Ho-Chunk histories indicate that this area has long been an important gathering place known as Tee Sisikeja (Bad Waters Village). Here, ancestors of the Ho-Chunk constructed burial sites for loved ones in the form of mounds, a practice that dates back more than 2,500 years and continued through the post-contact period. This location was also home to Menominee, Potawatomi, and other groups, some of whom laid their loved ones to rest near existing mounds. Of the tens of thousands of earthworks that were once in Wisconsin, only a few thousand remain, and these earthworks are among the last remaining in Milwaukee County, marking the location of a larger mound group that has been destroyed.