Editing Vilas County, Wisconsin (section)

==History==
===Native Americans===
[[Indigenous peoples of the Americas|Native Americans]] have lived in what is now Vilas County for thousands of years. The county contains archaeological sites dating to the prehistoric [[Woodland period]].<ref>{{cite web |last1=Chapman |first1=Valerie M. |title=Detailed archaeological analysis of LDF-030D (47Vi257) of the Lac du Flambeau Reservation, Vilas County, Wisconsin |url=https://minds.wisconsin.edu/handle/1793/36631 |access-date=July 10, 2022 |date=May 2008}}</ref> In the eighteenth century, the area was disputed by the [[Dakota people|Dakota]] and [[Ojibwe]] people. According to oral histories, the conflict culminated in Ojibwe victory in a battle on Strawberry Island in [[Flambeau Lake]] around 1745.<ref>{{cite news |last1=Entz |first1=Gary |title=Strawberry Island: The Heart of Lac du Flambeau |url=https://www.wxpr.org/arts-life/2019-01-23/strawberry-island-the-heart-of-lac-du-flambeau |access-date=July 10, 2022 |work=WXPR |date=January 23, 2019 |language=en}}</ref> Ojibwe people have continued to live in the area ever since, securing the [[Lac du Flambeau Band of Lake Superior Chippewa|Lac du Flambeau Indian Reservation]] in the [[Treaty of La Pointe#1854 Treaty of La Pointe|1854 Treaty of La Pointe]].<ref>{{cite web |title=About Us |url=https://ldftribe.com/pages/2/About-Us/ |website=Lac du Flambeau Band of Lake Superior Chippewa Indians |access-date=July 10, 2022}}</ref>

===Settlement===
The first recorded white settler was a man named Ashman who established a trading post in [[Lac du Flambeau, Wisconsin|Lac du Flambeau]] in 1818.<ref name="county">[http://co.vilas.wi.us/ Vilas County, WI Government Main Page] {{Webarchive|url=https://web.archive.org/web/20151206181641/http://www.co.vilas.wi.us/ |date=December 6, 2015 }} Accessed January 11, 2011</ref>

In the 1850s migrants from [[New England]], primarily from [[Vermont]] and [[Connecticut]], constructed wagon roads and trails through Vilas County including the Ontonagan Mail Trail and a military road from [[Fort Howard (Wisconsin)|Fort Howard]] to [[Fort Wilkins Historic State Park|Fort Wilkins]] in [[Copper Harbor, Michigan]].<ref name="county"/>

Vilas County was set off from [[Oneida County, Wisconsin|Oneida County]] on April 12, 1893, and named for [[William Freeman Vilas]]. Originally from [[Vermont]], Vilas represented Wisconsin in the United States Senate from 1891 to 1897.<ref>William Freeman Vilas: Doctrinaire Democrat Front Cover Horace Samuel Merrill State Historical Society of Wisconsin, 1954</ref><ref>[http://www.co.vilas.wi.us/history.html Vilas County History] {{Webarchive|url=https://web.archive.org/web/20121107030215/http://www.co.vilas.wi.us/history.html |date=November 7, 2012 }}.</ref>

===Logging era===
Logging began in the late 1850s. Loggers came from [[Cortland County, New York]], [[Carroll County, New Hampshire]], [[Orange County, Vermont]] and [[Down East]] [[Maine]] in what is now [[Washington County, Maine]] and [[Hancock County, Maine]].<ref name="auto">History of Northern Wisconsin Illustrated. Chicago: Western Historical Company, 1881.</ref> Many dams were built throughout the county to assist loggers as they sent their timber downstream to the lumber and paper mills in the Wisconsin River valley.<ref name="county"/>  After the county was founded in 1893 and logging ceased to be the primary industry in the area, migrants seeking other forms of employment settled in the county. These later immigrants primarily came from Germany, Ireland and Poland though some came from other parts of the United States as well.<ref name="auto"/>