PRAIRIE DU CHIEN  , a city and the county-seat of Crawford county, Wisconsin, U.S.A., on the east bank of the Mississippi river about 3 M. above the mouth of the Wisconsin, about 98 m . W. of Madison . Pop . (1890) 3131; (1900) 3232; (1905) 3179; (1910) 3149 . It is served by the Chicago, Milwaukee & St Paul, and the Chicago, Burlington & Quincy railways . The city has a fine location, its natural attractiveness and mineral springs in the vicinity combining to make it a summer and health resort . It has an excellent artesian water-supply . Among its buildings are the Crawford county court-house, the city hospital and a sanatorium . It is the seat of St Mary's Academy (1872; R.C.) for young women, and the College of the Sacred Heart (1880; R.C.) for men . Among the manufactures are beer, wagons, wool, and pearl buttons, and the city is a centre of the fresh-water pearl fisheries along the Mississippi . Prairie du Chien is one of the most interesting places, historically, in Wisconsin . The first white man known to have visited the site was Father Hennepin in 1680; later in the same year the trader Du Lhut (or Duluth) was here .

In 1685

Nicholas Perrot, the French commandant in the West, built Fort St Nicholas near the site of the present city . After the close of the French and Indian War, British authorities assumed possession, but no garrison was regularly maintained . In 1779–1780 Prairie du Chien was the scene of plots and counterplots of American and British sympathizers and of the activities of Godefrey Linctot, the agent of George Rogers Clark . About 178o--1781 a permanent settlement began to grow up around the post . Prairie du Chien was formally surrendered in 1796 to the United States authorities under the Jay treaty, and by them Fort Shelby was erected . On the 17th of July 1814 a force of British, Canadians and Indians under Major William McKay captured the fort, and renamed it Fort McKay, but abandoned it in May 1815 . In 1816 Fort Crawford was erected—it was rebuilt on a different site in 1829—and in 1820 one of the principal depots of the American Fur Company was established here . Here in 1823 Judge James Duane Doty (1799–1865) opened the first United States court in what is now the state of Wisconsin . At the time of the Red Bird rising in 1827, Governor Lewis Cass of Michigar Territory made Prairie du Chien his temporary headquarters . During the Black Hawk War (1832) Zachary Taylor, then a lieutenant-colonel, was in command of Fort Crawford, and to him Black Hawk was entrusted after his capture . The Chicago, Milwaukee & St Paul railroad was completed to Prairie du Chien in 1857 . The city was chartered in 1872 .

PRAIRIE-

MARMOT, a zoological emendation for the American name " prairie-dog," applied to a small North American rodent allied to the squirrels and marmots, and technically known as Cynomys ludovicianus (see MARMOT) . In a great degree prairie-marmots, of which there are several species in North America, ranging as far south as Mexico, are intermediate between marmots and sousliks (see SousLix), having the cheek-pouches much smaller than in the latter, and the first front-toe, which is rudimentary in marmots and sousliks, well developed . The cheek-teeth are more complex than those of marmots, and the two series converge behind . In their slender build and small size, prairie-marmots are much more like sousliks than marmots . In habits these rodents are very like marmots, the typical species inhabiting the open prairies, while the others are found in mountains . The prairie species (C. ludovicianus) makes a raised, funnel-shaped entrance to its burrow . All feed on the roots of grass; and when disturbed, like marmots, utter a whistling cry . Rattlesnakes, owls and weasels are commonly found in the burrows; but 'their presence is no indication of the existence of a kind of " happy family " arrangement, the snakes, at any rate, preying on the young marmots . The hibernation of these rodents is only partial, and confined to seasons of intense cold .