Fort Crawford (Prairie du Chien, Wisconsin)
Prairie du Chien · Wisconsin · Indian Wars
History & Significance
To protect Prairie du Chien against future invasion after the War of 1812, U.S. forces returned in June 1816 with orders to construct a new fort on the site of Fort McKay, named Fort Crawford in honor of William H. Crawford, the Secretary of War under James Madison. Built entirely of wood except for the magazine, the fort measured 343 ft on each side and included Blockhouses at its northwest and southeast corners.
One of the largest Indian councils in U.S. history was held at the fort in 1825, when over 5000 representatives of nearly a dozen Native American nations gathered to discuss and sign the first Treaty of Prairie du Chien. Because of the first Fort Crawford's location alongside the Mississippi River, diseases such as malaria and dysentery were common among the troops, and the fort's wooden walls rotted because of the flooding that took place nearly every spring.
After a decade of Mississippi River flooding, the U.S. Army relocated Fort Crawford to a new site, constructing the new fort of locally quarried limestone, under construction from 1829–1834 and including housing for eight companies of soldiers and their officers. As the second fort's barracks were being completed in 1832, the Black Hawk War broke out in Illinois, and the troops at Fort Crawford were called to defend pioneer settlements; after the Battle of Bad Axe near present-day Victory, Wisconsin, Chief Black Hawk surrendered to Col. Zachary Taylor at Fort Crawford.
Fifty-six experiments on human digestion were conducted at Fort Crawford hospital by Dr. William Beaumont. After the Ho-Chunk people were relocated from Wisconsin to Minnesota, the fort had little use and was abandoned in 1849. Troops left the fort for the last time on June 9, 1856, and during the American Civil War, the fort housed part of the Swift United States Army General Hospital.
Key Facts
Map
View larger map ↗ · © OpenStreetMap contributors
🧳 Visiting
What you’ll see when you visit:
- Reconstructed hospital building with exhibits on 19th-century military medicine and frontier healthcare
- 1825 Indian council site where thousands of Native American leaders negotiated treaties
- Second fort site (1829) on elevated bluff overlooking Prairie du Chien and Mississippi River
- Artifacts and displays covering Indian Wars era peacekeeping between settlers and tribes
Sources
- https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Fort_Crawford
- https://www.wisconsinhistory.org/Records/Article/CS393
- https://tps.cr.nps.gov/nhl/detail.cfm?ResourceId=49&ResourceType=Site
- https://www.hmdb.org/m.asp?m=43532
- https://www.fortcrawfordmuseum.com/
- https://www.uwlax.edu/mvac/past-cultures/specific-sites/second-ft.-crawford/