~* Experienced Barrel Horse*~

Native Americans inhabited the area of Racine for thousands of years. Artifacts that have survived include the burial mounds in what is now Mound Cemetery. Historians separate the natives living in the Root watershed at that time into Woodland people and Hopewell people. After European contact, the Miami and later the Potawatomi expanded into the area, taking part in the French fur trade. In November 1674, while traveling from Green Bay to the territory of the Illinois Confederation, Father Jacques Marquette and his assistants, Jacques Largillier and Pierre Porteret, camped at the mouth of the Root River.