the country; Pine Hollow, where in early spring before the frosts is all out of the ground, may be found that dainty and fragrant little flower, the trailing arbutus; Skillet Falls, which are now the scene of many a picnic; and standing about midway of the prairie is the grand old isolated rock, known as Johnson's Bluff, giving a full view from its summit of the entire prairie.
Amidst all this grandeur roamed the Red man in his proud independence. His wants were few and simple, and near at hand. He knew every foot of his ground, where to find the best fish and game, and the haunts of the wild beasts which supplied him with clothing, shelter, food and medicine. Here the Sac Indian, a branch of the Algonquins, build their villages, raised their maize, made their Indian mounds for the burial of their dead, hunted and fished, and were monarchs of all they surveyed.
One Indian village was where Sauk City now stands, some of the mounds are still to be seen at Stone's Pocket; farmers of Prairie du Sac often find arrows of stone and copper in their fields and meadows. An Indian trail crossed our Prairie in its course from Prairie du Chien to Portage, and the path was deeply worn.
Built in 1838 after the treaty with the Winnebagoes for land north of the Wisconsin was ratified, White men began to push into the valley with the intention of settling. Berry Haney, Jonathan Tayler, and Solomon Shore marked out claims; that of Haney was on the spot where Sauk City has since been built. Gradually the Indian was driven from favorite haunts, westward and ever westward into remoter forest, and to parts where the White man does not wish to go. No wonder he hates the race that recognized no rights of the Indian that deprived him of his home and of his lands, felled his trees, dammed his streams, drove his game from its accustomed places, and left him to poverty and distress. He fought long and hard for his home, and his beautiful prairie paradise, but in the end the White man conquered, and slowly and sadly the Red man and his wigwam vanished from the place he loved.
The first man to turn the virgin soil was "Uncle Billy Johnson", who did the first plowing with the rude breaking plow which has always stood in front of the old log cabin on the Johnson farm. Oxen did duty instead of horses.
Sauk Prairie has been to Sauk County what the nursery is to the orchard; and now the ox-team is a thing of the past, the gang plow has taken the place of the old wooden beam, and we have the steam roller mill instead of the giant coffee mill with which "Uncle Billie" ground corn for his neighbors. Our rivers are spanned by bridges of stone and iron, strong enough to carry safely our powerful engines. The smoke stack and chimney are seen in place of the wigwams and the council fire, and there are fertile fields where once the Indian with his rude implements cultivated his maize. Fine residences, churches, business blocks, and school houses furnish a striking contrast to the wandering Indian live. The bark canoe, gliding silently through the water, gave way firs to rafts laden with lumber for the construction of dwelling and business houses. Then came the noisy steamboat, and where the Red men trod in silence, Indian file, often leaving no trail behind, now come the puffing railroad trains wagons and buggies, bicycles and whizzing automobiles.
Today to most of us an Indian is a curiosity, and if it were not for history and the slight traces left behind, we could not believe that this glorious prairie was once the home of the Sacs from which it gets its poetic name Prairie du Sac; but we can faintly imagine what the loss of such a dwelling place must have meant to the race to whom its wild beauty appealed so strongly."
