You are traveling the route of the Old Military Road, built in 1835-36 to connect Fort Crawford at Prairie du Chien and Fort Howard at Green Bay, via Fort Winnebago at "the Portage" between the Fox-Wisconsin rivers. The section from Prairie du Chien to Fort Winnebago was built by soldiers from Fort Crawford, under the command of Colonel (later President) Zachary Taylor. The road was crudely constructed: two rods in width, with corduroy over the marshy places. Describing his travels over this road in March, 1855, Herbert Quick wrote, "here we went, oxen, cows, mules, horses; coaches, carriages, bluejeans, corduroys, rags, taters, silks, satin, caps, tall hats, poverty, riches; speculators, missionaries, land-hunters, merchants-a nation on wheels, an empire in the commotion and pangs of birth."

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