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 the 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 people 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.