Menasha (an Indian word meaning "thorn" or "island"), a city of Winnebago county, Wisconsin, U.S.A., 88 m. N. of Milwaukee, and 14 m. N. of Oshkosh, attractively situated at the N. extremity of Lake Winnebago at its outlet into the Fox river. Pop. (1890), 4581; (1900), 55 8 9 (1 535 foreign-born); (1905, state census), 5960; (1910), 6061. Menasha is served by the Minneapolis, St Paul & Sault Ste Marie, the Chicago, Milwaukee & St Paul, and the Chicago & North-Western railways, and by an inter-urban electric railway system. Several bridges across the Fox River connect Menasha with Neenah, with which it really forms one community industrially. Doty Island, at the mouth of the river and divided about equally between the cities, is a picturesque and popular summer resort.
Menasha had good water power and among its manufactures are paper and sulphite pulp, lumber, wooden-ware and cooperage products, woollen and knit goods, leather, boats and bricks. The first white man to visit the site of Menasha was probably Jean Nicolet, who seems to have come in the winter of1634-1635and to have found here villages of Fox and Winnebago Indians. Subsequently there were French and English trading posts here. The city was settled permanently in 1848, and was chartered in 1874.
