Hokah Municipal Building

Hokah is the Indian name of Root River, as also the name of ii chief, who formerly had his village located en the.se same grounuK -vrhere there arc still innumerable Indian graves and other tnicos of Indian remains.

Passage source: The Advantages and Resources of Houston County, Minnesota, published 1858.

The first settlement at Hokah vras made by Ed^vavd Thon)p- Bon, Esq., as early as 1651. He was first induced to locate here by the fine opportunity offered to obtain a heavy water power upon a stream falling into Root River at tliis point, which subsequently received the name of Thompson's Creek. His first design was to raise the water 36 feet, but his dam pro'^^d insufficient, and, about the time his saw mill was ready for operation, the dam broke out. There being scarcely a white family in Houston County at that time, it seemed like a reckless undertaking. The water power obtained would be much heavier than demanded, but eraigr;ition soon set in, and Edward Thompson persevered in his undertaking, rebuilt the dam, obtaining 25 feet fall, and started his mill in the spring of l85i. In 1855 C. "W. Thompson bought into the water power, and erected a grint mill, and laid out the town. In 185(i about 30 buildings were erected ; in 1857 as many more. The water power was improved and a large shop erected, 44 by 80, four stories higli, with wattr wheels and line shaftijig, the design being to rent room and pov%-er for driving any kind of rcachinciy. The waJer power obtained by this dam is sufficfPnt to drive fifteen run cf stone. There is ako another and htavier water power in contemplation. By damming Root River three foet and racing across a short flat 6^ feet fidi can be obtained, with the whole of the water of Root iiiver, thereby creating an enormous power and the only heavy one that can be obtained as near the Mississippi for a hundred miles abo^ or below this point. The proximity of Hokah to the great ra^road crossing, (La Crosse,) with timber above on Root Kiver to supply all kinds of manufactures, and navigation on the river below to La Crosse, (10 miles, by way of the river,) to facilitate the transjDortation of manufactiu-ed articles, certainly settles its claims as a manufacturing town.

Passage source: The Advantages and Resources of Houston County, Minnesota, published 1858.

Machine-read from a century-old scan, so expect the errors a machine makes: misspelled names, dropped words, stray characters.

Read the whole chapter on Hokah Township - 2,087 words on its settlement, mills, schools and churches.