Indigenous Peoples Day
Indigenous Peoples’ Day in Sauk County - October 10, 2022 - Meyer Oak Grove Park
Indigenous Peoples’ Day in Sauk County was established in 2018 by a resolution passed by the Sauk County Board of Supervisors after introduction by then Supervisor Kristin K. White Eagle who also currently serves as a Ho-Chunk Nation Legislator. The first celebration was held in multiple locations in 2019 followed by Baraboo in 2020 and Reedsburg in 2021. This year’s celebration in Sauk City honored the Sauk who now comprise three federally recognized Sac & Fox Nations in Iowa, Kansas, and Oklahoma.
For over forty years during the 1700s the Sauk had a great village along the banks of the Wisconsin River with ninety longhouses and over 1,000 people. The Sauk planted hundreds of acres of corn, beans, melons, and other crops on the fertile prairie in the area. Their name became associated with the prairie and some 60 years after the Sauk left this village a new county was formed and named Sauk. The two earliest villages in the county along the same banks of the river were both named after the Sauk, and the area is collectively known as Sauk Prairie. Today the Great Sauk State Trail traverses the same land the Sauk knew in the 1700s.
