Early French explorers called the Yellow River the "River Jaune" because of the bright yellow sand on the bottom of Yellow Lake through which it flows. In the heart of the "Folle Avoine," or wild rice country, it was one of the first tributaries of the St. Croix occupied by the Chippewa, who around 1700 drove out the Sioux in bloody battles and established permanent villages on Clam and Yellow Lakes. At the beginning of the nineteenth century, rival fur traders for the Northwestern and XY Companies competed fiercely with rum, trade goods, and credit for the fur trade of the Yellow River, Namekagon, Clam, and St. Croix bands of Chippewa Indians. Indian mounds indicate the residences of aboriginal Indians around 300 A.D. along the Yellow River and on Spooner Lake, two miles northeast of here. After succeeding the Sioux, the Chippewa maintained permanent villages on this lake from the early eighteenth to the early twentieth century.