La Crosse Wisconsin

rivers railroads ridges brews wines and a historic downtown

La Crosse is located at the intersection of the Black, La Crosse and Mississippi rivers in Western Wisconsin in a broad plain between the river bank and the tall bluffs typical of the Driftless area.

The Coulee Region is Characterized by High Ridges Dissected by Narrow Valleys

History French fur traders were among the first Europeans to travel along the Upper Mississippi River in the late 17^th century; an American expedition reached what came to be known as Prairie La Crosse in 1805; La Crosse was named from the game with sticks - lacrosse in French - played by local Native Americans. Actively promoted in eastern newspapers, the city was further settled during the middle of the 19^th century with completion of the La Crosse & Milwaukee Railroad.

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River and Railroad Infrastructure made it possible for La Crosse to become a center for lumber, as logs cut in the interior of the state were rafted down the Black River, as well as the brewery industry. Around the turn of the 20^th century, the city also became an education center, with three colleges and universities established in the city between 1890 and 1912. It is now a regional technology and medical hub, highly ranked in the areas of wellness, quality of life and education.

The La Crosse Amtrak Station is Served by the Empire Builder Cross Country Passenger Service

Historic Downtown and local culture. La Crosse has one of the largest commercial historic districts in Wisconsin; it is listed on the National Register of Historic Places and includes 110 buildings built between 1866 and 1940. It is home to the Rivoli Theatre, the Weber Center for the Performing Arts and the Pump House Regional Arts Center, at the heart of La Crosse’s arts and culture scene.

La Crosse is a Green Complete Streets City

Local Wine and Brew Traditions date back to the 1858 founding of the G. Heileman Brewing Company; since its closing in 1996, local brewing traditions have been passed onto the City Brewing Company and Pearl Street Brewery, a craft brewery operating out of the historic La Crosse Footwear Building. Lost Island Wine has more than 30 varieties; in addition; several vineyards are in nearby counties and across the river on the Minnesota side of the Mississippi.

Missouri River Trails

Navigation Tributaries Watershed and People

The Missouri is the longest river in North America, rising in the Rocky Mountains and flowing east and south for 2,341 miles - 3,767 km - before connecting with the Mississippi north of St. Louis.

History for over 12 thousand years, people have depended on the Missouri River as a source of food and transportation as ten Native American groups have led a nomadic lifestyles along with the buffalo herds. In the late 17^th century, Spanish and French explorers reached the river which become part of the United States with the Louisiana Purchase of the early 1800s. Meriwether Lewis and William Clark followed the Missouri on their 1803-06 journey to the Pacific Ocean.

Navigation boat travel on the Missouri started with wood-framed canoes and Native American bull boats. The first steamboat was the Independence, in 1819. By the 1830s, large mail and freight-carrying vessels were running regularly between Kansas City and St. Louis. Water transport increased through the 1850s with craft ferrying pioneers, emigrants and miners. Steamboat navigation peaked in 1858 with over 130 boats operating full-time on the Missouri.

Tributaries nearly 100 significant tributaries and hundreds of smaller ones feed the Missouri River. Most rivers and streams in the Missouri River basin flow from west to east, following the incline of the Great Plains; however, some eastern tributaries, such as the James River, flow from north to south. The largest by runoff are the Yellowstone in Montana and Wyoming, and the Platte in Wyoming, Colorado and Nebraska.

Upper and Lower the Upper River is north of Gavin Point Dam, the last of 15 hydroelectric dams upstream of Sioux City. The lower Missouri runs 840 miles meeting the Mississippi just above St. Louis.

The Watershed encompasses most of the central Great Plains, stretching from the Rocky Mountains in the west to the Mississippi River Valley in the east and from the southern extreme of western Canada to the border of the Arkansas River. This watershed is home to 12 million people in Nebraska, Colorado, Iowa, Kansas, Minnesota, Missouri, Montana, North and South Dakota, and Wyoming. The watershed's largest city is Denver; many northwestern cities, like Billings Montana, are among the fastest growing in the Missouri basin.

The Missouri Watershed includes 25 percent of Agricultural Land in the United States

The People archaeological evidence suggests that the first arrivals in the watershed of the Missouri River were between 10 and 12 thousand years ago, making the Missouri River one of the main migration paths that settled in the Ohio and the lower Mississippi River Valley.

Pioneers the river defined the American frontier in the 19^th century as the major trails that opened the American West started on the Missouri River.

The First Westward leg of the Pony Express was a Ferry across the Missouri River

 Most emigrants arrived at the eastern terminus of the First Transcontinental Railroad via a ferry ride across the Missouri between Council Bluffs and Omaha. In 1869, the Hannibal was the first bridge to cross the Missouri River near Kansas City, the largest city upstream from St. Louis.

Manifest Destiny over one half million people set out from the river town of Independence, Missouri to their various destinations in the American West from the 1830s to the 1860s. Covered wagons, known as prairie schooners, provided the primary means of transport until the beginning of regular boat service in side wheelers and sternwheelers in the 1850s. Over 80 percent of upstream passengers and freight hauled from the Midwest to Montana was transported by boat, a journey that took 150 days. Conflicts between natives and settlers over the opening of the Bozeman Trail in the Dakotas, Wyoming and Montana resulted in Native American victory. However, the Great Sioux War of 1876-77, sparked when American miners discovered gold in the Black Hills, ended in relocation to reservations.

Missouri River Itineraries