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Lake Mills Area Chamber Of Commerce

200C Water Street
920-648-3585

Mission:

Our mission is to support the business community, foster new business growth and promote tourism, making Lake Mills a better place to do business, to work and to live.

History:
Legend has it that in 1066, after suffering a long and terrible drought, Aztec Indians appealed to their gods for help by building and using sacrificial pyramids. In answer to their prayers, great waters soon covered the pyramids and created the beautiful lake the Indians came to call Tyranena meaning, “sparkling waters”.

Chief Black Hawk came through Lake Mills shortly before the Black Hawk War of 1832, the last stand of the Indians in the Northwest Territories. After the war, the first white settlers to the area set up camp at the waterfall between the lake and creek in 1836. They renamed the lake Rock Lake. In 1838, ten years before Wisconsin became a state, an official settlement was established with both its own sawmill and gristmill built on the shores of the lake. Its name was Lake Mills.

In the 1840s, Winnebago Indians shared their knowledge of the “stone teepees” (pyramids) in Rock Lake with the settlers.


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