How Baraboo Got Its Name
Near Baraboo, Wisconsin
The very name Baraboo carries an echo of the old fur trade. Historians trace it to a French-speaking trader, remembered variously as Baribeau or Barbeau, who is said to have kept a trading post near the mouth of this river back in the seventeen hundreds, bartering with the Native peoples of the region. At first only the river bore his mangled name.
Later it spread to the surrounding hills, and at last to the town itself. American settlers began raising cabins and a sawmill along the water around eighteen thirty-nine. In eighteen forty-six, after a fierce rivalry with neighboring communities, the growing settlement won the prize of becoming the county seat of Sauk County, an honor that helped guarantee its future.
The village was formally renamed Baraboo in eighteen fifty-two, incorporated as a village in eighteen sixty-six, and chartered as a city in eighteen eighty-two. The courthouse square at the center of town has been the community's beating heart ever since. So the next time you say that odd, musical word, Baraboo, remember that you are speaking a fur trader's surname, worn smooth by nearly three centuries of Wisconsin tongues.
