Winnebago County is a

county A county () is a geographic region of a country used for administrative or other purposesL. Brookes (ed.) '' Chambers Dictionary''. Edinburgh: Chambers Harrap Publishers Ltd, 2005. in some nations. The term is derived from the Old French denoti ...

in the

U.S. state In the United States, a state is a constituent political entity, of which there are 50. Bound together in a political union, each state holds governmental jurisdiction over a separate and defined geographic territory where it shares its so ...

Wisconsin Wisconsin ( ) is a U.S. state, state in the Great Lakes region, Great Lakes region of the Upper Midwest of the United States. It borders Minnesota to the west, Iowa to the southwest, Illinois to the south, Lake Michigan to the east, Michig ...

. As of the 2020 census, the population was 171,730. Its

county seat A county seat is an administrative center, seat of government, or capital city of a county or parish (administrative division), civil parish. The term is in use in five countries: Canada, China, Hungary, Romania, and the United States. An equiva ...

is Oshkosh. It was named for the historic Winnebago people, a federally recognized Native American tribe now known as the Ho-Chunk Nation.

Chief Oshkosh Chief Oshkosh (also spelled Os-kosh or Oskosh) (c. 1795 – August 31, 1858) was a chief of the Menominee Native Americans, recognized as the leader of the Menominee people by the United States government from August 7, 1827, until his deat ...

was a

Menominee The Menominee ( ; meaning ''"Menominee People"'', also spelled Menomini, derived from the Ojibwe language word for "Wild Rice People"; known as ''Mamaceqtaw'', "the people", in the Menominee language) are a federally recognized tribe of Na ...

leader in the area. Winnebago County comprises the Oshkosh-

Neenah Neenah ( ) is a city in Winnebago County, Wisconsin, United States. It is situated on the banks of Lake Winnebago, Little Lake Butte des Morts, and the Fox River approximately northeast of Oshkosh and southwest of Green Bay. Neenah's popul ...

, WI Metropolitan Statistical Area, which is included in the Appleton-Oshkosh-Neenah, WI Combined Statistical Area.

History

The region was occupied by several Native American tribes in the period of European encounter, including the Sauk, Fox,

, and

Ojibwa The Ojibwe (; syll.: ᐅᒋᐺ; plural: ''Ojibweg'' ᐅᒋᐺᒃ) are an Anishinaabe people whose homeland (''Ojibwewaki'' ᐅᒋᐺᐘᑭ) covers much of the Great Lakes region and the northern plains, extending into the subarctic and thro ...

(known as Chippewa in the US). French traders from what is now Canada had early interaction with them, as did French

Jesuit The Society of Jesus (; abbreviation: S.J. or SJ), also known as the Jesuit Order or the Jesuits ( ; ), is a religious order (Catholic), religious order of clerics regular of pontifical right for men in the Catholic Church headquartered in Rom ...

missionaries, who sought to convert them to Catholicism. European and American settlement encroached on their traditional territories, and the United States negotiated treaties in the mid-19th century to keep pushing the Indians to the west. Winnebago County was created in 1840 by European Americans and organized in 1848. The name ''Winnebago'' is of Algonquin origin, with variations used by the Fox and Potowatomi to refer to the Fox River below Lake Winnebago, which sometimes got muddy and full of fish. It means 'people dwelling by the fetid or ill-smelling water', which may also refer to a sulfur spring. The county seat, Oshkosh, was incorporated as a city in 1853, when it already had a population of nearly 2,800.

was the namesake for the county seat. A leader of the Menominee in the region, he was successful in gaining authorization from the federal government for 2500 of his people to remain in Wisconsin, at a time when the government was pushing for their removal west of the Mississippi River.

Geography

According to the U.S. Census Bureau, the county has a total area of , of which is land and (25%) is water.

Adjacent counties

* Waupaca County - northwest * Outagamie County - northeast * Calumet County - east * Fond du Lac County - south * Green Lake County - southwest * Waushara County - west

Major highways

* Interstate 41 * U.S. Highway 10 * U.S. Highway 41 * U.S. Highway 45 * Wisconsin Highway 21 * Wisconsin Highway 26 * Wisconsin Highway 44 *

Wisconsin Highway 47 State Trunk Highway 47 (often called Highway 47, STH-47 or WIS 47) is a State highway#United States, state highway in the northeastern and northern parts of the US state of Wisconsin that runs in a diagonal northwest–southeast from Menasha, ...

* Wisconsin Highway 76 * Wisconsin Highway 91 * Wisconsin Highway 114 * Wisconsin Highway 116 * Wisconsin Highway 441

Railroads

* Canadian National *

Wisconsin and Southern Railroad The Wisconsin and Southern Railroad is a Class II regional railroad in Southern Wisconsin and Northeastern Illinois currently operated by Watco. It operates former Chicago, Milwaukee, St. Paul and Pacific Railroad (Milwaukee Road) and ...

Buses

* GO Transit (Wisconsin) * Valley Transit (Wisconsin)

Airports

Wittman Regional Airport (KOSH) serves the county and surrounding communities.

Brennand Airport Brennand Airport, is a privately owned public use airport located southwest of the central business district of Neenah, a city in Winnebago County, Wisconsin, United States about halfway between Appleton and Oshkosh. The airport is home to ...

(79C) in the Town of Clayton is a major recreational aircraft hub year-round. Commercial

airline An airline is a company that provides civil aviation, air transport services for traveling passengers or freight (cargo). Airlines use aircraft to supply these services and may form partnerships or Airline alliance, alliances with other airlines ...

service for Winnebago County is provided by Appleton International Airport in the neighboring Outagamie County.

Demographics

2020 census

As of the census of 2020, the population was 171,730. The

population density Population density (in agriculture: Standing stock (disambiguation), standing stock or plant density) is a measurement of population per unit land area. It is mostly applied to humans, but sometimes to other living organisms too. It is a key geog ...

was . There were 76,046 housing units at an average density of . The racial makeup of the county was 86.2%

White White is the lightest color and is achromatic (having no chroma). It is the color of objects such as snow, chalk, and milk, and is the opposite of black. White objects fully (or almost fully) reflect and scatter all the visible wa ...

, 3.3% Asian, 3.0%

Black Black is a color that results from the absence or complete absorption of visible light. It is an achromatic color, without chroma, like white and grey. It is often used symbolically or figuratively to represent darkness.Eva Heller, ''P ...

African American African Americans, also known as Black Americans and formerly also called Afro-Americans, are an Race and ethnicity in the United States, American racial and ethnic group that consists of Americans who have total or partial ancestry from an ...

, 0.7% Native American, 1.8% from other races, and 5.1% from two or more races. Ethnically, the population was 4.8%

Hispanic The term Hispanic () are people, Spanish culture, cultures, or countries related to Spain, the Spanish language, or broadly. In some contexts, Hispanic and Latino Americans, especially within the United States, "Hispanic" is used as an Ethnici ...

or Latino of any race.

2000 census

As of the

census A census (from Latin ''censere'', 'to assess') is the procedure of systematically acquiring, recording, and calculating population information about the members of a given Statistical population, population, usually displayed in the form of stati ...

of 2000, there were 156,763 people, 61,157 households, and 39,568 families residing in the county. The

was . There were 64,721 housing units at an average density of . The racial makeup of the county was 94.92%

, 1.12%

, 0.46% Native American, 1.84% Asian, 0.02%

Pacific Islander Pacific Islanders, Pasifika, Pasefika, Pacificans, or rarely Pacificers are the peoples of the list of islands in the Pacific Ocean, Pacific Islands. As an ethnic group, ethnic/race (human categorization), racial term, it is used to describe th ...

, 0.72% from other races, and 0.92% from two or more races. 1.96% of the population were

or Latino of any race. 52.4% were of German, 6.2% Irish and 5.7% Polish ancestry. 94.6% spoke English, 2.5% Spanish and 1.0% Hmong as their first language. There were 61,157 households, out of which 31.00% had children under the age of 18 living with them, 53.00% were

married couples Marriage, also called matrimony or wedlock, is a culturally and often legally recognised union between people called spouses. It establishes rights and obligations between them, as well as between them and their children (if any), and b ...

living together, 8.30% had a female householder with no husband present, and 35.30% were non-families. 27.60% of all households were made up of individuals, and 9.90% had someone living alone who was 65 years of age or older. The average household size was 2.43 and the average family size was 2.99. By age, 23.80% of the population was under 18, 11.80% from 18 to 24, 30.40% from 25 to 44, 21.50% from 45 to 64, and 12.50% were 65 or older. The median age was 35 years. For every 100 females there were 99.40 males. For every 100 females age 18 and over, there were 97.80 males. In 2017, there were 1,833 births, giving a general fertility rate of 56.5 births per 1000 women aged 15–44, the 15th lowest rate out of all 72 Wisconsin counties. Additionally, there were 123 reported induced abortions performed on women of Winnebago County residence in 2017.

Government

Winnebago County is governed by the 36-member Winnebago County Board of Supervisors. Supervisors are elected to the board in a nonpartisan election held the first Tuesday of April in even numbered years and serve two-year terms. The board has several committees. It meets on the third Tuesday of each month at the Winnebago County Courthouse in Oshkosh.

Politics

Winnebago County was a longtime Republican stronghold, only tending to vote Democratic in national landslides. After 1964 it was not won by a Democrat until

Bill Clinton William Jefferson Clinton (né Blythe III; born August 19, 1946) is an American politician and lawyer who was the 42nd president of the United States from 1993 to 2001. A member of the Democratic Party (United States), Democratic Party, ...

won by a narrow plurality in 1996 due to large third-party performance. Since then, it has voted Republican with the exception of a heavy leftward swing in support of

Barack Obama Barack Hussein Obama II (born August 4, 1961) is an American politician who was the 44th president of the United States from 2009 to 2017. A member of the Democratic Party, he was the first African American president in American history. O ...

in 2008, and continued (though narrower) support for him again in 2012. It has voted for the winning presidential candidate in every election since 1980, except in 1992 when it supported

George H. W. Bush George Herbert Walker BushBefore the outcome of the 2000 United States presidential election, he was usually referred to simply as "George Bush" but became more commonly known as "George H. W. Bush", "Bush Senior," "Bush 41," and even "Bush th ...

, and in 2020, when it supported

Donald Trump Donald John Trump (born June 14, 1946) is an American politician, media personality, and businessman who is the 47th president of the United States. A member of the Republican Party (United States), Republican Party, he served as the 45 ...

Communities

Cities

* Appleton (mostly in Outagamie County and Calumet County) * Menasha (partly in Calumet County) *

* Omro * Oshkosh (county seat)

Villages

* Fox Crossing * Winneconne

Towns

* Algoma * Black Wolf * Clayton *

* Nekimi * Nepeuskun * Omro * Oshkosh * Poygan * Rushford * Utica *

Vinland Vinland, Vineland, or Winland () was an area of coastal North America explored by Vikings. Leif Erikson landed there around 1000 AD, nearly five centuries before the voyages of Christopher Columbus and John Cabot. The name appears in the V ...

Winchester Winchester (, ) is a City status in the United Kingdom, cathedral city in Hampshire, England. The city lies at the heart of the wider City of Winchester, a local government Districts of England, district, at the western end of the South Downs N ...

* Winneconne * Wolf River

Census-designated places

* Butte des Morts * Eureka * Waukau *

Unincorporated communities

* Adella Beach * Allenville * Black Wolf * Black Wolf Point * Clarks Point * Decorah Beach * Elo * Fairview Beach * Fisk * Fitzgerald * Harbor Springs * Highland Shore * Indian Shores * Island Park * Larsen * Lasleys Point * Leonards Point * Little Point * Koro * Medina Junction * Melrose Park *

Metz Metz ( , , , then ) is a city in northeast France located at the confluence of the Moselle (river), Moselle and the Seille (Moselle), Seille rivers. Metz is the Prefectures in France, prefecture of the Moselle (department), Moselle Departments ...

(partial) * Mikesville * Nichols Shore Acres * Oakwood * Orihula * Paukotuk *

Piacenza Piacenza (; ; ) is a city and (municipality) in the Emilia-Romagna region of Northern Italy, and the capital of the province of Piacenza, eponymous province. As of 2022, Piacenza is the ninth largest city in the region by population, with more ...

* Pickett * Plummer Point * Point Comfort * Reighmoor * Ricker Bay *

Ring (The) Ring(s) may refer to: * Ring (jewellery), a round band, usually made of metal, worn as ornamental jewelry * To make a sound with a bell, and the sound made by a bell Arts, entertainment, and media Film and TV * ''The Ring'' (franchise), a ...

* Rivermoor * Rush Lake * Shangri La Point * Snells * Sunrise Bay * Waverly Beach (partial) * Winnebago * Zion *

Zittau Zittau (; ; ; ; ; Lusatian dialects, Upper Lusatian dialect: ''Sitte''; ) is the southeasternmost city in the Germany, German state of Saxony, and belongs to the Görlitz (district), district of Görlitz, Germany's easternmost Districts of Germ ...

Ghost towns/neighborhoods

Delhi Delhi, officially the National Capital Territory (NCT) of Delhi, is a city and a union territory of India containing New Delhi, the capital of India. Straddling the Yamuna river, but spread chiefly to the west, or beyond its Bank (geography ...

* Menasha (former)

Notable people

* Martin Madison (born 1854, Winnebago County), South Dakota politician

References

External links

Winnebago County official website

Winnebago County map
from the Wisconsin Department of Transportation {{Coord, 44.06, -88.64, display=title, type:adm2nd_region:US-WI_source:UScensus1990 1848 establishments in Wisconsin Populated places established in 1848 Wisconsin placenames of Native American origin