Fort Winnebago Surgeon's Quarters
The Fort Winnebago Surgeon's Quarters was listed in the National Register of Historic Places on October 28, 1970. The nomination documents the property's primary significance in military history, at the state level, as
“the last remaining building of a military installation which, despite a relatively short existence, was highly significant to the commerce and development of Wisconsin in the years just prior to achievement of territorial status in 1836, and for most of the ensuing period until Wisconsin's attainment of statehood in 1848.”
Fort Winnebago was of strategic importance due to its location at the portage of the Fox and Wisconsin rivers, the major route from Lake Michigan to the Mississippi River until the mid-nineteenth century. Its presence there was initially intended as a deterrent to further conflict between the Ho-Chunk and Euro-American settlers, and probably to oversee trade with the Indians.
The soldiers at Fort Winnebago also played a role in encouraging the settlement of the region, by their construction of the Military Road, from Portage to Fond du Lac, in 1835-38. The removal of the Ho-Chunk west of the Mississippi River in 1838 reduced the need for a military post at the portage. Fort Winnebago was evacuated in 1845, and sold in 1854.
An appropriate period of significance for the Fort Winnebago Surgeon's Quarters would be from its date of construction, ca. 1829-30, to 1845, when Fort Winnebago was evacuated. This period is associated with the property's military and federal Indian policy history.