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 Menominee County, Wisconsin, was created in 1961 from the Menominee Indian Reservation. If you think your ancestors may have been in Menominee County, Michigan, don't forget to check out that site as well. Good Luck!
 Also spelled Menomini, Menominee is derived from an Algonkian word —manomin—for “wild rice”. The French called the Monominee Folles Avoines—“the wild oats people”. The Menominee Reservation contains 235,000 acres of northeastern Wisconsin forest land, a small part of the area in which Menominees have lived for more than 5,000 years. The reservation is home to approximately 2,500 American Indians, over 2,000 of whom are enrolled Menominees. The Menominees originally occupied approximately 9.5 million acres of what is now Wisconsin and the upper Peninsula of Michigan.
From that point of near-extinction, the Menominee population slowly recovered reaching 850 in 1736, 1,100 in 1764, and 1,350 by 1806. A census in 1854 numbered the Menominee at 1,930 in seven villages. Despite adding a group of landless Potawatomi and French mixed-bloods during the 1870s, the Menominee dropped to 1,422 by 1910. Current enrollment of the federally recognized Menominee Indian Tribe of Wisconsin is close to 7,200 —3,400 of whom live on their reservation just west of Green Bay. In 1961, the federal government terminated the Menominee’s tribal status, and their reservation became a Wisconsin county. The saw mill could not provide enough tax base to pay for all of the services a county government was required to provide, and the Menominee instantly went from being one of the most self-sufficient tribes in the United States to the lowest standard of living in Wisconsin. To meet their obligations, the Menominee were forced to sell part of their reservation as lakefront lots for vacation homes. Federal recognition was restored in 1973.
HISTORY OF THE MENOMINEE
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Greetings, my name is Tina Vickery. This site is available for adoption. If you have an interest in adopting Menominee County, please email the State Coordinator. I am neither a Wisconsin resident, nor am I a Menominee Indian, nor do I have Menominee ancestors. I adopted this page based on its need for one. I would like to offer the best possible information for people researching their Menominee ancestors. Please don't hesitate to write if you have ideas or resources you would be willing to contribute. Kelly Mullins.
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Before European contact, the Menominee were a relatively small tribe on the northern shore of Lake Michigan. Conservative estimates of their original population are less than 2,000, while the most optimistic do not exceed 4,000. When the French reached Green Bay in 1667, wars and epidemics which had swept Wisconsin after refugee tribes arrived in the 1650s had reduced the Menominee to about 400.