Water
Lake Mendota Formerly Known as 4th Lake and
Lake Monona Formerly known as 3rd Lake and
Lake Wingra Formerly known as Dead Lake
Starkweather Creek
Wingra Creek
Yahara River Formerly known as Catfish River and
Madison Has History of “Healing Waters”

This area was first referred to as the Four Lakes in a manuscript in 1817 and in print in 1829. In 1833 a team of surveyors led by Orson Lyon moved through what is now Dane County, from south to north, naming the lakes First through Fourth as they encountered them. Their map showed what is now Lake Wingra as a mere pond and left it unnamed. Because settlers believed it had no outlet, it was commonly called Dead Lake as early as 1840.

In 1849 Simeon Mills, one of Madison's first settlers, employed Frank Hudson of Philadelphia to plat the University Addition. Hudson, familiar with Indian legends, suggested the names Monona and Mendota be applied to Third and Fourth lakes respectively. Mendota, a Dakota name, means "confluence of rivers." Monona, a Sauk-Fox name, was translated as "fairy."

A few years later, in 1854, Gov. Leonard Farwell, a relentless promoter of Madison, decided all of the lakes should have Indian names. Lyman Draper, the first secretary of the Wisconsin Historical Society, found two Ojibwa names for First and Second lakes -- Kegonsa ("little fish") and Waubesa ("swan"). The Legislature made these names, as well as Wingra, a Ho-Chunk name meaning "duck," official on Feb. 14, 1855.

A year earlier Horace Greeley had created a map of the Four Lakes for Farwell to use in his promotions, showing these names in print for the first time (although Greeley spelled Monona "Menona"). Other features familiar today were also named, including Picnic Point, which to that time had been called Gooseberry Point, and the Yahara River, an Ojibwa word for "catfish," also chosen by Farwell.

Other place names included Peena "good water" Creek, today Pheasant Branch; Tarporah "breast bone" Creek, today Nine Springs Creek; Neosho "containing water" Creek, today Six Mile Creek; and Wyseorah Creek, today Starkweather Creek.