Ozaukee County, Wisconsin

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

County Seat: Port Washington
Year Organized: 1853
Square Miles: 232

Court House:

121 W. Main Street
County Courthouse
Port Washington, WI 53074-0994

Etymology - Origin of County Name

Ozaukee is the Chippewa form of the tribal name of the Sauk. The word is commonly asserted to mean "people living at the mouth of a river." Others interpret it as signifying "people of yellow earth." In Chippewa, this means Osagig, Sacs, an Indian tribe. Ozaukee county and Sauk county, both corrupt of ozagig, meaning "people living at a river mouth" o-aug-egg, meaning "mouth of the river people."

[Source: Legler, Wisconsin Place Names, p. 32. Gannett, Place Names, p. 200 Card file at the WHS library reference desk]

Demographics:

County QuickFacts: Census Bureau Quick Facts

History

"Ozaukee" is the Chippewa form of the tribal name of the Sauk. The word is likely to mean "people living at the mouth of a river."

Ozaukee County is the smallest land area County in the State of Wisconsin, covering 235 square miles of land area. Located on 25 miles of the western shores of Lake Michigan, the County encompasses approximately 900 square miles of Lake Michigan waters. Ozaukee County is home to 86,697 people.

OZAUKEE.--Population 12,977.
From: Handbook of Wisconsin by S. Silas, 1855
pg. 93

A Lake County, lying next Milwaukee on the north. It is small, containing but eight towns. Most of the farms of this County are small, and by this sub-division, they have been brought to a high degree of cultivation. Ozaukee is the principal port.

Geography

According to the U.S. Census Bureau, the county has a total area of 2,891 km² (1,116sq mi). 232 square miles (601 km²) of it is land and 884 square miles (2,290 km²) of it (79.22%) is water.

Ozaukee County is the smallest land area county in the State of Wisconsin, covering approximately 609 km2. The County is located in the southeastern corner of Wisconsin, on 45 km of western Lake Michigan shoreline (Figure 1). Elevation ranges from 177 to 294 m above sea level, and except for a few isolated spots where dolomite bedrock is exposed at the surface, the entire County is covered with glacial deposits ranging from large boulders to fine-grained clays. Soils are generally classified as: “silty clay loam till”, “loam to clay loam”, and “organic mucky peat” (Parker, et al. 1970). There is east-west variation in temperature and precipitation in Ozaukee County due to the presence of Lake Michigan, with average monthly temperatures ranging from –7.1 to 20.7 o C and precipitation and snowfall averaging 77 and 93 cm per year respectively (NRCS WETS Station 1999). Surface drainage is provided by approximately 250 km of rivers, streams, and creeks, all of which eventually flow into Lake Michigan. These streams are geologically young (established after the last glaciation), and as a result of inefficient drainage, many marshes, bogs, and small lakes were formed in the County landscape. Current land use is variable and includes: residential, commercial, industrial, agricultural, wetlands, woodlands, and unused rural/open lands. The amount of land in Ozaukee County devoted to urban land uses has increased by 170% since 1963 (SEWRPC 1997).

Neighboring Counties:

Sheboygan County - north
Milwaukee County - south
Waukesha County - southwest
Washington County - west

Cities and Towns:

- Belgium	village	Incorporated Area
- Cedarburg	city	Incorporated Area
- Fredonia	village	Incorporated Area
- Grafton	village	Incorporated Area
- Mequon	city	Incorporated Area
- Port Washington (County Seat)	city	Incorporated Area
- Saukville	village	Incorporated Area
- Thiensville	village	Incorporated Area

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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