2
Business View Magazine
Fond du Lac, Wisconsin
Envisioning tomorrow
Fond du Lac, Wisconsin is a city of about 43,000 on
the southern shore of Lake Winnebago, the second
largest freshwater, inland lake in the country. The
name Fond du Lac is a French term meaning “Foot of
the Lake,” i.e. its southernmost tip. The area that be-
came Fond du Lac County was first inhabited by Native
American tribes, primarily the Winnebagos, but also
the Potawatomi, Kickapoo, and Mascoutin who lived
or gathered in the area long before European explor-
ers arrived. It was settled by French traders at the end
of the 18th century.
The town of Fond du Lac was founded in the 1830s. Its
first school was built in 1843; the first railroad came
in 1852, the year that the city incorporated. By 1870,
it was the state’s second largest city. Logging and mill-
ing were primary industries into the late 1800s, with
access to Lake Winnebago as the main driver of com-
merce. By the turn of the twentieth century, the logging
boom had run its course in Fond du Lac with many
mills either having moved on or shut down. However,
in the early 20th century, the city still continued to be
a commercial center for agricultural products from the
surrounding area. Since the late 1930s, the largest
employer in Fond du Lac has been Mercury Marine,
a maker of outboard motor engines and one of the
world’s leading providers of marine propulsion.
