[wistful, nostalgic piano]
- Narrator: In southern Wisconsin,
along the Illinois state line,
just north of the confluence of the Rock River and Turtle Creek,
sits the city of Beloit.
The area's flat landscape
was created nduring the last glacial period,
peaking more than 15,000 years ago.
The outwash from the melting glacier
filled in the once hilly landscape and deep valley,
creating a slower and rocky river.
Named the Rock River,
it originates in the Horicon Marsh area
and empties into the Mississippi River.
As a tributary to the Mississippi,
the Rock River was a key waterway
for the Ho-Chunk people,
particularly to reach one of their largest villages
at the junction of nthe Rock River and Turtle Creek.
- Bill Quackenbush: Beloit sits within
the central area of our ancestral homelands.
The Ho-Chunk, we hold the Beloit area
near and dear to our heart.
Much like many of our large city or council areas,
there's the utilization of our traditional names
for those sites,
and Beloit being referred to as "Ke-Chunk," the Turtle.
[traditional Ho-Chunk flute]
In our oral history...
that talks about when the Turtle came across
and wanted to reside down into the Rock River.
This is where he drug his tail.
And that's where the confluence is.
- Ke-Chunk, also called "Turtle Village," thrived.
When Indian Agent John Kinzie
visited the village in the 1820s,
he conducted a census
and reported almost 700 Ho-Chunk npeople living at Turtle Village.
Kinzie noted the village
growing vegetables and tapping trees for syrup.
- Bill Quackenbush: Beloit is unique.
It had its own resources,
and this was something that they would supply in abundance
and trade to other resources throughout our network.
So, Beloit played a very important role
of a place where people would come
to enter into that trade process.
[cheerful old-timey music]
- These trading opportunities
eventually attracted
non-native people to the Ke-Chunk area.
- Fred Burwell: Joseph Thibault was
a French-Canadian trapper and trader
who had been out in this region
for quite a few years,
had made a lot of inroads with the native population,
got to know them well, traded with them.
Thibault claimed a lot of land.
- In the early 1800s,
the Ho-Chunk Nation fled Ke-Chunk
as the Blackhawk War came into the area,
and the government forced them to move west.
- Fred Burwell: Because the Native Americans
had mostly moved on,
trading was not good for him anymore.
He was looking to move on.
And when Caleb Blodgett from Vermont came out here,
he made a deal with Thibault.
- Beatrice McKenzie: Caleb Blodgett was a land speculator
and the first settler in Beloit.
In May 1836,
he purchased the claim that Joseph Thibault had made
for a disputed amount,
something between $200 and $500.
- Blodgett bought Thibault's land claim,
which amounted to what they called three "looks,"
an estimated 7,000 acres.