Big Foot Prairie is an

unincorporated community An unincorporated area is a parcel of land that is not governed by a local general-purpose municipal corporation. (At p. 178.) They may be governed or serviced by an encompassing unit (such as a county) or another branch of the state (such as th ...

and

census-designated place A census-designated place (CDP) is a Place (United States Census Bureau), concentration of population defined by the United States Census Bureau for statistical purposes only. CDPs have been used in each decennial census since 1980 as the counte ...

Walworth County, Wisconsin Walworth County is a County (United States), county located in the U.S. state of Wisconsin. As of the 2020 United States census, 2020 census, the population was 106,478. Its county seat is Elkhorn, Wisconsin, Elkhorn. The county was created in ...

, United States. It was named a CDP for the 2020 census, at which time it had a population of 22. It is located in the Town of Walworth along U.S. Highway 14, south of the Village of Walworth. The community of Big Foot Prairie extends south into

McHenry County, Illinois McHenry County is a County (United States), county located in the U.S. state of Illinois. According to the 2020 United States census, 2020 Census, it had a population of 310,229, making it the sixth-most populous county in Illinois. Its count ...

, where there is a CDP of the same name in Chemung Township.

History

The community is named for Big Foot, a

Potawatomi The Potawatomi (), also spelled Pottawatomi and Pottawatomie (among many variations), are a Native American tribe of the Great Plains, upper Mississippi River, and western Great Lakes region. They traditionally speak the Potawatomi language, ...

leader who resided on nearby Kishwauketoe (today known as Geneva Lake) until his band was forcibly removed by the United States in 1836. It once had a

post office A post office is a public facility and a retailer that provides mail services, such as accepting letter (message), letters and parcel (package), parcels, providing post office boxes, and selling postage stamps, packaging, and stationery. Post o ...

, which opened on May 15, 1848.

Demographics

Notable people

* Phipps W. Lake, Free Will Baptist minister and member of the

Wisconsin State Assembly The Wisconsin State Assembly is the lower house of the Wisconsin Legislature. Together with the smaller Wisconsin Senate, the two constitute the legislative branch of the U.S. state of Wisconsin. The Assembly is controlled by the Republican ...

Lewis N. Wood Lewis Newton Wood was a member of the Wisconsin State Assembly. Biography Wood was born on January 12, 1799, in Cumberland County, New York. He married Naomi Davis on October 21, 1821. They had eight children. In 1837, Wood graduated from Gene ...

, physician and member of the Wisconsin State Assembly

References

Census-designated places in Wisconsin Census-designated places in Walworth County, Wisconsin Populated places established in 1848 {{WalworthCountyWI-geo-stub