Cedarburg

History

The earliest evidence of humans in the Cedarburg area is the Hilgen Spring Mound Site, located in the eastern part of the city of Cedarburg, near Cedar Creek. The site consists of three conical burial mounds constructed by early Woodland period Mound Builders. In 1968, archaeologists from the Milwaukee Public Museum found human burials and artifacts, including stone altars, arrowheads, and pottery shards, during an excavation of one of the mounds. Radiocarbon samples from the excavation date the mounds' construction to approximately 480 BCE, making it one of the oldest mound groups in the state. In the early 19th century, the land was inhabited by Native Americans, including the Potawatomi and Sauk tribes. The Potawatomi surrendered the land to the United States Federal Government in 1833 through the 1833 Treaty of Chicago, which (after being ratified in 1835) required them to leave Wisconsin by 1838. While many Native people moved west of the Mississippi River to Kansas, some chose to remain, and were referred to as "strolling Potawatomi" in contemporary documents because many of them were migrants who subsisted by squatting on their ancestral lands which were now owned by white settlers. Eventually the Native people who evaded forced removal gathered in northern Wisconsin, where they formed the Forest County Potawatomi Community. The first white settlement in the Cedarburg area was a community called "New Dublin," which later became Hamilton in the town of Cedarburg. The first resident was Joseph Gardenier, who built a log shanty on Cedar Creek as his headquarters for surveying for the construction of the Green Bay Road. In 1848, Hamilton became the first stop on the stagecoach route between Milwaukee and Green Bay. In 1907, Cedarburg became a stop on the…

Geography

Cedarburg is located at 43°17'56" North, 87°59'13" West (43.29896, −87.987209). According to the United States Census Bureau, the city has a total area of , of which is land and is water. The City of Cedarburg is bordered by the Village of Grafton to the east, the City of Mequon to the south, and the Town of Cedarburg to the north and west. The city is located in the Southeastern Wisconsin glacial till plains that were created by the Wisconsin glaciation during the most recent ice age. The soil in area is a mixture of well-draining material, loess, and loam, which all overlie a layer of glacial till. Most of the City of Cedarburg is located on top of a Silurian limestone deposit. There were several quarries active in the area, including the now-defunct Groth Quarry in Zeunert Park where excavators discovered fossils from a prehistoric reef. The early settlers utilized the area's limestone as a building material, and some mid-19th-century limestone structures still stand today. Cedar Creek runs through the city parallel to the Washington Avenue historic and commercial district. In 1993, the Wisconsin Department of Natural Resources believed that Cedar Creek had the PCB contamination in the state. The creek is now part of an Environmental Protection Agency Superfund site in the city. Despite cleanup efforts, the Wisconsin DNR advises against eating any fish caught in the creek downstream from the Bridge Road dam. Before white settlers arrived in the area, the Cedarburg area was an upland forest dominated by American beech and sugar maple trees. There were also white cedars growing along Cedar Creek. Much of the original forest was cleared to prepare the land for agriculture. As land development continues to reduce wild areas, wildlife is forced into closer…

Race & ethnicity

Most-observed species

• Northern Cardinal

  Cardinalis cardinalis (Linnaeus, 1758) · Aves
  23,292
• Black-capped Chickadee

  Poecile atricapillus (Linnaeus, 1766) · Aves
  22,826
• American Robin

  Turdus migratorius Linnaeus, 1766 · Aves
  21,072
• American Goldfinch

  Spinus tristis (Linnaeus, 1758) · Aves
  20,709
• American Crow

  Corvus brachyrhynchos C.L.Brehm, 1822 · Aves
  19,241
• Mourning Dove

  Zenaida macroura (Linnaeus, 1758) · Aves
  19,166
• House Finch

  Haemorhous mexicanus (P.L.Statius Müller, 1776) · Aves
  16,733
• Downy Woodpecker

  Dryobates pubescens (Linnaeus, 1766) · Aves
  16,595

Largest nearby schools

• Homestead High
  High · Mequon · 1,265 students · 17.3:1 ratio
• Cedarburg High
  High · Cedarburg · 1,089 students · 16.5:1 ratio
• Port Washington High
  High · Port Washington · 814 students · 16:1 ratio
• Thomas Jefferson Middle
  Middle · Port Washington · 717 students · 13:1 ratio
• Grafton High
  High · Grafton · 715 students · 15.9:1 ratio
• Webster Middle
  Middle · Cedarburg · 645 students · 14.7:1 ratio
• Wilson Elementary
  Elementary · Mequon · 563 students · 14.8:1 ratio
• Thorson Elementary
  Elementary · Cedarburg · 548 students · 15.7:1 ratio