Lac du Flambeau, meaning Lake of Torches, has been a permanent settlement of the Chippewa Indian Nation since about 1745, when Chief Sharpened Stone led his band to the lake. Nearby lakes supported Indian life with wild rice in season and plentiful fish taken at night by the light of flaming torches, giving Flambeau its name. The tribe was loyal to the American colonies, never taking sides with the British or French, and fought with Union forces in the Civil War. Old Abe, the American Eagle mascot of the Eighth Wisconsin in the Civil War, was captured a few miles below this point by a Flambeau Indian. In 1792 the Northwest Fur Trading Co. established the Lac du Flambeau department for trade in the Wisconsin River area, and forts and posts remained on this shore for about fifty years.