What do the city names, Eau Galle and Eau Claire, mean?

Huh. That's the Army Corps of Engineers Eau Galle Flood Control Project Recreation Area, near Lake George, a little NW of the Village of Spring Valley, St. Croix County. What I was thinkin' of is the Village of Eau Galle, on Lake Eau Galle, about 30 road miles or so SE of there ... if this link works, the red star is the Village of Eau Galle, and the area you have in mind would be toward the upper left corner of the map.

Village of Eau Galle, zip 54737, in Dunn County Wi

The Eau Galle Cheese Factory is in Durand, a little SSE of The Village of Eau Galle.

So many names in the northern prairie region have french names, but the pronunciation is totally whacked. Along my way back from Quebec stateside, way back in the day, I stayed in a town, on a lake, in a lovely B&B. I had booked an suite for two weeks, on a lark. I wanted to go to a place I had never seen or heard of, but close enough to drive to.( I like to drive, so a long distance trip is not unusual). In my mind, the town, city? was pronounced mee no, Minot, en francais...
Mais, la belle cite was My Knot. Hard. Mi not, Minot.
I remember driving through the dakotas, that summer, I think...looking for points of reference - I was the map bearer, guiding the way, just about to cross the Souris river, I said, and then....we crossed over the Mouse....

Guess it was inevitable - someone would finally find the translation.

TheWisconsin Historical Society has thankworthy a lot of sources online.

So, you can find there digitalised copies of Eau Claire fifty years ago (from 1935).

Reading Pioneer of "Old French Town" at Prairie du Chien holds tenaciously to traditions you can learn that these settlers came from Canada, which is verified in French discovery of Wisconsin.

A really very good and interesting source - 50 old newspaper articles here related to 'French' in Wisconsin.

Yah, this is the Eau Galle I know. County of Dunn. No longer home to the Eau Galle Cheese Factory, which, as you correctly stated, is in Durand. But really, it's out in the country, halfway between Durand and Eau Galle proper.

I just visited Eau Galle Cheese. It's a really nice cheese factory, shop, and gift shop. They do a lot of the Christmas Village stuff plus other high-end collectibles. Very nice store!

I think they make parmesan or mozzarella there in Eau Galle.

You've not had good parmesan 'til you've shredded it fresh off a brick. Asiago is a fav of mine.

Ceili wrote:

In my mind, the town, city? was pronounced mee no, Minot, en francais...
Mais, la belle cite was My Knot. Hard. Mi not, Minot.

Minot is a kind of flour in french. It gaves Minoterie which is a Mill

In France, people and places have this name.

The cheese factory we went to is long defunct -- not the Eau Galle cheese factory (I saw that when I was trying to figure out where we went.) It was in Menomonie, I think, not sure.

"First of course, were the Voyageurs" Just a little notation, but I think you forgot that the Native Americans were there first to live and roam this area, from everything I know and read and then the others came and mingled. I will be down in the spring from norther MN to check things out as my second great grandfather, who was Irish by the way, came to settle there after fighting in the Black Hawk Indian War. He then married a french/native or metis' woman and we hold a reunion for the all the descendants of his family in that area every year!!
Can't wait to check out the Cheese FActory too!! Thanks for the history, I love to hear about the past!

URL: http://able2know.org/reply/post-1041480

Last summer on my x-n.american drive... I crossed the border from Maine to New Brunswick on our way to Nova Scotia. We knew we would be arriving quite late to the border and I wanted to make sure the crossing we'd picked would be open after midnight. I stopped at a gas station a few hundred miles before to see if they would know anything about the border crossing and which one we should choose. I couldn't seem to find that info on the net.
So, I walked in the shop and asked the guy if the crossing if he knew the hours of operation in Calais, (Cal - eh), just like the famous French city. He looked at me like I was from Mars.. Where? He'd crossed the "down east" border a ton but he'd never heard of the place I was asking for. When I pointed it out on the map, lo and behold, he called it Callous, like what you get on your feet.. Huh? This pronunciation doesn't make sense to me at all...

I grew up in Eau Galle, moved away as a child, and moved back as a teenager. I lived the 250 acre lake which is the dammed section of the Eau Galle River.

When I was a child, there were two general stores, two taverns, an American Legion, a cheese factory, a bait shop, a feed mill, a post office, a whey drying facility, two gas/auto repair facilities, a barbershop, a couple resorts, a Catholic Church, A Methodist Church, a public and Catholic graded school. Now, except for a bar and bank and convenience store, all are closed or gone, all have disappeared due to WalMarts, easy transportation to bigger towns and cities, kids moving away and not returning, etc. The lake is still there, it's generating electricity again and you can still ho to church and have a beer afterwards and the 200 population has stayed constant after all these years.

Eau Gallie is a section of the town of Melbourne, FL. It used to be it's own town but was incorporated in 1969. Around here they believe Gallie is a bastardized spelling of Galet which means pebble, so "rocky water" (I really doubt that, as if you've been to Florida, you know there are no pebbles or rocks. Only limestone, and coquina rock (which is basically crushed sea shells that have been naturally cemented together)

Since I stumbled upon this site and saw no one answered your question...I thought I'd submit one for consideration.Fond du Lac is bottom of the lake---Lake Winnebago...they say.

Prairie du Chien---chien means dog in French...Prairie Dog?
Some say it refers to a Native American chief who lived in the area...

I found an interesting thing about Eau Galle--
http://www.floridatoday.com/article/20060528/COLUMNISTS0401/605280301/Eau-Gallie-means-rocky-water-

maybe the same thing...I don't live up there, so can't look at the water to see if it IS rocky!