Kickapoo River

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The Kickapoo River is a tributary of the Wisconsin River in the state of Wisconsin, in the United States. It is named for the Kickapoo Indians who occupied Wisconsin before the influx of white settlers in the early 19th Century.

The river begins near Wilton, Wisconsin and flows south through a deep valley cut into the hilly Driftless Zone of southwest Wisconsin. The Kickapoo empties into the Wisconsin River near Wauzeka, Wisconsin. The river is very crooked, frequently doubling back on itself as it flows through the Wisconsin landscape. The extremely crooked path of the river means that while the river is about 130 miles (210 km) long, its source at Wilton is just 60 miles (100 km) from its mouth at Wauzeka. The Kickapoo is the longest tributary of the Wisconsin River, and it drains over 800 square miles (2,100 km²) of land in Monroe, Vernon, Richland, and Crawford Counties. The river itself has a relatively low capacity for water, leading it to quickly and frequently flood after heavy rain.

In the late 1960s, the frequent floods prompted the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers to begin a dam project on the Kickapoo River near La Farge, Wisconsin. The proposed dam would create a 1,780 acre (7.2 km²), 12 mile (19 km) long reservoir and control flooding downstream. In preparation for the construction, the government used eminent domain to buy 149 farms comprising 8,569 acres (35 km²) of land from mostly unwilling sellers. This land would either be flooded by the dam or used as a tourism area around the lake. Construction of the dam began in 1971, amid heavy opposition from locals. After multiple lawsuits and numerous environmental and economic studies highlighting the negative impact of the dam, the government elected to halt construction in 1975, after spending more than $19 million and building nearly half of the dam. The 8,569 acres (35 km²) of land bought by the government remained in the possession of the Corps of Engineers until 1996, when it was split and parts were given to the State of Wisconsin and the Ho-Chunk Native American Tribe. The Kickapoo today is a popular canoeing river.