Editing Mequon, Wisconsin (section)

==History==

[[File:Isham Day House Mequon WI May09.jpg|thumb|left|The 1839 [[Isham Day House]] is now a museum located in Settlers Park.]]

The area was originally inhabited by Native Americans, including the [[Menominee]], [[Potawatomi]], and [[Sauk people]]. In the early 19th century, the Potawatomi had a village in present-day [[Thiensville]] located on Pigeon Creek, north of Freistadt Road. In 1832, the Menominee surrendered the land between the [[Milwaukee River]] and [[Lake Michigan]] to the United States Federal Government through the ''[[Treaty of Washington, with Menominee (1831)|Treaty of Washington]]''.<ref name= "corrigan">Walter D. Corrigan, ''History of the Town of Mequon, Ozaukee County, Wisconsin, Brought Down to about 1870''. Mequon: Mequon Club, 1950.</ref> The Potawatomi surrendered the area of Mequon west of the Milwaukee River in 1833 through the ''[[1833 Treaty of Chicago]]'', which (after being ratified in 1835) required them to leave the area by 1838.<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.i0034&id=WI.OzEarlyHist&isize=M|publisher=University of Wisconsin-Madison Libraries|access-date=January 3, 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 Native people 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. Eventually the Potawatomi who evaded forced removal gathered in northern Wisconsin, where they formed 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>

European trappers, explorers, and traders used the Milwaukee River through the middle of what is now Mequon as a means of transportation. The first permanent white settlers arrived in the mid-1830s from New York, England, and Ireland. One of the first settlers was John Weston, who settled near present-day Thiensville in 1837 and served as the first postmaster of the Town of Mequon. One of the oldest surviving buildings from this period is the [[Isham Day House]], constructed in 1839 on the west bank of the river. The first [[Germans]] arrived in 1839, and in the 1840s Germans became the largest ethnic group in Mequon and Ozaukee County.<ref>{{cite web|title=Early history of Ozaukee County, Wisconsin|url=http://digicoll.library.wisc.edu/cgi-bin/WI/WI-idx?type=div&did=WI.OzEarlyHist.i0034&isize=M|publisher=University of Wisconsin-Madison Libraries|access-date=January 3, 2020}}</ref>

===Freistadt===

[[File:FSLG.jpg|thumb|right|While Trinity Lutheran Church of Freistadt moved to a stone church in 1884, a reconstruction of the original log structure stands at the Trinity-Freistadt Historic Site.]]

In October 1839, a party of twenty German families from [[Province of Pomerania (1815–1945)|Pomerania]], [[Prussia]], settled the Freistadt community in the western part of the Town of Mequon. They were [[Old Lutherans]] who had resisted the Prussian government's attempts to take control over the Protestant churches through the [[Prussian Union of Churches]].<ref>Ozaukee County. [http://www.co.ozaukee.wi.us/777/Trinity-Evangelical-Lutheran-Church---Fr Trinity Evangelical Lutheran Church - Freistadt]</ref> In German, "Freistadt" means "Free City".<ref>*[http://www.wisconsinhistory.org/dictionary/index.asp?action=view&term_id=5544 Freistadt] {{Webarchive|url=https://web.archive.org/web/20110610211334/http://www.wisconsinhistory.org/dictionary/index.asp?action=view&term_id=5544 |date=June 10, 2011 }} in ''Dictionary of Wisconsin History''</ref>

In 1840, they built a log cabin church, which they named Trinity Lutheran Church. It was the first Lutheran church in Wisconsin. In 1845, what would become the [[Lutheran Synod of Buffalo]] was organized in Freistadt. However, the Freistadt church became a part of the [[Lutheran Church–Missouri Synod]] in 1848.<ref name="Early">{{cite web|title=Early history of Ozaukee County, Wisconsin|url=http://digicoll.library.wisc.edu/cgi-bin/WI/WI-idx?type=turn&entity=WI.OzEarlyHist.p0103&id=WI.OzEarlyHist&isize=M|publisher=University of Wisconsin-Madison Libraries|access-date=January 3, 2020}}</ref> The wooden church was replaced with a limestone building in 1884.<ref>{{cite web|title=Property Record: 10729 W Freistadt Rd.|date=January 2012|url=https://www.wisconsinhistory.org/Records/Property/HI13485|publisher=Wisconsin Historical Society|access-date=January 3, 2020}}</ref>

===Thiensville===

Joachim Heinrich Thien moved to the area in 1842 from [[Oldenburg in Holstein|Oldenburg]], [[Prussia]], and helped design a plan for the settlement that would become [[Thiensville]]. A year later he employed a group of Native American laborers to construct a dam and a canal. He then built a sawmill and a store. Thien hosted the first town meeting for the Town of Mequon in 1846,<ref name= "corrigan"/> and in 1857 he established the volunteer fire department and served as its first captain.

Thien was a [[freethinker]], as were many of the early German settlers. The influence of the freethinker societies kept formal churches out of the village until 1919, when St. Cecilia Catholic Church was built.<ref>{{cite web|title=Encyclopedia of Milwaukee: Village of Thiensville|url=https://emke.uwm.edu/entry/village-of-thiensville/|publisher=University of Wisconsin-Milwaukee|access-date=January 3, 2020}}</ref>

Thiensville grew in part because of its location on the [[Chicago, Milwaukee & St. Paul Railway]], which was constructed in the early 1870s. In the late 19th and early 20th centuries, Thiensville was one of the most concentrated communities in the Town of Mequon. While most of Mequon was quite rural, Theinsville functioned as a downtown area with stores, mills, and professional services. The village of Thiensville incorporated in 1910.

In 1945, eighty German [[prisoners of war]] from Camp Fredonia in [[Little Kohler, Wisconsin]] were contracted to work at the Herbert A. Nieman Canning Company in the village to make up for the loss of labor due to local men fighting in [[World War II]].<ref>{{Cite book|url=https://books.google.com/books?id=zD-kby0LiuEC&pg=PA123|title=Stalag Wisconsin: Inside WW II Prisoner-of-war Camps|last=Cowley|first=Betty|date=January 1, 2002|publisher=Badger Books Inc.|isbn=9781878569837|pages=120–25|language=en}}</ref> German prisoners from Camp Rockfield in [[Rockfield, Wisconsin]], (located in present-day [[Germantown, Wisconsin|Germantown]]) also worked at the Fromm Bros., Nieman & Co. Fox Ranch in northern Mequon.<ref>{{Cite book|url=https://books.google.com/books?id=zD-kby0LiuEC&pg=PA123|title=Stalag Wisconsin: Inside WW II Prisoner-of-war Camps|last=Cowley|first=Betty|date=January 1, 2002|publisher=Badger Books Inc.|isbn=9781878569837|pages=227–31|language=en}}</ref>

In the 20th century, Mequon and the village of Thiensville developed a close relationship,<ref>{{Cite web|url=https://www.ci.mequon.wi.us/econdev/page/city-mequon-and-village-thiensville-community-gateway-features|title=City of Mequon and Village of Thiensville Community Gateway Features {{!}} Mequon Wisconsin|website=ci.mequon.wi.us|access-date=November 9, 2019}}</ref> with a shared school district,<ref>{{Cite web|url=https://www.mtsd.k12.wi.us/|title=Mequon-Thiensville School District {{!}} The Launchpad to Success|website=mtsd.k12.wi.us|language=en-US|access-date=November 9, 2019}}</ref> chamber of commerce,<ref>{{Cite web|url=https://www.mtchamber.org|title=Mequon-Thiensville Chamber of Commerce|website=mtchamber.org|access-date=April 13, 2020}}</ref> and library.<ref>{{Cite web|url=https://www.flwlib.org/|title=Frank L. Weyenberg Library of Mequon-Thiensville {{!}} Official Website|website=flwlib.org|access-date=November 9, 2019}}</ref>

===City of Mequon===

The Town of Mequon experienced significant population growth during the [[suburbanization]] that followed World War II. Between 1950 and 1960, the population increased by roughly 110%, from 4,065 to 8,543. With growth came the risk that municipalities such as Thiensville or [[Milwaukee]] would try to annex land from the Town of Mequon, as happened to the Milwaukee County's [[Town of Lake]] in 1954 and [[Town of Granville]] in 1956. With a 1957 population of about 7,500, Mequon incorporated as a city under the terms of Wisconsin statute 66.0215, also known as "The Oak Creek Law," which had been crafted to prevent suburban towns from being annexed by other municipalities.<ref>[http://nxt.legis.state.wi.us/nxt/gateway.dll?f=templates&fn=default.htm&vid=WI:Default&d=stats&jd=66.0215 Wisconsin Legislature Data<!-- Bot generated title -->]</ref><ref name="Encyclopedia">{{cite web|title=Encyclopedia of Milwaukee: City of Mequon|url=https://emke.uwm.edu/entry/city-of-mequon/|publisher=University of Wisconsin-Milwaukee|access-date=January 3, 2020}}</ref>

According to [[Tougaloo College]]'s ''Historical Database of Sundown Towns'', Mequon was probably a [[sundown town]] until 1954 when [[History of the Atlanta Braves#Milwaukee|Milwaukee Braves]] right fielder [[Hank Aaron]] moved his family to the community. Aaron could not buy his home directly from its builder and instead had to engage a friend to buy it on his behalf.<ref>{{cite web |url=https://justice.tougaloo.edu/sundowntown/mequon-wi/ |title=Mequon, Wisconsin |last= |first= |date= |website=Historical Database of Sundown Towns |publisher=Tougaloo College |access-date=May 30, 2022 |quote=}}</ref><ref>{{cite web |url=https://www.wpr.org/was-your-wisconsin-community-sundown-town |title=Was your Wisconsin community a 'sundown town'? |last=Vasquez |first=Rachael |date=May 24, 2022 |website=Wisconsin Public Radio |publisher= |access-date=May 30, 2022 |quote=}}</ref>

The city continued to grow with the construction of [[Interstate 43]] in the mid-1960s, making travel to Milwaukee easier. Despite being a city, much of Mequon remains rural, and nearly half of the land in the community is undeveloped.