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Its county seat is Juneau.
More than 10,000 years ago, small bands of people entered Dodge
County on the edge of the receding glacier. Numerous sites within the
county show evidence of the early inhabitants including stone tools,
campsites and settlements, burial and effigy mounds, garden plots and
paintings and carvings on rock outcrops and stones.
Dodge County was created in 1836 and named in honor of Henry Dodge,
then territorial governor of Wisconsin. The Town of Victory was chosen
as the County Seat. The Town of Victory was later renamed City of
Juneau after Paul Juneau, the son of Solomon Juneau, founder of
Milwaukee.
In 1845 iron ore was discovered in Mayville and an iron ore works
operated here for several decades until competition from mines in the
Lake Superior region closed them. Sawmills and gristmills were widely
distributed over Dodge County in the 1870's. In 1875, John Jossie, came
from Switzerland, developed the variety of cheese known as brick, and
later opened the first brick cheese factory in the United States in
Watertown, operating until 1943.
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