According to the stories passed down over the
generations, in the 1800s Chippewa and Menomonee
people would spend part of each year encamped here
on the Wisconsin River. The Native Americans had long
developed a sort of migratory life going south along
the Wisconsin River in the fall to follow the migration
of the deer and animals they relied on for food, then
back up north in the spring to harvest the sugar bushes.
When the first European lumberjacks ventured up the
Wisconsin River to what was known as the Little Bull
Falls, they created a small settlement here too, and
quickly developed a neighborly relationship with the
natives. Later, it was remembered how the leader of a
band of Chippewa was particularly helpful to the
newcomers in the community’s formative years.
When the new settlement at Little Bull Falls had
grown large enough to get a post office, they had to
find a permanent name for the community. They did
not wish to be stuck with Little Bull Falls for good,
especially as some felt the name too crude to expect
ladies to write out on letters, and so they searched for
a better name. Joseph Desert, local lumber magnate
and community leader, wanted to find an appropriate
Native American word for the community to connect it
back to its origin before the lumber industry. They settled
on Mosinee, after the Chief Mosinee who had been so
fair and kind in his dealings with them in years past.
Years later, Wausau Sulphite Fibre Paper built a paper
mill in Mosinee, enlarging the community further. They
found success with their brand of Kraft paper, called
Mosinee Paper, and by the 1930s had renamed the
entire company to “Mosinee Paper.” They also returned
to the old story about Chief Mosinee, whose people
had encamped on the Wisconsin right where the
paper company would be built decades later. For many
years, Mosinee Paper’s logo featured an “Indian head”
design to evoke old Chief Mosinee. The logo was
actually based on “Kah-be-nug-we-way,” a Native
American man whose picture was taken by Mosinee
Paper in the 1920s to use for this purpose.
The use of this logo was abandoned by Mosinee
Paper in the 1950s, and other local groups such as
the Mosinee phone book in the 1990s. But the locals
continue to honor the memory of Chief Mosinee and
the help he provided the early European arrivals.
