Kenosha, WI news and local guide

The first European settlers, members of the Western Emigration Company from Hannibal and Troy, New York, led by John Bullen Jr., came in the early 1830s looking for land for a town. Thwarted at Milwaukee and Racine, they reached Pike Creek on June 6, 1835, and built log houses and later homes of frame, stone and brick, followed by the first school and churches. The town was platted in 1836. Known first as Pike Creek, the village was renamed Southport in 1837, a name still used for a southeast-side neighborhood and park, and it became an important Great Lakes port. In 1850 it took the name Kenosha, adapted from the Chippewa word kinoje, "pike." From 1900 through the 1930s Italian, Irish, Polish and German immigrants, many of them skilled craftsmen, helped shape the city's buildings and culture. Kenosha's economy was driven by its automobile factories, which between 1902 and 1988 produced millions of cars and trucks, including the Jeffery, Rambler, Nash, Hudson, LaFayette and American Motors lines. A prototype steam car was built there in 1900, and in May 1954 Nash acquired Hudson to form American Motors Corporation. Sources Wikipedia: Kenosha, Wisconsin