A   General Sketch of La Crosse History
                         ALBERT H. SANFORD

     The name La Crosse is of pure French origin. When the French
explorers and traders ascended the Mississippi River at the end of the
seventeenth and the beginning of the eighteenth centuries they saw the
Indians playing a game on the prairie that stretched for two miles east-
ward from the river to the bluffs. This was a ball game played with a
long-handled racquet that reminded the French of their tennis game
which they called "la crosse". (This name had its origin in the fact that
the racquet resembled the bishop's crozier). Hence this site became
"Prairie la Crosse". 1 There was no permanent Indian village here at
that time, but bands of Winnebagos and Sioux often made this a stop-
ping point in their wanderings.
     The first white men to pass this point on the river were Father
 Louis Hennepin, Michel Accau, and Antoine Auguel who in 1680 were
 sent by La Salle from the Illinois country to explore the upper Missis-
 sippi. Other Frenchmen soon followed with the purpose of opening
 trade. Nicholas Perrot was appointed commandant of this region and
 in 1685-86 he wintered at a post just north of Trempealeau. In the next
 century many famous explorers passed and repassed the site on their
 journeys, among them Carver (1766), Pike (1805-6), Schoolcraft and
 Cass (1819-20), and Long (1823). None of these explorers seems to
 have taken note of the exceptional advantages of this site for a village
 and no trading post was established here until November 1841, when
 Nathan Myrick brought a boat load of goods from Prairie du Chien and
 -establishing himself on Barron's Island began trade with the Indians.
 The following winter Myrick moved across the river and built his log
 hut and storehouse at the site that is at present the intersection of
 State and Front Streets. 2
     At least four aspects of physical geography have contributed to-
ward making this a favorable location for a city that has become the
largest on the Wisconsin bank of the Mississippi, and that has ranked
as one of the few good-sized cities on this river between St. Louis and
    NOTE--rlhe writer has been told that there is a dermand (especially at the
Public Library) for a brief, general story of La Crosse history in available form.
This accounts for the inclusion of this paper here. It was written originally to
form the introductory chapter in the report of the Social Survey of La Crosse
(1926-27).
    1. American writers sometimes spelled it Cross, but the name could not have
 been derived from the English word "cross", else the French would have called the
 site Prairie la Croix.
    2. An account of Myrick is found in the History of La Crosse County (West-
 ern Historical Co. 1881) pp. 339-342; 449-453. Myrick tells his own story in Bio-
 graphical History of La Crosse, Trempealeau and Buffalo Counties, Wisconsin
 (Lewis Pub. Co. 1892), pp. 541-569.
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