The county is located in the northern section of Wisconsin where the last glacier deposited terminal moraines, eskers, erratic boulders, silt loam, lakes, rivers and deep forests – a unique geology like no other in the state. Prior to the mid-1800’s, Native Americans were the only inhabitants plus a few European fur traders and trappers who began traveling the wilderness in the 1600’s. These traders followed a centuries old route from the Fox River at Green Bay that ran along the Wolf River to the copper area of Lake Superior. Traders along the Lake Superior Trail, including “Old Dutch Frank,” and George Gardner, who had posts at Lily and White Lake in the 1860’s, were among the area’s early European settlers. West of the present-day city of Antigo, Willard LeRoy Ackley set up a trading post on the Eau Claire River in about 1850, encouraging future growth. Settlement was further spurred by the U.S. Government, which in the 1860’s built a road to transport military forces from Fort Howard in Green Bay to Fort Wilkins on the Keweenaw Peninsula.