Stories of the Badger State

by Reuben Gold Thwaites

We have still much to do in Wisconsin, before we can have such highways as they possess in the old eastern States. In many parts of our State, the country roads in the rainy seasons are of little credit to us. But the worst of them are much better than were some of the best in pioneer days, and some of our principal thoroughfares between the larger cities are fairly good.

The federal government set a good example by having its soldiers build several military roads, especially between Forts Howard (Green Bay), Winnebago (Portage), and Crawford (Prairie du Chien). In Territorial and early Statehood days, charters were granted by the legislature for the building and maintenance of certain tollroads between large towns; some of these were paved with gravel or broken stone, others with planks. Many of the plank roads remained in use until about 1875; but before that date all highways became the property of the public, and tollgates were removed. Bridges charging tolls are still in use in some parts of the State, where the people have declined to tax themselves for a public bridge, which therefore has been built by a private company in consideration of the privilege of collecting tolls from travelers.

Early in the year when Wisconsin Territory was erected (1836), and while it was still attached to Michigan Territory, there was a strong movement, west of Lake Michigan, in favor of a railway between Milwaukee and Prairie du Chien, connecting the lake with the Mississippi River. Congress was petitioned by the legislative council of Michigan to make an appropriation to survey the proposed line. There were as yet very few agricultural settlers along the route; the chief business of the road was to be the shipment of lead from the mines of the southwest to the Milwaukee docks; thence it was to be carried by vessels to Buffalo, and sent forward in boats, over the Erie Canal, to the Hudson River and New York.

This was in January; in the September following, after Wisconsin Territory had been formed, a public meeting was held in Milwaukee, to petition the Territorial legislature to pass an act incorporating a company to construct the proposed lead-mine road, upon a survey to be made at the expense of the United States, and there was even some talk of another road to the far-away wilderness of Lake Superior.

But this early railway project was premature. Wisconsin had then but twenty-two thousand inhabitants, and Milwaukee was a small frontier village. Then again, railroading in the United States was still in its infancy. In Pennsylvania there was a small line, hardly better than an old-fashioned horse car track, over which a wheezy little locomotive slowly made occasional trips, and the Baltimore and Ohio railway had not long before experimented with sails as a motive power. It is not surprising, therefore, that Congress acted slowly in regard to the overambitious Wisconsin project, and that it was nearly fourteen and a half years before a railway was actually opened in this State.

Indeed, many people thought at that time that canals, costing less in construction and in operation, were more serviceable for Wisconsin than railways. The people of northern Wisconsin were particularly eager for canals; in the southern part, railways were most popular. The most important canal project was that known as the Fox and Wisconsin rivers improvement. From the earliest historic times, these two opposite-flowing rivers, whose waters approach within a mile and a half of each other at Portage, had been used as a boat route between the Great Lakes and the Mississippi River. We have seen, in preceding chapters, what an important part was played by this route in the early history of Wisconsin. But when large vessels became necessary to the trade of the region, and steam navigation was introduced, it was found that the historic water way presented many practical difficulties: the Fox abounds in rapids below Lake Winnebago, and in its upper waters is very shallow; the Wisconsin is troubled with shifting sand bars. In order to accommodate the traffic, a canal was necessary along the portage path, and extensive improvements in both rivers were essential.

As early as 1839, Congress was asked to aid in this work, and from time to time such aid has been given. But, although several millions of dollars have, through all these years, been spent upon the two streams, there has been no important modern navigation through them between the Great Lakes and the great river. The chief result has been the admirable system of locks between Lake Winnebago and Green Bay, making available the splendid water power of the lower valley of the Fox.

Another water way project was that of the Milwaukee and Rock River Canal. This was designed to connect the waters of the Milwaukee and Rock rivers, thereby providing an additional way for vessels to pass from Lake Michigan to the Mississippi. A company was incorporated, with a capital of a million dollars, and Congress made a large grant of land to Wisconsin Territory. But after some years of uncertainty and heavy expense the project was abandoned as impracticable.