About West Bend

West Bend is a city in and the county seat of Washington County, Wisconsin, United States. As of the 2020 census, the population was 31,752. == History == === Early history and settlement === Northeastern Washington County's earliest known inhabitants were pre-Columbian Mound Builders, who constructed effigy mounds in the area sometime between 650 CE and 1300 CE. They were semi-nomadic and survived by hunting, fishing, and gathering wild plants. They made pottery and constructed tools from bone, wood, stone, and occasionally copper. They built effigy mounds shaped like mammals, reptiles, birds and other creatures, both real and mythical, as well as conical, oval, and linear mounds, some of which contain human burials. Some mounds in the West Bend area were destroyed by settlers to create farm fields, but several dozen survive and are listed on the National Register of Historic Places as the Washington County "Island" Effigy Mound District, which includes the Lizard Mound County Park site in nearby Farmington as well as several privately owned sites.In the early 19th century when the first White settlers arrived in Southeastern Wisconsin, the Potawatomi and Menominee Indians inhabited the land now occupied by the City of West Bend. In 1831, the Menominee surrendered their claims to the land to the United States Federal Government through the Treaty of Washington. The Potawatomi surrendered their land claims in 1833 through the 1833 Treaty of Chicago, which (after being ratified in 1835) required them to leave the area by 1838. While many Native people moved west of the Mississippi River to Kansas, some chose to remain, and were referred to as "strolling Potawatomi" in contemporary documents because many of them were migrants who subsisted by squatting on their ancestral lands, which were now owned by settlers. In the mid-1800s, there was a large Native American village on the shore of Silver Lake, southwest of the modern-day City of West Bend.

Things To Do in West Bend

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4.8 (156)

West Bend Labyrinth Garden

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4.6 (937)

Regner Park

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4.7 (421)

Museum of Wisconsin Art

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4.6 (413)

Riverside Park

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4.8 (346)

Ridge Run Park East

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4.7 (84)

The Tower Heritage Center

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4.6 (176)

Friends of Lac Lawrann Conservancy

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4.3 (69)

Lizard Mound State Park

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4.6 (136)

Quaas Creek Park

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4.5 (918)

Washington County Fair Park & Conference Center

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4.6 (110)

Old Settlers Park

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4.7 (15)

Faith Haven

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4.7 (2462)

Shalom Wildlife Zoo