[light piano music]
- Peter Shrake: The earliest known inhabitants
of the Sauk Prairie
would have been the Sauk Indians themselves.
And hence the name
Sauk Prairie, Prairie du Sac, Sauk City.
And the earliest village as far as is known
was a Sauk village
that was established around 1740.
Jonathan Carver, the British fur trader and explorer,
was coming down through the area,
and he provides
a fairly detailed description of that village
in his journals.
And he describes a community of about 90
buildings, of about 300 warriors,
but well-laid-out streets,
well-laid-out and constructed buildings.
The buildings are of, as he describes it,
hewn timber
with very tightly fitted joints,
covered with bark.
He describes the prairie full of plantations,
as he put it, very well-maintained of corn.
The village lasts until
sometime after the Revolutionary War,
and the Sauk move out of the area.
- Narrator: The Sauk Village,
on the site of today's Sauk City,
was located in the center
of traditional Ho-Chunk territory.
After ceding much of their land,
the Ho-Chunk continued to control the area
north of the Wisconsin River,
until the Treaty of 1837.
- Peter Shrake: In 1837, the Ho-Chunk
were invited to send a delegation to Washington, D.C.,
to meet with the President of the United States.
And after some very forceful negotiations--
the delegation was told
they would not be allowed to return home
if they did not sign the agreement--
the leaders did indeed sign the agreement under duress.
And it was as a result of that treaty then
that the Ho-Chunk lost
all of their remaining lands in Wisconsin.
And within a matter of a year,
the earliest settlers crossed the Wisconsin River
and start the settlement of what becomes Sauk County,
but in the area of Sauk City.
- Narrator: In 1840,
Hungarian immigrant Agoston Haraszthy
climbed a hill with an expansive view
of the Sauk Prairie
and the Wisconsin River Valley.
"The view," he later wrote,
"Was more beautiful than anything I had seen
"in all my travels.
"I was firmly convinced that nowhere in the world
could there be a more enchanting place."
- And so, he saw potential here.
He saw potential in that pioneer sense of,
"How can I make a buck?
And how can I develop something?"
- Paul Wolter: Well, he was known as The Count.
We do know that he was of
kind of middle-class nobility in Hungary.
He kind of added the "Count" business
when he got here
to impress people, which it did work.
- He could say, "Well, I am of noble family,
"and you don't know what that means in the United States,
so, you know, it translates as Count."
- So, he's only, like, 27
when he hits the Sauk Prairie for the first time,
apparently learning about Wisconsin on the trip over.
- Philip Hasheider: So, in the fall of 1840,
he went to Milwaukee to see
if he could find anybody to invest in
this new, grand area
he was trying to open up.
He met a man by the name of Robert Bryant,
and Bryant came to this country with
$90,000 to invest.
- So, the count,
who apparently was quite charming,
goes into partnership with Robert Bryant,
gets him up here to Sauk Prairie,
and they start developing things.
- One thing you have to say about Agoston Haraszthy
is that he had plenty of energy.
And so, he comes here,
and he files a plat for the village,
names it, of course, Haraszthy.
- Paul Wolter: And this is even before the land
is federally for sale,
but they lay out the village of Haraszthy,
named after Haraszthy,
but certainly financed by Bryant.
- Goes up to Baraboo, starts a store there.
He gets into lumbering.
- Philip Hasheider: And the Honey Creek had enough water
where they could dam it up
and then run a really primitive sawmill.
- They have the rights to the ferry crossing.
- He builds a home for his family,
because he, of course, has gone back to Hungary
and brought his wife and several children
and his parents.
And while he was there, in his spare time, he wrote
the first guide to Wisconsin in Hungarian
in order to stimulate more immigration.
- Paul Wolter: He was definitely flamboyant, colorful,
apparently had quite the charisma
to get all of these German settlers to come.
They start building buildings.
They eventually open a brickyard.
- Michael Goc: He also convinces the Catholic bishop
to build St. Aloysius Church in Sauk City.
- Julie Coquard: This cave is built out of sandstone,
and it was carved out
of the bedrock by Agoston Haraszthy,
who founded Sauk City.
And we think that he did this to use it as a wine cellar.
He had planted grapevines here on the hillsides.
And so, being right next to the vineyards
is the perfect spot to age the wine.
- Philip Hasheider: The last thing that Bryant invested in with Haraszthy
was a steamboat.
It was used
to transport stuff
all the way down to Prairie du Chien and back.
- Narrator: Agoston Haraszthy left Sauk City
during the California Gold Rush.
He went on to establish
a large winery north of San Francisco
and become known as a founder
of the California wine industry.
- Peter Shrake: But it is the Great Sauk Prairie itself
that is the biggest draw to the area.
This large expanse of land,
natural prairie land,
exceptionally fertile ground,
is perfect for farming.
- Narrator: At the end of the last ice age,
a melting glacier deposited thick layers
of sand and gravel over a broad outwash plain.
Layers of windblown soil created ideal conditions
for the growth of the 14,000-acre Sauk Prairie.
- Michael Goc: All of this stuff coming together
to make that patch--
that 14,000-acre patch--
as fertile as it was.
- Narrator: Using oxen,
early settlers plowed up the prairie
acre by acre
and planted the pioneer crop of wheat.
[water flowing]
The sawmill on Honey Creek
soon became a flour mill.
- Goc: To give you an idea of the quality of the farmland
and the farmers,
in 1859, flour ground at that mill
won the championship at the Wisconsin State Fair.
- Narrator: In Prairie du Sac, entrepreneur Miles Keysar
built a 50,000-bushel grain elevator
next to the Wisconsin River.
There he could load his steamboat,
the Ellen Hardy,
to transport the grain to market.
[steamboat paddle wheel churns]
- These villages exist because of the prairie,
because of that fertile farmland
that was there,
as farm service communities.