Beloit, Wisconsin

City: Beloit

County: Rock

State: Wisconsin

Lat/Long: 42.5083, -89.0318

Located in southern Wisconsin on the banks of the Rock River, near the border with Illinois, Beloit was occupied by the Ho-Chunk (Winnebago) people prior to European settlement. Following the removal of the Ho-Chunk people west of the Mississippi River after the Black Hawk War, white settlement of the area increased. Members of the town of Colebrook, New Hampshire formed the New England Emigrating Company, and organized some of the first formal exploration and migration to the area. In 1838, a public committee selected the name "Beloit" for the village. Beloit was incorporated in 1846, and the first city government was established in 1856. By that time, Beloit was home to an active religious community—primarily composed of Methodists and Congregationalists—as well as its own college, a paper mill, and an iron works.

Merriam-Webster's Geographical Dictionary 3rd ed., (Springfield, MA: Merriam-Webster, 1997), 132; Louis Taylor Merrill, "The First Settlers of Beloit," The Wisconsin Magazine of History 28 (December 1944), 147-52; Dennis Sweatman, "Comparing the Modern Native American Presence in Illinois with Other States of the Old Northwest Territory," Journal of the Illinois State Historical Society 103 (Fall-Winter 2010), 252.