The Bad Axe River is a U.S. Geological Survey. National Hydrography Dataset high-resolution flowline data. The National Map , accessed May 13, 2011 tributary of the Mississippi River in southwestern Wisconsin in the United States. "Bad axe" is a translation from the French, "la mauvaise hache", but the origin of the name is unknown.Kellogg, Louise Phelps. "Derivation of County Names" in Proceedings of the State Historical Society of Wisconsin for 1909, pages 219-231.Butterfield, History of Vernon County (Springfield, 1884), p. 132. The river's mouth at the Mississippi was the site of the Battle of Bad Axe, an 1832 U.S. Army massacre of Sauk and Meskwaki people at the end of the Black Hawk War.

Course The Bad Axe River flows for its entire length in western Vernon County, and for most of its length as two streams, the North Fork Bad Axe River and the South Fork Bad Axe River. The North Fork rises at the town of Westby and flows generally southwestwardly for . The South Fork rises about south of Viroqua and flows westwardly for . The main stem of the Bad Axe flows for less than westward from the convergence of the two forks to its confluence with the Mississippi, about south of Genoa.

References

See also List of Wisconsin rivers