Welcome to the Driftless

 Welcome to the Driftless

“Ancient.”

“Primeval.”

“Wild.”

“Paradise.”

“Canaan.”

These were just some words used by the first white settlers in the 1840s to describe the land we know today as Richland, nestled in the Lower Wisconsin River Valley in the Western Coulees and Ridges, a portion of the area known as the Driftless Region (1, 2). No doubt similar words were shared in those early days and beyond, when Louis Jolliet and Father Jacquess Marquette traversed the Meskousing, or “Red Stone River” as it may have been known to local Algonquin, in 1673, or when Spanish explorer Hernando De Soto first gazed upon Miisi-Zibi, “Gathering of Waters,” as it was known to the local Ojibwe, in 1541 (3). Between these two warm rivers, colder rivers from beneath the earth have danced a delicate ballet with wind and sand for millenia, shaping the very foundations and bedrock of the land. 

The Driftless Period: Age of Stone & Water

Let us turn now to a timeless time, an age of stone and water. Indeed, after land arose from the primordial ocean, ice quickly took hold of much of the northern part of the world.

Before there were names, when the rest of Wisconsin and the Midwest were buried and pulverized by the Laurentide Ice Sheet, the Driftless Area remained untouched by the glacial wall itself. Before there were names, a place was born. Many theories have been put forth as to why this region was spared, such as the idea that the particular bedrock formations at the edges of the area were strong enough to keep the ice at bay. Nevertheless, from about 2.4 million years ago till about 12,000 BCE, the land centered around the Upper Mississippi River Valley, with some parts of southeastern Minnesota, eastern Iowa, and northwestern Illinois, became a variable corridor for life on the edge of the glacier. The glaciers, however, continued to affect the entirety of the Driftless Area, so it may not be exactly true to say they were “untouched.” As the climate warmed and cooled over the years, glacial melt and groundwater slowly carved away the  Ordovician Trenton limestone and Cambrian Potsdam sandstone (4). Streams originating in coldwater springs coalesced into rivers, wearing the vulnerable ground and stone as they went. Sandy soil known as loess was carried by the winds, aiding in the erosion from the sky. Warm water rivers, turbulent and strong, breached their way as well, as seen by the Middle Kickapoo and Little Baraboo’s watersheds. Five principal cold watersheds were created, carving the land and wandering where they wilt: Bear Creek, Mill Creek, Knapp Creek, Willow Creek, and the “Mighty Pine,” (2). Moreover, through years of warming and cooling, glacial shards eventually made their way down the river valleys, scraping the soft stone to reveal carved, jagged formations that often broadened the river valleys (4). Prime examples of this are not only the Pine River Valley, which itself flows through Cambrian sandstone in the town of Rockbridge. Willow Creek Valley displays some of the most stunning examples of these outcroppings, and one no doubt gets lost in the contemplation of their age and the things they have seen. This is no doubt how all the valleys in Richland County were formed: over millions of years of chaotic dancing between stone, water, wind, and ice.

This “Final Ice Age” or “Driftless Period” gives way to the imagination, and one cannot help but think about what and who could have lived in the land over such a vast course of time. Even so, it would be hard to tell, and hard evidence is no doubt surely lost to time, kept alive only through oral stories and half-remembered myths. Indeed, it could only have been remembered as a time of immense magic: the huge glaciers ever darkening the sky on the horizon, the dangers of flying, swimming and earth-dwelling megafauna, etched into memory as spirit-beasts of ancient days. Indeed, this was the time of pioneer life as wetland forests and prairies of spruce, pine and birch attracted grazing animals, and with them, predators. The harsh reality was one of cold survival, and it is easy to romanticize the grand beauty of nature when we ourselves have not been forced to our knees by the whims of the wind. Ancestors of small mammals and birds fought to make their homes here, including the beaver, fox, skunk, otter, raccoon, badger, rabbit and mouse, not to mention the prehistoric bison, saber-toothed cats, giant beaver, and of course, the mastodon (3). Yes, there were giants. Indeed, this was a time of giants. We cannot know how long these animals persisted in this ever-changing environment, bothered only by each other and nature itself, until the first men came. A testament to what could very well have been one of the first hunts in this area was found in Boaz in 1897, revealing not only the skeleton of a slain mastodon, but also Clovis-style quartzite spearpoints used in the hunt. The silicified sandstone of the spearpoint, called Hixton orthoquartzite, most likely came from an ancient quarry known today as Silver Mound in Jackson County. The skeleton now resides in the University of Wisconsin Geology Museum, carbon-dated to 12,220 +/- 190, and is contemporary to further spearpoints found throughout the county, attesting not only the early time of habitation, but to the overall extent (5). Nearby in the Kickapoo River Valley, archaeologists from the National Science Foundation of the University of Wisconsin discovered 225 campsites and inhabited rock shelters, with an additional 58 sites in the hillsides, that showed varied habitation from c. 13,000-6000 BCE, predating the approximate end of the glacial age (6). Thus dawned the age of fire. 

The Dawn Period: Age of Night and Flame

The Last Ice Age began to come to a close between 16,000 and 12,000 BCE, as the global climate warmed significantly. The Green Bay Lobe of the glacier moved south, hitting the eastern end of the quartzite Baraboo Hills and blocking the Wisconsin River, causing water to back up and form Glacial Lake Wisconsin, and possibly also forming Devil’s Lake. This all but brought the Lower Wisconsin River to a halt, allowing the spring-fed rivers of the hills to fill the valley and move encountered. This did not last. Around 12,000 BCE (or 14,000 YA), as the climate continued to warm, this ice dam failed catastrophically. With its breaking, a torrent of water estimated to be 100-times the river's current size rushed south, carving deep, narrow gorges through the Cambrian sandstone, creating the mythic rock formations at Wisconsin Dells. This massive flood, however, formed the Lower Wisconsin River Valley into what it is today, with deposits of sand and clay continuously shaping and reshaping the wetlands of the river bottoms (3). No doubt these events affected the river valleys of the rich land in such the same way, with glacial chunks tearing and scraping the wind-beaten sandstone, allowing the meandering rivers to find not only more movement but more ground. And no doubt, as the first hunters and gatherers fought for survival, myths were born. 

It is said that “history becomes legend, legend becomes myth,” and even now the stories of those ancient days remain. The Potawatomi, in their historical visits to the sandstone formation known as Elephant Trunk’s Rock along Willow Creek, recalled a time when the surrounding valley was blanketed by water, with only the piney ridges as safe ground (7). It is also said that in those days, as the last fragments of the glacier pushed their way down the Wisconsin River Valley, an abomination was conceived as the final glacial ice shard jammed upon a rock at the confluence of the Pine and Wisconsin Rivers (8). To the Ho-Chunk, it may have been called Wą́gerúcge, “giant” or “man-eater,” (9). To the Menominee, Potawatomi, Sauk, Fox, and other Algonquin or Anishinaabe peoples, it was known as the Windigo, and was said to terrorize the area for thousands of years, sucking canoes under the water, eating whole herds of animals, blighting crops and blowing summer blizzards (8). Such a spirit is said to embody or personify the fear of winter famine through ice and hunger (10). 

The Human Age: Lithic, Archaic & Woodland Periods 

The so-called “Paleo-Indian” Age (a dated term we will use sparingly) or the “Lithic Age” saw gradual warming as the years went on. From approximately 13,000 BCE till about 5000 BCE, the cooling climate saw a change in not only the environment, but its inhabitants: large mammals like the mastodon were replaced by the bison, while modern plants and animals began to appear, sustaining the hunters and gatherers as the developed distinct lifeways inseparable from their environment or bioregion. With the shift in climate, so, too, did the land shift: wetlands gave way to forests and prairies, and seasonal homes and routes were developed over hundreds of years of experience. The Archaic Age, from about 4200 BCE to 100 BCE, saw the emergence of early organized culture, parallel to developments in the Middle East and Mesoamerica. The Old Copper Complex, ancestors of the Menominee, dominated the northern forests. This period also saw the first burials, with red ochre and grave goods (5). 

No doubt the earliest peoples avoided the area entirely, hearing the stories, knowing the legends, seeing the disasters or beholding the creature themselves. Even so, habitation at the very site where the Pine meets the Wisconsin can be dated to at least approximately 4000 BCE, evidenced by more than fifty conical and linear mounds and nearby workshops, and the artifacts collected from within (11). These mounds, at odds with the effigy mounds of the surrounding Lower Wisconsin River Valley, date to the Middle Archaic Period, but show the area had been inhabited by various cultures at various times for over six thousand years. The Woodland Period, from about 800 BCE to 1200 CE, is recognized for the emergence of these “mound builder” cultures. The Hopewell Culture were thought to construct their circular and linear earthworks during the Middle Woodland (c. 100 BCE-600 CE), and may or may not have been direct or indirect ancestors to the Effigy Mound Ceremonial Complex, which flourished in the Late Woodland Period from approximately 600 to 1200 AD, after which it was either displaced by or intermixed with the incoming Mississippian Oneota Culture of the Southeastern Ceremonial Complex, which was known for their geometric temple mounds (1, 2, 3, 5, 11, 12). 

History here once again gives way to legend. We can only piece together what occurred after the disappearance of not only the Effigy Mound Culture but also the Mississippians around 1200 CE. The most accepted hypothesis is that the Woodland culture dominated by the Menominee and other Algonquin peoples intermixed with the Mississippian Oneota, who arrived from Kentucky around 700 CE, birthing the Effigy Mound Ceremonial Complex, but with the northwards push of the larger Mississippian culture, the effigy complex dissolved, and the Ho-Chunk people were created on the shores of Red Banks (Green Bay) in untold days. One origin story mentions the Menominee as being imperative to their creation. Indeed, modern Ho-Chunk claim the effigy mounds as their cultural heritage and work to reclaim and protect their sacred sites (3, 5, 12, 13). 

Coming of the Second Peoples & the Age of Tears

Around the 1600s, the Sac (Sauk) peoples moved to the area, due to the westward push of French trade and violence, having originated eastward betwixt the Great Lakes like other Algonquin peoples (13). It is believed that they contended with the creature, and their wise-man saw that it could not be defeated. He tricked the creature into lifting the very rock that made it, but it was crushed and dragged down to the bottom of the mouth of the Pine River. With its dying scream, it cursed the Sac, but was said to linger as a ghost, exerting power over the minds of those who travel nearby, capable of even setting up residence if it chose (8). It is thought that the curse was enacted not only through the Sac and Meskwaki (Fox) 1804 eviction, but by the continuous violence against whoever inhabited the location. Following Black Hawk’s retreat in 1832, the allied Ho-Chunk were pushed further west until cessation of their lands east of the Mississippi in 1837, although many remained alongside the Sac, Meskwaki, and Potawatomi (13). Indeed, these were the peoples that called this land home when the first white settler, John Coumbe, himself an immigrant from England, attempted to settle in 1838, a short distance from the village of Tippasaukee. 

This early pioneer described the land as a “primeval wilderness, a Western Canaan,.” (1). In 1843, Samuel Swinehart traveled further and attempted to settle the ancient site at the Pine’s confluence, but it was eagerly defended by Ho-Chunk. He was chased up the river valley, no doubt following Black Hawk’s trail, before coming to the even older site now known as Rockbridge (1, 11, 14). Here, he surveyed and named the river, inspired by the vast pine forest, which was in fact part of the Ho-Chunk Waazija, or “Grand Pinery,” for which the Ho-Chunk themselves were known in their own language as “The People of the Sacred Voice of the Pines” (9). In 1845, William and Robert McCloud attempted to settle the area around Bear Creek, and under the pretense of revenge, purged the area of Ho-Chunk, sparking a small colonial war that ultimately required the attention of Henry Dodge, Governor of Wisconsin (1). It was said that their sister Judith was found by local Natives on a cliff, and rather than face them, jumped off in fear. The cliff is known as Point Jude today. However, descendants later revealed that Judith McCloud never existed (11). So it was, that myth was used to redden the river. Such is the power of stories. O, how they fill the valley, and seep through the very earth!  

A Driftless Legacy: Richland

With the heat of immigration, Richland County, aptly named, was officially organized in 1850, while Richland City was laid out at the site of the confluence in 1848, becoming the “heart of the county” until its slow decline through various tragedies, until it was proclaimed “the dead city” in 1923 and “a ghost town” in 1972 (1, 14, 15). One cannot help but gaze upon the maps of ancient mounds dug up in the late 1800s in this very place, and wonder (11). Now, nothing remains, nothing except the sound of sifting sand and falling sod, water ceaselessly grinding the stone as the winds whisper through the piney ridges. One cannot help but recall a story about a certain Paul Seifert & the “Cave of the Dead,” and wonder if the Windigo indeed still screams through our hills and minds (11). 

Local superstition often blames “the thing in the river” for various things: floods, fires, insanity, drownings and murders (8). Indeed, it seems both rivers need every so often to claim a life, lest the land fester around them. But one cannot remain focused forever on the winter, the cold and the dark. The Windigo itself may have laid claim to the mouth of the Pine, its confluence with the Wisconsin, but lore and belief points to a battle unseen, for the rivers themselves are great spirits, called Wakcéki in Ho-Chunk (9). No doubt each waterspirit had its qualm with the enduring spirit of hungry winter, but we certainly cannot blame the entire happenings of the region, of entire peoples, to the tragedies of one particular site. Despite this, no one living in this “rich land” can deny the lengths of the shadow, just as they cannot deny the loess and clay, nor bloodied water and tear-stained soil. But just as the rivers persisted, so did the people that gave them names we will never learn. Indeed, the Ho-Chunk continued to travel through the county, especially after the Homestead Act of 1862 which allowed them to buy back their own land. This is not a lost or a forgotten cause: in the 90s, led by one artist’s visions of a ‘ghost eagle,’ the Ho-Chunk not only reclaimed historic sites within the county but worked to protect the entire Lower Wisconsin Riverway (16). They persisted. They endured. They remained. Now, they consider themselves one of the strongest Indigenous nations in the country (17). 

Small glimpses at victory and attempts at peace cannot erase a history of pain. We may scour our histories, flip through the tales, and devour the lore and legends, but some questions will always go unanswered. We can never know if anything is truly connected beyond observable cause and effect. We can only explore the options and possibilities, like the primeval wilderness between two rivers, only to find that the answers extend into a time beyond living memory, to an age remembered only by stone and sand, wind and water. We may forget, but they never will. They are watching, and waiting. When the Mesquakie, close allies to the Sac, say Manitoumie, “the Great Spirit dwells here,” when they refer to the whole of southwest Wisconsin (18), we must ask: which one? For there are many. 

Welcome to the Driftless Richland. Stay tuned for more stories as we explore together. 

References, Resources & Further Reading:

1. History of Crawford and Richland Counties, Wisconsin. Union Publishing Co., 1884

2. The Ecological Landscapes of Wisconsin, Chapter 22: Western Coulees & Ridges Ecological Landscape. Wisconsin DNR, 2015

3. Wisconsin: The Story of the Badger State. Norman K. Risjord, 1995

4. Roadside Geology of Wisconsin. Robert H. Dott Jr., John W. Attig, 2004

5. Wisconsin Indian Literature: Anthology of Native Voices, Kathleen Tigerman, 2006

6. Newspaper Clipping, Richland County History Room, unknown publisher or date

7. “Fabers’ care helps historic rock survive,” Dawn Keifer, Richland Observer, 2005. 

8. Driftless Spirits: Ghosts of Southwest Wisconsin, Dennis Boyer. 1997

9. The Encyclopedia Hōcąk Mythology, Richard L. Dieterle, 2005

10. Braiding Sweetgrass: Indigenous Wisdom, Scientific Knowledge, and the Teachings of Plants, Robin Wall Kimmerer, 2013

11. River of Mystery: The Stories of Paul Seifert, Bogus Bluff, Richland City, and the Ancient People of the Wisconsin River Valley, Bomkamp et al, 2014

12. American Landscapes: Ancient Effigy Mound Landscapes of Upper Midwestern North America. Robert A. Birmingham & Amy L. Rosebrough. 2025

13. Indian Nations of Wisconsin: Histories of Endurance & Renewal. Patty Loew. 2013

14. Richland Center, Wisconsin: A History. Margaret Helen Scott, 1972

15. The Tragedy of Richland City, James McManus, 1923

16. Ghost Eagles: The Spirit Journey or Artist Jan Beaver Gallione. Linda Meadowcroft. 2023

17. ho-chunknation.com. Ho-Chunk Nation of Wisconsin. 2025

18. The Driftless Land: Spirit of Place in the Upper Mississippi Valley, Kevin Koch, 2010