Established: 1851
County Seat: Appleton
Parent: Brown County

Birth, Death, & Marriage Records:
Earliest Registration Dates*:
Births 1856
Deaths 1869
Marriages 1855

Outagamie Register of Deeds
410 S. Walnut St.
Appleton, WI 54911-5936
Telephone: (920) 832-5095

OUTAGAMIE--Population 4,940.

From: Handbook of Wisconsin by S. Silas, 1855

pg. 91-93

Lies on the Lower Fox and Wolf Rivers, and has a combination of advantages, in water power, navigable streams, and excellent land, not excelled by any other County in the State. Some few years since, through the munificence of Mr. Lawrence, of Boston, an institution of learning was endowed, and located at Appleton, then covered with the forest and without a resident. In 1848 there were few settlers in Outagamie County except on the River. By a judicious selection of the site, and by improvement of the largest and best water power in the State, Appleton has sprung up to a village of about 1500 inhabitants, while the whole County has kept nearly equal pace with the village. There is much good land still unoccupied in the County, but as this, with Waushara and Waupacca Counties are the favorite resort of immigrants, this land will not long remain in market. By some returns made this year, from the towns of Ellington and Kaukauna, the yield of wheat is about 30 bushels to the acre. This wheat is of a superior quality to that grown in the southern part of the State.

Appleton the County Seat, contains 1,477 inhabitants at the census in June 1855, situated on Fox River, in the very heart of the most beautiful, healthful, fertile and rapidly settling portion of the Fox River Valley, and is 27 miles from Green Bay, 6 by water navigation, and 5 by plank road from Lake Winnebago. It is also connected by plank road with Green Bay, and a plank road is being built which will connect it with the Wolf and Upper Wisconsin Rivers. It is the principal point of trade for a large part of Outagamie, Calumet, Winnebago and Waupacca Counties, and its manufacturing, mechanical and merchantile business already exceeds a quarter of a million of dollars per year. Its water power is the most immense in its extent and value to be found in the State, and is being rapidly used and improved by mills, manufactories and machinery. In the distance of one mile, the aggregate fall of water is 44 feet. Its University, under the charge of the Methodist Episcopal Church, is considered the handsomest public edifice in Wisconsin. It is under efficient management; and, during the last collegiate year, numbered over 300 pupils. Its public schools would reflect honor on many an older town. The population is chiefly American, and is noted throughout the west for Temperance, Morality, Intelligence and Enterprise. The country around Appleton is rich and fertile, and destined to be densely settled by a farming population.

To the enterprise and vigor of the Crescent, a journal published in Appleton, in calling attention to the resources of Outagamie, the County owes much.