Trempealeau County, Wisconsin: History
Patches of woodland are all that remain of the brush and light forest that once covered the county. In ancient times, the woodlands contained a great deal of timber, but Native Americans burned them periodically to encourage the growth of berries. They did little cultivation and had been almost completely removed from the area by 1837. The area was ceded by the Dakota in the 1837 Treaty of Washington (7 Stat. 538).
French fur traders were the first Europeans to enter this land, traveling by river across the county. At the mouth of the Trempealeau River at its confluence with the Mississippi River, they found a bluff surrounded by water and called it La Montagne qui trempe à l’eau ("mountain steeped in water"). It is now known as Trempealeau Mountain. The name was later shortened to Trempealeau. Created in 1854 and organized in 1855, the county is named after the river.
During the 19th and 20th century large numbers of Norwegian immigrants settled in the area in pursuit of cheap land, a better life and more opportunities. Much of the population is still of Norwegian descent and celebrate their ancestry by making foods native to Norway and participating in Norwegian Constitution Day events.
In the late 1850s, Trempealeau became a destination for Polish Prussian settlers from Upper Silesia seeking to escape German persecution and poverty in their homeland. They built churches, schools, and communities to develop what became the nation's second-largest Polish settlement. Their settlements were especially focused around Independence, Arcadia, Whitehall, and Pine Creek. Trempealeau has a large population of Silesian Polish descent to this day.
The county again became an immigrant destination in the first decades of the 21st century, gaining a significant Hispanic and Latino population.