There is no written record of any visit to the site until 1805, when Lt. Zebulon Pike mounted an expedition up the Mississippi River for the United States.
Pike recorded the location's name as "Prairie La Crosse." The name
originated when he saw the Native Americans playing a game with sticks"!
The first white settlement at La Crosse occurred in 1841 when Nathan Myrick, a New York native, moved to the village at Prairie du Chien, Wisconsin to work in the fur trade.
Myrick was disappointed to find that because many fur traders were
already well-entrenched there, there were no openings for him in the
trade. As a result, he decided to establish a trading post upriver at
the then still unsettled site of Prairie La Crosse. In 1841, he built a
temporary trading post on Barron Island (now called Pettibone Park),
which lies just west of La Crosse's present downtown. The following
year, Myrick relocated the post to the mainland prairie, partnering with
H.J.B. Miller to run the outfit.
For more on La Crosse WI visit: http://www.cityoflacrosse.org
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