Oconto

History

Oconto is home to Copper Culture State Park, which has remains dated to around 5000 to 6000 BC. It is a burial ground of the Copper Culture Indians. This burial ground is considered to be the oldest cemetery in Wisconsin and one of the oldest in the nation. Their descendants include the Menominee, who have lived here for thousands of years. The first Europeans to come to the area were the French, who considered it to be part of New France. The French Jesuit, Roman Catholic priest, and missionary, Father Claude-Jean Allouez said the first Mass in Oconto on December 3, 1669. The Menominee living here began participating in the fur trade network and converting to Christianity. Following the treaty, the land became officially available for American settlement, although soldiers and lumberers had already been here for some time. The same year the Treaty of the Cedars was signed, George Lurwick bought a home and sawmill along the Oconto River, becoming the town's first private land owner now that the land had been sold to the United States. The city took its name from the nearby Oconto River. The name Okāqtow is a Menominee name meaning "the place of the pike", one of several pike-related place-names in the area. The first Christian Science church in the world was erected in 1886 in Oconto and still stands at the corner of Main Street and Chicago Street. The land was donated by Henry (1837–1904) and Victoria Sargent (1848–1930). In 1891, the city hosted minor league baseball when the Oconto Log Drivers became charter members of the Wisconsin State League. The league began play on May 14, 1891 and the Log Drivers did not return after the first league season. In the summer of 1952, during a two-day period, an estimated 175,000,000 leopard frogs emerged from nearby marshes…

Geography

Oconto is located at (44.8877, -87.8704). According to the United States Census Bureau, the city has a total area of , of which is land and is water. Oconto is located at the mouth of the Oconto River, which empties into Lake Michigan. The St. Paul Eastern Grand Trunk Railway was chartered on September 5, 1879, which later was acquired by the Chicago and North Western Railway. It was subsequently purchased, then some years later abandoned by Union Pacific RR. It then became the Oconto River State Trail.

Race & ethnicity