Kewaunee County, Wisconsin

Kewaunee County History, Geography, Demographics, Cities and Towns, and Education

County Seat: Kewaunee
Year Organized: 1852
Square Miles: 343

Court House:

613 Dodge Street
County Courthouse
Kewaunee, WI 54216-1322

Etymology - Origin of County Name

Kewaunee County - named for its chief river, which was early known as "Wood's River." In 1834 Joshua Hatheway, an early Wisconsin surveyor, rechristened it from the Chippewa word which he translated as "prairie hen" - Wis. Hist. Colls., i, p. 117. Verwyst, in Id. xii, p. 392, considers the word equivalent to a peninsula, almost surrounded by water, from the Chippewa term, "I cross a point of land by boat."

[Source: Kellogg, Louise Phelps. "Derivation of County Names" in Proceedings of the State Historical Society of Wisconsin for 1909, pages 219-231.]

Demographics:

County QuickFacts: Census Bureau Quick Facts

History

Kewaunee County, created in 1852 from Manitowoc County, is named either for a Pottowatomi word meaning "river of the lost," or a Chippewa word meaning "praire hen," "wild duck," or "to go around." Located in northeast Wisconsin, the county seat is Kewaunee.

Description from John W. Hunt's 1853 Wisconsin Gazetteer: "KEWAUNEE, County, is bounded on the north by Door county, on the east by the state line in Lake Michigan, on the south by Manitowoc, and on the west by Brown, and contains about thirteen townships of land. It was set off from Door, April 16, l852, and is attached to Manitowoc for judicial purposes. The streams are Kewaunee and Red rivers, Benton's, Martin's, Ashnepee and Thornapple creeks. The county having been so recently established, has not as yet reached to much dignity as a county."

KEWAUNEE.
From: Handbook of Wisconsin by S. Silas, 1855
pg. 78-79

A new and sparsely settled County, extending from Lake Michigan to Green Bay, and occupying the head of the peninsula. Its principal settlement is at the mouth of the Kewaunee, and its principal trade is lumber, which is cut on that stream. There is much Government land in Kewaunee and most of it of a very good quality.

Geography

According to the U.S. Census Bureau, the county has a total area of 1,085 square miles (2,809 km²), of which, 343 square miles (887 km²) of it is land and 742 square miles (1,921 km²) of it (68.41%) is water.

Neighboring Counties:

Door County - north
Manitowoc County - south
Brown County - west

Cities and Towns:

- Ahnapee	town
- Algoma	city	Incorporated Area
- Carlton	town
- Casco	village	Incorporated Area
- Kewaunee (County Seat)	city	Incorporated Area
- Lincoln	town
- Luxemburg	village	Incorporated Area
- Montpelier	town
- Pierce	town
- Red River	town
- West Kewaunee	town

County Resources:

Enter County Resources and Information Here

County Resource Guide

Counties: US Map

The history of our nation can be seen as a prolonged struggle to define the relative roles and powers of our governments: federal, state, and local. And the names we've given our counties, our most locally based jurisdictions, reflects the "characteristic features of our country!"

But age, size and colorful names of our counties isn't the only reason to explore counties' role in American history, or the history of county government itself. In fact, the story of county government reflects the larger meanings of American history.

Today's counties are the most flexible, locally responsive and creative governments in the US. They are the most diverse, varying in size, population, geography, and governmental structure. In their politics and policies, they express a 1990's political slogan "Think globally, act locally."

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