CHIPPEWA COUNTY SEAT




History of the Settlement

This busy and thriving city is located on the right bank of the river and falls which furnish its name.
The business part of the town is situated in the valley of Duncan Creek,a stream which supplies valuable
water power and enters the Chippewa below the falls,at nearly right angles,coming from a northerly direction.
On either side of this stream,there are bluffs rising to table-lands,upon which residents are found and which
must become more and more fashionable as the city fills with business and manufacturing establishments.
   
The soil is sandy,and facilities for draining could not be better. As there is none of the magnesian
 limestone so abundant in some other parts of the state,the water is soft.

There are many substantial buildings f brick and stone in the city, but on account
of the cheapness of lumber,most of them are wood.The city is most admirably laid out diagonally with
four cardinal points of the compass.There is no north side to the buildings.The sun shines on two sides in the
forenoon, and the other two in the afternoon.

When we remember that less than thirty years ago the blood-curdling war-whoop
 of the terrible Sioux and the sagacious "Ojibwa" was heard at this place when these ever -hostile tribes
  were engaged on the banks of this turbulent river,in mortal combat,and remembering,also, the trials and
tribulations,the discouragements,disasters and devastating destruction that by fire and flood so often
assailed the heroic pioneers, we are indeed struck with astonishment at the results of the pluck,
perseverance and power with which the obstacles have been over come,and a city planted where the
restless river had been rolling for ages and ages,and the trees growing for a thousand years,
awaiting the westward march of the Caucasian star empire.

The broud hunting grounds of the Indian have been narrowed into constricted
reservations,but supplemented by the ration of food and stipend of clothing,his wants more fully
met than when roaming to find his own subsistence.










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