In 1673, Louis Jolliet, Canadian fur-trader and explorer, and Father Jacques Marquette, French Jesuit Missionary, with five French Canadian boatmen, were the first white men to enter the upper Mississippi River.

Indians directed them to the Great River via the Fox-Wisconsin waterway from the present site of Green Bay to Prairie du Chien. The Frenchmen entered the Mississippi River June 17, 1673.

Descending the river until July 16, the explorers turned back at the Arkansas River because they anticipated possible danger ahead from the Spanish and Indians. Returning North, the expedition pioneered what is now the Illinois - Des Plaines - Chicago River passage to Lake Michigan.

Marquette and Jolliet were back at the mouth of the Fox River by the end of September. The trip had taken them over 2,000 miles through country never before seen by white men.

Erected 1973

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Show me all markers in:  Prairie Du Chien, WI  |  Crawford County  |  53821  |  Wisconsin  |  United States of America

Prairie du Chien
Jefferson Davis
Veterans Memorial
Site of the Second Fort Crawford
Black Hawk's Surrender
Smoke stacks and paddle wheels
Fort Crawford
William Beaumont, M. D.
Villa Louis
War of 1812

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