Wisconsin: ‘River Running Through A Red Place’

“Wisconsin” (originally “Meskonsing”) is the English spelling of a French version of a Miami Indian name for a river that runs 430 miles through the center of our state, currently known as the Wisconsin River. Recent scholarship has concluded that in Miami it meant, “this stream meanders through something red.” In 2003, historical linguist Michael McCafferty convincingly argued that this was a reference to the red sandstone bluffs of the Wisconsin Dells.

See more detail at: https://www.wisconsinhistory.org/Records/Article/CS3663