A Standard History of Waupaca County, Wisconsin. An Authentic Narrative of the Past, with Particular Attention to the Modern Era in the Commercial, Industrial, Educational, Civic and Social Development.

              HISTORY OF AYAUPACA COUNTY 3
''Under the waters of Lake Michigan the surface of the land passes below the sea level before the limits of the state are reached. Under Lake Michigan the land surface descends to even greater depths, but probably not within the boundaries of the state. The regularity of the southward slopes is interrupted in a very interesting way by a remarkable diagonal valley occupied by Green Bay and the Fox and Wisconsin rivers. This is a great grove traversing the state obliquely, and cutting down the central elevation half its height. A line passing across the surface from Lake Michigan to the Mississippi at any other point would arch upward from about 400 to 1,000 feet, according to the location, while along the trough of this valley it would reach an elevation barely exceeding two hundred feet. On the northwest side of this trough the surface rises somewhat gradually, giving at most points much amplitude to the valley, but on the opposite side the slope ascends rapidly to a well marked water¬ shed that stretches across the state parallel to the valley.''
Grand and Natural Highway op Travel
This deep grove, interrupted by only a narrow portage separating the water system of the great lakes from that of the great river, was the natural highway for the restless, primitive peoples of the land, while Lake Winnebago and the valleys of the main streams and their tribu¬ taries, became the gathering places of such powerful tribes as the Foxes, Winnebagoes and Menominees, hemmed into Northern Wisconsin by the ' Chippewas toward the northeast and the Sioux toward the northwest.
So it w^as also but natural that some of the earliest of the French voyageurs should have selected this beautiful route, which to all outward appearances would lead to the magnificent waters which were known to lie somewhere in the West, rather than expect to discover anything of importance by way of the swamps and little reedy stream at the lower end of Lake Michigan (the Chicago River).
Later, when the interior of Wisconsin commenced to be settled by white men, the Government realized that the keynote to their safety was a military oversight of the portage between the Fox and Wisconsin rivers; hence the building of Fort Winnebago, in which the Indians saw their doom and protested accordiiigly. With Fort Howard (Green Bay) at the northeastern terminus of the route. Fort Winnebago at the portage and Prairie du Chien at the southwestern end, the great interior water¬ way of Wisconsin was comparatively safe.
Perhaps Undeserved Dignity
The good people of Waupaca County have never forgiven Nature for the round-about w^ay in which she laid the courses of Wolf River, dug