Eau Claire County Wisconsin USGenWeb

Welcome to the Eau Claire County site -

The original settlement of Eau Claire was located at the confluence of the Clearwater (now Eau Claire) and Chippewa Rivers. Once teeming with buffalo and other game, this area was hotly contested among the Sioux and Ojibwe for generations.

English traveler Jonathan Carver (1710-1780) wrote the first description of the area in 1767. By 1784, fur traders LeDuc and Penasha had set up operations there. French fur traders continued to winter in the area into the first half of the 19th century. According to local legend, the area was originally named Clearwater because early French explorers journeying down the rain-muddied Chippewa River, came upon the confluence with the Eau Claire River, and excitedly exclaimed "Voici l'eau claire!" ("Here is the clear water!")..

The first permanent white settlers did not arrive until 1845. By the early 1850s, about 100 people called Eau Claire home, most working at the local sawmill. Large numbers of German and Norwegian immigrants arrived in the 1860s.

Eau Claire county was originally set off as the Town of Clearwater in Chippewa County in 1855 and was the southern-most township in Chippewa County The name was changed to the Town of Eau Claire on March 31, 1856. The entire town was separated as Eau Claire County by an act of the Wisconsin State Legislature on Oct 6, 1856.

The county seat is Eau Claire. Cities within the county are: Altoona, Augusta, Fall Creek, Fairchild, Ludington, Seymour, and Wilson.

Maps

Volunteers Needed

If you would like to contribute information to this web site, or have books, cemetery surveys, vital records, obituaries, census records or any other genealogical information for Crawford County, WI and are a) willing to volunteer to do LookUps for others or b) willing to let their information be indexed for the site. Please contact the county coordinator. Thanks!

In 2023, Rootsweb was dissolved, displacing many of the WIGenWeb counties. Many thanks to the former County Coordinators Clare Guse and Shelley Green for maintaining this site. This county is now up for adoption.

EauClaireCoWI Coordinator: MAKtranscriber WIGenWeb State Coordinator: Tina Vickery WIGenWeb Assistant State Coordinator: Marcia Ann Kuehl