Editing Erin, Wisconsin (section)

==History==
Until the  1830s, the Erin area was home to [[Menominee]] and [[Potawatomi]] Native Americans<ref name="NRHP">{{cite news|last1=Dean |first1=Jeff |title=Holy Hill Shrine of Mary, Help of Christians| url={{NRHP url|id=92000139}} |access-date=December 29, 2020|work=[[NRHP]] Inventory-Nomination Form|publisher=National Park Service|date=January 31, 1992}}</ref> Native American oral traditions claimed that [[Jesuit missions in North America|Jesuit missionaries]] were the first white people to arrive in the area, possibly as early as the 1670s. Some historians have claimed that [[Jacques Marquette]] and [[Louis Jolliet]] stopped in the Erin area on their 1673–1674 journey to find the [[Rock River (Mississippi River tributary)|Rock River]] and planted a wooden cross on the summit of [[Holy Hill National Shrine of Mary, Help of Christians|Holy Hill]]. However, no one has been able to determine with certainty who the first explorers to visit the area were, because Jesuit accounts often do not describe landmarks with specific enough details for historians to draw definitive conclusions.<ref name="NRHP"/>

The Potawatomi surrendered their claims to the land the United States Federal Government in 1833 through the [[1833 Treaty of Chicago]], which (after being ratified in 1835) required them to leave Wisconsin by 1838.<ref name="NRHP"/><ref>{{cite web|title=Early history of Ozaukee County, Wisconsin|url=http://digicoll.library.wisc.edu/cgi-bin/WI/WI-idx?type=article&did=WI.OzEarlyHist.i0009&id=WI.OzEarlyHist&isize=M|publisher=University of Wisconsin-Madison Libraries|access-date=January 1, 2020}}</ref><ref>{{cite journal |last1 = Gerwing |first1 = Anselm J. |title = The Chicago Indian Treaty of 1833 |journal = Journal of the Illinois State Historical Society |date =Summer 1964 |volume = 57 |issue = 2 |pages = 117–142 |jstor = 40190019 |issn = 0019-2287 }}</ref> While many Potawatomis moved west of the Mississippi River to [[Kansas]], some chose to remain, and were referred to as "strolling Potawatomi" in contemporary documents because many of them were migrants who subsisted by [[squatting]] on their ancestral lands, which were now owned by white settlers. Itinerant Native Americans lived in Washington County into the late 19th century, when many of them gathered in northern Wisconsin to form the [[Forest County Potawatomi Community]].<ref>{{cite web|title=Potawatomi History|url=https://www.mpm.edu/content/wirp/ICW-152|publisher=Milwaukee Public Museum|access-date=February 20, 2020}}</ref>

The [[Wisconsin Territory|Wisconsin Territorial]] Legislature created the Town of Erin on January 16, 1846.<ref name="Encyclopedia">{{cite web|title=Encyclopedia of Milwaukee: Town of Erin |url=https://emke.uwm.edu/entry/town-of-erin/ |publisher=University of Wisconsin-Milwaukee|access-date=December 29, 2020}}</ref> It was possibly named for [[Erin]], the [[romanticism|romantic]], [[Hiberno-English]] name for Ireland,<ref>{{cite news | url=https://news.google.com/newspapers?id=LtADAAAAIBAJ&sjid=vykDAAAAIBAJ&pg=3616%2C853337 | title=Ireland in America | work=The Canadian Statesman | date=December 30, 1891 | access-date=October 14, 2015 | author=Deigman, John | pages=2}}</ref> from which many many of the early settlers had emigrated. As recently as 1940, nearly ninety percent of the town's population claimed Irish descent.<ref name="Encyclopedia"/>

Since its founding, Erin has been a primarily agricultural community, with dairy farming playing an important role in the local economy. Early businesses included blacksmiths, general stores, and creameries that supported the local farmers.<ref name="Encyclopedia"/>

Since the town's first decades, Erin has had a large Catholic community. In the 1860s, a Catholic priest built a log chapel dedicated as a shrine to [[Mary Help of Christians]] on the summit of Holy Hill. The site attracted many [[Pilgrimage|pilgrims]], and the log chapel was replaced with a brick church in 1881. In 1906, a group of [[Discalced Carmelites|Discalced Carmelite]] [[friar]]s from Bavaria settled at Holy Hill and built a monastery in 1920. By 1925, the church could no longer accommodate the growing number of pilgrims, and between 1926 and 1931 two new churches were erected. Holy Hill has become one of the most visited Catholic pilgrimage sites in the Midwest,<ref name="NRHP"/> and was made a [[Basilicas in the Catholic Church#Minor basilicas|minor basilica]] in 2006.<ref>{{cite news|first=Gay |last=Griesbach |title=Papal blessing: Holy Hill upgraded to minor basilica |url=http://www.gmtoday.com/news/local_stories/2006/July_06/07172006_05.asp |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20070928064905/http://www.gmtoday.com/news/local_stories/2006/July_06/07172006_05.asp |url-status=dead |archive-date=September 28, 2007 |work=[[West Bend Daily News]] |date=July 17, 2006 |access-date=June 19, 2007 }}</ref>

For the first century of its history, the town's population remained fairly stable, but following [[World War II]], the town grew dramatically, with the population quadrupling between 1950 and 2010. Some areas saw the development of residential subdivisions, and beginning in the 1960s some residents opposed the suburbanization of the town. However, even today most of Erin remains a rural, agricultural community.<ref name="Encyclopedia"/>