Monument to Discoverers
Crossing the canal bridge near the Wisconsin River and continuing south several blocks, a granite monument marks the place where Jacques Marquette and Louis Joliet, the first white men to visit this region, crossed the portage on June 14, 1673, and floated down the Wisconsin.
Many noted persons crossed the portage in early times. Duluth and Hennepin were here in 1680 and Nicolas Perrot, the Baron Lahontan, and Charles Pierre Le Sueur were three famous travelers in the late seventeenth century. An expedition to build a French fort on the upper Mississippi, passed here in 1727; Johnathan Carver tells of his visit in 1766; and here was the rendezvous for Indian forces during the American Revolution. An expedition against St. Louis gathered here in 1780. Then came the much passing of troops between Fort Howard at Green Bay and Fort Crawford at Prairie du Chien. Here in 1827 occurred the dramatic surrender of Red Bird, bringing to a close the Winnebago War.
In 1793 Laurent Barth came to transport baggage with oxen, in 1801-2 Augustin Grignon wintered at the portage as a fur trader, and in 1810 the overland division of the Astorian expedition to the Pacific coast went westward over this historic route.
During the war of 1812 Robert Dixon, British Indian agent, collected his savage allies at this point; and the expedition which drove the Americans from Prairie du Chien, passed thither in 1814. By this route the British forces, following the treaty of Ghent, retreated in 1815.