In the late 19th century, it was settled by Dutch Catholic immigrants from North Brabant, led initially by the Dominican Missionary Theodore J. van den Broek from Uden.

While sharing in the history of northeast Wisconsin, Little Chute has been influenced by two unique factors: the rapids and portages along the Fox River and the coming of Dutch-Catholic settlers in 1848.

The actual construction of these features provided employment to settlers, the Dutch among them, although the canal system never proved to be a great success.

While the French had yet to settle in the area, their presence to the east started a chain reaction of tribal migration.

The Sac and Meskwaki were uprooted again by eastern tribes and began to arrive in the Fox River Valley in the late 17th century.

By the time the French settlement started in the early 18th century, the Sac had essentially set up toll stations along the Fox-Wisconsin Waterway, including the rapids at Little Chute.

The French, outraged at the impact on trade, launched a series of attacks on the Sac, culminating in the Fox Wars, which drove them out of the area by 1742.

[10][11][12] The power vacuum created by the departure of most of the Ho-Chunk, the Sac and the Fox allowed the Menominee to briefly dominate the area.

Jean Nicolet reached the Fox River at Green Bay in 1634 and set up a trading post.

Explorers Father Jacques Marquette and Louis Joliet passed through the area in 1673, following the canoe route to the Mississippi.

As early as 1760, the families of Augustin and Charles Grignon, French Canadian Métis, established a fur trade post along the rapids.

The Americans nominally controlled the area although the British continued to maintain a presence until the end of the War of 1812 in 1814.

The singular person in the establishment of Little Chute as a Catholic Dutch-American community was a Dominican missionary: Father Theodore J. van den Broek.

After a period as a pastor in the Netherlands, he left in 1832 at the age of 49 to join other missionary priests at Cincinnati, Ohio.

Father Van den Broek also met Morgan Lewis Martin, who was in charge of the local canal project.

[14] In that same year, 1836, the Menominees signed the “Treaty of the Cedars” which required them to give up title to the local land and move beyond the Wolf River to the west.

As St. John Nepomucene parishioners were significantly reduced after the Treaty of the Cedars, he used the trip as an opportunity to again write in De Tijd, advertising the mission, the land at La Petite Chute and employment opportunities associated with the Fox River Canal, which included free passage to America for workers.

Most of the early emigrants were from villages near Uden, including Zeeland, Boekel, Mill, Oploo and Gemert.

[14][17][18][19] Typical passage to La Petite Chute included crossing the Atlantic from Rotterdam to New York City, a train trip from there to Albany, a train or Erie Canal-barge trip across New York state to Buffalo, steamship travel through the Great Lakes and Green Bay to the head of the Fox River at Green Bay and finally a 30-mile, ox-cart trip to the mission at La Petite Chute.

[20] Father Van den Broek's group, held up by an ice jam on Lake Michigan, arrived on June 10, 1848.

There were other Europeans, mainly French and Irish emigrants, already established at La Petite Chute, now also known by its semi-anglicized name of “Little Chute.” A few Native Americans still lived in the area.

It is estimated that, by 1927, as many as 40,000 Dutch Roman Catholics had immigrated to the United States—an average rate of 10 per week for 80 years.

While many headed for cities or individual farms across the country, Little Chute and the surrounding area represented the largest concentration of Catholic immigrants.

The first settlers would have devoted all energies to clearing land, planting, building small homes and barns, fencing and raising livestock.

The State "Fox and Wisconsin Improvement Company" took over operations in 1850 and finished the canal and adjoining dam by 1856.

[23] The 16 feet of water head at La Petite Chute and other falls was used for mills, a practice that continues.

St. John Nepomucene was the primary educational institution with the local public high school not opening until 1966.

The festival was reinstituted in 1981 after a long hiatus dating back to the early twentieth century, and is possibly the only such named event in the United States.

The Little Chute Windmill and Van Asten Visitor Center, completed in 2013, serves as a museum and tourist attraction that promotes the history and Dutch heritage of the community.

The non-profit organization Fox-Wisconsin Heritage Parkway is rehabilitating the Little Chute Lock Tender's House with volunteer labor and private donations.