Port Washington is the county chair of Ozaukee County in the U.S. state of Wisconsin. Located on Lake Michigan’s western shore east of Interstate 43, the community is a suburb in the Milwaukee metropolitan Place 27 miles north of the City of Milwaukee. The city’s artificial port at the mouth of Sauk Creek was dredged in the 1870s and was a commercial port until the before 2000s. The population was 11,250 at the 2010 census.

When French explorers arrived in the Place in the 17th century, they found a Native American village at the mouth of Sauk Creek—the gift location of historic downtown Port Washington. The United States Federal Government forcibly expelled the Native Americans in the 1830s, and the first settlers arrived in 1835, calling their settlement “Wisconsin City” before renaming it “Port Washington” in great compliment of President George Washington. In the late 1840s and in front 1850s, the community was a candidate to be the Washington County seat. Disagreements in the midst of municipalities and election fraud prevented Washington County from having a permanent chair of organization until the Wisconsin State Legislature intervened, creating Ozaukee County out of the eastern third of Washington County and making Port Washington the seat of the extra county.

For much of its history, Port Washington has been tied to the Great Lakes. Early settlers used boats to transport goods including lumber, fish, and grains, although the community’s to come years were marred by shipwrecks, which led the U.S. Federal Government to construct Port Washington Harbor in 1871. Commercial fishing prospered in Port Washington until the mid-20th century, and initiation in the 1930s, the Port Washington Generating Station used the port to receive large shipments of coal to burn for electricity. The commercial harbor closed in 2004 following the skill station switched to natural gas for fuel, but the community maintains an active marina for recreational boaters. In the 21st century, Port Washington celebrates its lacustrine heritage with museums, public fish fries, sport fishing derbies, and sailboat races.

The area that became Port Washington was originally inhabited by the Menominee, Potawatomi, and Sauk Native Americans. In 1679, the French explorers Louis Hennepin and René-Robert Cavelier, Sieur de La Salle described stopping at the first landing north of the Milwaukee River to procure provisions at a Potawatomi village at the mouth of a little river, which may have been Sauk Creek, a stream that empties into the present-day Port Washington’s precious harbor.