In-Home Drug Testing Mequon, WI

Local Area Info: Mequon, Wisconsin

The area was originally inhabited by Native Americans; by the early 19th century, the Potawatomi occupied land west of the Milwaukee River, while the Menominee lived between the Milwaukee River and Lake Michigan. European trappers, explorers and traders used the Milwaukee River through the middle of what is now Mequon as a means of transportation. The name "Mequon" is thought to have come from a Native-American word "Emikwaan" or "Miguan," meaning ladle, referring to the shape of the river in the area. The spelling was probably influenced by the French in the area at the time. Alternatively, the name may come from an Algonquin word meaning "feather", as suggested by the current Menominee name of the town which is M?kon.

In 1833, poverty forced the Potawotami to sell this land along with all their other land holdings in southeastern Wisconsin. They had hoped that allying themselves with the United States in the Black Hawk War would help them maintain their land, but these hopes proved futile. Following the treaty, the Potawotami were illegally forced out of the territory before the eight year grace period guaranteed in the treaty had ended. The expulsion of the Potawotami opened up the land for white settlement, and so between 1834 and 1836, a surveyor named Brink, along with his assistant Mr. Follett, surveyed the land to create the Town of Mequon. The Menominee sold their land in the area in the Treaty of the Cedars in 1836. Around this time, settlers came from New York and England, soon followed by German and Irish immigrants. In 1839, a group of immigrants from Saxony settled near the Milwaukee River. In the same year, twenty families from Pomerania founded Freistadt (German: Free city) in the western part of the Town of Mequon. The first Lutheran church in Wisconsin was built by these families in 1840.

John Weston served as the first postmaster of the Town of Mequon, having settled in present-day Thiensville in 1837. He later sold his holdings to John Henry Thien. Thien, a wealthy immigrant from Saxony, had traveled north from Milwaukee and settled along the Milwaukee River, where his family built a dam and grist mill. Thien hosted the first town meeting for the Town of Mequon in 1846. The area around his estate, one square mile in the middle of the Town of Mequon, was later incorporated as the village of Thiensville in 1910. The Town of Mequon was incorporated as a city in 1957.