Black River (Wisconsin)

[3] During the 19th century, pine logs were rafted down the Black, heading for sawmills at La Crosse and points beyond.

[8] The earliest mention of the Black River may be in 1661, when a French Jesuit priest reported that a band of Huron Indians had taken refuge near its headwaters, where they were starving.

The priest, René Ménard, tried to reach them from Lake Superior by canoe, but disappeared somewhere in the wilderness.

The lower Black generally formed the border between the Lakota to the west and the Ho-Chunk to the east.

[12] In 1839, Jacob Spaulding and Robert and Andrew Wood led an expedition from Prairie du Chien up the Mississippi and the Black into the forest and built a sawmill at the future site of Black River Falls.

[14] In 1842 they floated a raft of their logs down the Black and Mississippi to Nauvoo, demonstrating the feasibility of this transport.

[14] By 1847, thirteen mills on the Black River produced over 6 million board feet of lumber.

Delta of the Black River at the Mississippi River across from Great River Bluffs State Park , Minnesota.
The Black freezes over in winter and snowmobilers run on the ice. (Looking downstream from the highway 64 bridge in the Chequamegon National Forest west of Medford.)
Bridge No. 4 of seven
U.S. 53 Black River bridge near Galesville, Wisconsin . The Black River is a large part of the boundary between La Crosse County and Trempealeau County .