Oconto County Courthouse on September 6, 2014
Oconto County is located in northeastern Wisconsin and lies along the western shore of Green Bay between Brown County to the south and Marinette County to the north. Oconto County was formed in 1851 from unorganized land from Brown County and is named after the Oconto River. The county seat is the city of Oconto which lies at the mouth of the Oconto River. The city of Oconto was originally named Oconto Mills. The name Oconto supposedly means “plentiful with fish” though I haven’t been able to track down the particular Native American language for which this is true.
Oconto County, like most of the area surrounding Green Bay and Lake Michigan was first visited by French explorers in the 17th century. The French Jesuit and missionary, Father Claude-Jean Allouez said the first Mass in Oconto on December 3, 1669. The city of Oconto was incorporated in 1869.
The Oconto County courthouse dates from 1891; this is the central part of the courthouse complex. It is located at 301 Washington St in Oconto, which is just a few blocks from the business district and the river. I visited in September 2014, early on a Saturday morning, so there were not a lot of people around when I took my pictures.
I visited Oconto County many times when I was younger mostly for outdoor recreation like camping and hiking. When I was in first and second grade, my father and I were involved in “Indian Guides” program at the YMCA (as far as I can tell, this program has been renamed “Adventure Guides” and is no longer offered at the Appleton YMCA) and we stayed at both the Appleton and Green Bay YMCA camps. We also camped at a number of state campgrounds; Boot Lake was a favorite of our group. Later on, I was in Boy Scouts and we continued to camp at places in Oconto County. On one of these later camping trips I suffered a minor injury at Boot Lake. I’m not very coordinated and I had a little accident with my Boy Scout knife. Fortunately it was not serious, though I still have small scars on two fingers of my left hand.