Hinterland Dreams: The Political Economy of a Midwestern City 9780812207002

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HINTERLAND DREAMS

AMERICAN BUSINESS, POLITICS, AND SOCIETY Series Editors: Richard R. John, Pamela Walker Laird, and Mark H. Rose Books in the series American Business, Politics, and Society explore the relationships over time between governmental institutions and the creation and performance of markets, firms, and industries large and small. The central theme of this series is that public policy—understood broadly to embrace not only lawmaking but also the structuring presence of governmental institutions—has been fundamental to the evolution of American business from the colonial era to the present. The series editors are especially interested in publishing books that explore developments that have enduring consequences. A complete list of books in the series is available from the publisher.

HINTERLAND DREAMS The Political Economy of a Midwestern City

Eric J. Morser

universit y of pennsylvania press phil adelphia  oxford

Copyright ©  University of Pennsylvania Press All rights reserved. Except for brief quotations used for purposes of review or scholarly citation, none of this book may be reproduced in any form by any means without written permission from the publisher. Published by University of Pennsylvania Press Philadelphia, Pennsylvania - www.upenn.edu/pennpress Printed in the United States of America on acid-free paper          

Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data Morser, Eric J. Hinterland dreams : the political economy of a midwestern city / Eric J. Morser. p. cm.— (American business, politics, and society) Includes bibliographical references and index. ISBN 978-0-8122-4276-8 (hardcover : alk. paper) 1. La Crosse (Wis.)—Politics and government. 2. La Crosse (Wis.)—Commerce. 3. Business and politics—Wisconsin—La Crosse—History. I. Title. JS990.L3M67 2011 330.9775'71--dc22 2010022929

For Mom, Dad, Angela, and Nicholas

contents

Prologue: Professor Turner’s Audience

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Part I. Paving the Way Chapter One. Red Bird’s Tale Chapter Two. A Story of Settlement Chapter Three. Politics and Pine

  

Part II. Boosting Municipal Power Chapter Four. Iron Tracks to the City Chapter Five. “The Most Necessary Reformes”

 

Part III. New Economic Voices Chapter Six. From White Beaver to Working Man Chapter Seven. Fredericka’s World

 

Conclusion. “A City of Bustling Trade”



Notes Index Acknowledgments

  

prologue

Professor Turner’s Audience

On six occasions early in 1895, Frederick Jackson Turner trekked to La Crosse, a Mississippi River city located in southwestern Wisconsin, to lecture on the American past.1 By this time, Turner cut an impressive figure. Just two years before, the young University of Wisconsin professor had made a fateful appearance at the annual meeting of the American Historical Association in Chicago. There he had presented “The Significance of the Frontier in American History,” a paper that linked western settlement with the continued vibrancy of American democracy, captured the attention of historians near and far, and helped secure his scholarly reputation.2 Turner, however, was no ivory-tower intellectual. Instead, he felt an obligation to reach beyond the academy and share his passion for history with the general public. He was well suited to the task. People around the state regarded him as a speaker of the first rank, able to captivate a crowd with his rich voice and finely tuned oratory.3 As a result, Turner’s 1895 appearances in La Crosse attracted local headlines and an audience of curious residents who braved bitterly cold temperatures to fill Library Hall and hear him speak.4 As it happened, Turner’s choice of lecture topics—the origin and early history of the United States—was not particularly innovative. What was striking, however, was his emphasis on the central role of the self-reliant frontiersman in the nation’s past. Turner told his audience that the United States owed a great deal to the bold pioneers who had come before. In his final lecture on the rise of Jacksonian Democracy, he held that the frontier was what had made Americans an exceptional people. Time and again, hardy migrants had traveled west and thrived in a desolate environment where government was “an evil,” individuals “were exalted and given free play,” and the “ideal of society was the self made man.” 5 According to Turner, Andrew Jackson was one of the best of these men. Jackson’s experiences on the lawless frontier had

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forged him into a true champion of democracy. He “led a free rough life and was free from restraint. He was an Indian fighter; it was necessary for him to defend himself and he had very little regard for law and became an extreme individualist” who “had great regard for the ‘self made man’.” 6 In Turner’s opinion, Jackson and other independent settlers had made the United States a unique nation. We will never know exactly who attended Turner’s La Crosse lectures in that icy winter of 1895. Yet many of the people in Library Hall would have found his frontier tales appealing at a time when industrialization and urbanization seemed to have rendered the bold western pioneer a quaint shadow of a more adventurous past.7 Many, in fact, at a time when their city’s lumber industry was in decline and most of its founders had either moved or died, had increasingly embraced their own city’s settlers as self-reliant pioneers who had built a vibrant community in the untamed wilderness. In 1890, for example, John Levy, a renowned resident who had been one of La Crosse’s earliest arrivals, encouraged other old-timers to “commemorate olden days and the log cabin. There were no mansions then; no lock and no hinge. When a pioneer wanted to hang his door he got a boot leg and cut a piece of leather out of it. He used a string to lock it.” 8 Local journalists often got in on this act of storytelling. In 1894, the La Crosse Press declared that residents owed their present happiness to the hardscrabble pioneer, “the hardy son of toil, with his family on a rude wagon drawn by ‘horned horses’ following the trails to the interior, there to set up housekeeping in a shanty or a rude log hut.” Although such sturdy folk “had little capital but energy and hard work,” they had shaped a backwater outpost into a thriving “metropolis” in the wilderness.9 In other instances, La Crossers searched for pioneering inspiration from beyond the grave in the 1890s. Time and again, newspapermen penned moving obituaries of their city’s first arrivals that reminded readers of their frontier spirit. In 1897, for example, newspapers in town celebrated Abner Gile, whom many credited with helping to build the city’s lumber industry at midcentury, as “one of the foremost of our successful pioneers. He comes of the stock that made the beginnings of New England.” 10 When Frederick Jackson Turner visited La Crosse in 1895 and described self-reliant pioneers making a nation, he would have buttressed what many in La Crosse already believed about their own city’s history.11 La Crosse residents have not been the only people fascinated with why

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frontier cities took root and eventually prospered in the nineteenth-century Midwest. This question, in fact, has long intrigued American historians, from Richard Wade to William Cronon, who move beyond Turner’s oversimplified explanation of self-reliant white settlers building communities in an uncivilized land and offer fresh answers about the causes of western urbanization.12 Although these scholars explore a wide range of midwestern places and times, they typically agree that two overriding factors ultimately shaped frontier cities in the nineteenth century: geographic location and local entrepreneurs.13 Chicago and other cities in the region were successful, the story goes, because they were situated at the confluence of rivers and railroad lines and enjoyed easy access to the rich farmlands and resources of the North American interior. These cities each also benefited from an ambitious band of boosters who took control of civic affairs, tapped the wealth of the surrounding hinterland, invested in local infrastructure, waged economic warfare on urban rivals, and eventually secured their community’s commercial welfare. Together, Wade, Cronon, and others paint a gripping portrait of geographic and commercial forces determining western urbanization and, by extension, commerce along the nation’s expanding borderland in the nineteenth century. Yet this compelling historical picture has its flaws. First, although it sheds critical light on how geographical and economic imperatives shaped midwestern urbanization, it pays little attention to the broader political context within which the region’s urban places took root and evolved before 1900. Largely missing is any comprehensive discussion of the political economy of the nation or the region and how government institutions and policies influenced Midwestern city builders. Second, this picture tends to emphasize the commercial importance of middle western metropolises such as Chicago and St. Louis at the expense of smaller cities like La Crosse. Too often, historians either overlook the region’s hinterland communities or portray their inhabitants as economically hapless and increasingly subject to the whims of business leaders in larger cities as the nineteenth century wore on. Wade, Cronon, and other historians, then, contribute a great deal to our fundamental understanding of the nineteenth-century urban Middle West. Yet they also leave unanswered important questions about the lasting impact of politics and small cities on the region’s history. Hinterland Dreams, in fact, demonstrates that government institutions and policies combined with small cities to play a critical role in the Midwest’s commercial history before 1900. Time and again, lawmakers, judges, and executives defined the rules of the game that determined how smaller cities

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like La Crosse emerged and helped transform them into dynamic engines of enterprise in the nineteenth century.14 From the beginning, the federal government built military outposts that shattered indigenous resistance in southwestern Wisconsin and made Indians dependent on American traders for their welfare, financed explorers who advertised the commercial possibilities of the region, and paved the way for white settlement of La Crosse and other western cities. At the same time, state-level agents invested in transportation projects that drew settlers to the middle western frontier and built a legal system that helped lumbermen flourish in places such as southwestern Wisconsin. The state’s lawmakers also granted municipal leaders in La Crosse potent new regulatory and financial tools that helped them cast their city’s history. Aldermen used these powers to fund and control railroad corporations that ran trains in town as well as to build and police urban railways, electrical lights, and the local telephone system. Finally, lawmakers and judges enabled organized workers and women in town to participate in La Crosse’s commercial growth in new ways and to help redefine its political economy. Ultimately, the city’s development is a tale of federal, state, and local officials forging La Crosse into a whirring engine of commercial energy before 1900.15 La Crosse offers an intriguing case in which to explore how the state shaped midwestern urbanization and empowered residents of smaller cities to mold the region’s commercial history. Its story, in fact, shares much in common with those of Galena, Illinois, Dubuque, Iowa, and other similar middle western communities. For one thing, La Crosse, like these other cities, developed in the middle of the nineteenth century when a cohort of American and European migrants arrived to take advantage of its location and access to natural resources. In the 1850s, these migrants laid the foundation to remake their small trading post into an important merchant city. They forged river and overland connections to merchants in nearby communities, attracted settlers and industries, and transformed the city into a regional entrepôt. As a result, by the end of the nineteenth century, La Crosse, like many comparable midwestern places, had become a bustling industrial city with a diverse economy. La Crosse was not perfectly representative. Like any city, it had its quirks of fate and geography that made it a distinct place with a special local history. But it shared enough in common with other cities that understanding the dynamics of its commercial past can help us grasp the origin and evolution of other urban places across the nineteenth-century Middle West. La Crosse also presents an intriguing site for study because business and political decisions made in the city often had an unforeseen and lasting

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impact on the thousands of people who lived in the community’s metaphorical shadow. In focusing on the region’s metropolises, historians have overlooked how political choices made in smaller cities like La Crosse extended across the region. By the 1850s, La Crosse had emerged as a transportation entrepôt that linked rural midwesterners to a wider world. Farmers in Wisconsin, Minnesota, Illinois, and Iowa felt the city’s impact even if they lived tens or hundreds of miles away. Many shipped their produce to La Crosse and similar places and sold it in bustling urban markets. The city’s residents also influenced the choices of merchants and manufacturers in neighboring cities and towns. Its sawyers and millers helped stock the lumberyards of St. Louis, while its Common Council’s effort to finance private railroads sent shock waves through nearby communities that were also competing for the iron horse. La Crosse’s history is not simply an isolated narrative of one group of ordinary Americans building a single frontier city in the nineteenth century. It is also a saga of how it and similar cities emerged as economic polestars at the center of their own hinterlands, in which the most basic economic and political choices often rippled far and wide across the countryside. Each chapter in Hinterland Dreams opens with an individual story that illustrates how the overlapping levels of the American state shaped the economic world within which La Crosse and other smaller midwestern cities took root and how they helped define the region’s commercial history before 1900. Part I investigates how federal and state institutions and policies paved the way for the settlement of La Crosse and helped city residents transform a small frontier outpost into a bustling city on the make. Chapter 1 begins with the story of a bloody raid led by Red Bird, a Ho-Chunk Indian who struggled to survive in the 1820s as Americans tried to assert martial control over southwestern Wisconsin. It describes how the federal government militarized the region, waged war on the Ho-Chunk and other Indians, funded scientific explorations, and, in so doing, cleared the way for La Crosse to become a prosperous city well before most people in the East or Europe ever dreamed of trekking to and settling an unknown country. Chapter 2 explores how federal and state officials made choices that helped Nathan Myrick, La Crosse’s Anglo-American founder, make his way to Wisconsin in the 1840s. At every critical step of his journey from New York to Wisconsin, Myrick took advantage of state and federal decisions that allowed him to traverse the continent, trade with Indians, claim land, and encourage other migrants to follow. Chapter 3 opens with the arrival of Charles L. Colman, an ambitious lumberman who migrated to La Crosse in the 1850s, to show how the policy

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choices of federal and state lawmakers made it possible for local sawyers and millers to build the industry that remained the engine of the city’s prosperity until the century’s end. It underlines how local lumbermen benefited from federal and state land distribution policy, legal contracts, state incorporation, and special franchises to make their city the hub of a thriving pine empire between 1850 and 1900. Part I thus offers a simple lesson: federal and state officials enabled La Crosse’s early settlers to establish prosperous businesses and allowed them to drive their city’s growth from within before 1900. The American state, however, did not only pave the way for La Crosse to become a booming western hub. As Part II demonstrates, government institutions and policies also vested La Crosse’s residents with power to finance and police private businesses and mold the city’s built environment largely on their own terms during the century. Most important, it maps out how Wisconsin lawmakers and judges enhanced the regulatory authority of La Crosse’s Common Council in ways that boosted the city’s economic power before 1900. Chapter 4 introduces Thomas Benton Stoddard, a local railroad booster and politician, to trace how aldermen tried to use state-granted authority to invest in and regulate potent railroad corporations that ran trains in town. The Common Council also deployed state-granted municipal power to control private businesses closer to home and mold the public infrastructure. Chapter 5 begins with the appearance of John A. Renggly, La Crosse’s city physician, who published a scathing report on local health in 1882, to understand why municipal leaders embraced their state-sanctioned authority to bolster and regulate private companies that provided crucial public services, including gas and electric lighting, street cars, and telephone lines. Together, these two chapters reveal that municipal policy, much like federal and state authority, was often an effective tool that helped residents shape both the physical and the economic environments of their city. Part III shows how the American state provided opportunities for new voices to emerge and help redefine La Crosse’s political economy and commercial future before 1900. Chapter 6 unfolds around the colorful political career of David Frank Powell, a local physician and vocal champion of labor politics, to trace how municipal government offered organized workers in town a chance to mobilize one level of the American state in their own economic interest at a time when federal and state lawmakers, judges, and executives were largely unsympathetic to their cause. It explores how Powell’s effort to win municipal elections introduced a political economy in which mayors and aldermen had an obligation to protect workers. Chapter

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7 introduces John Levy’s wife, Fredericka, an ambitious woman who arrived in La Crosse with her husband and son in 1845 and helped build the family business, to shed intriguing light on how the American state also conditioned the commercial opportunities of La Crosse women. Many local women recognized that state government favored men at their expense. Over time, however, changes in state laws and judicial opinions helped local women to start businesses, earn wages, and contribute to their city’s economy in new ways. Part III thus contends that although the decisions of state lawmakers and jurists often favored businessmen in smaller midwestern cities like La Crosse, they sometimes offered fresh and exhilarating opportunities for workers and women to shape their city’s commercial future before 1900. Ultimately, by situating these individual stories in a broader political and economic context, Hinterland Dreams offers a new way to understand how smaller midwestern cities like La Crosse emerged in the nineteenth century and helped determine the region’s commercial history. Rather than being a simple, deterministic tale of natural landscapes and market forces, the city’s story is one of lawmakers and judges framing a world of economic possibilities for its inhabitants. Federal, state, and municipal officials made southwestern Wisconsin into an inviting western destination, enabled the city’s first migrants to build a prosperous trading post, and encouraged lumbermen to transform La Crosse into a commercial mecca. State lawmakers and judges also vested municipal officials with the legal power necessary to draw in railroads, build a modern public works system, and attract even more residents and businesses. Finally, government agents provided workers and women in town with potent economic tools that allowed them to redefine their city’s political economy and redirect its commercial energy on the verge of a new century. La Crosse’s history was a tale of economic choices conditioned by the American state. When Frederick Jackson Turner traveled to La Crosse and celebrated an America history of hardy and self-reliant pioneers in 1895, he laid out a heroic national origin tale that many in his audience would have wanted to hear. Yet Turner’s history overlooked a compelling reality: lawmakers, judges, and government executives were a near-constant presence in the lives of residents during the nineteenth century. From the very beginning, federal, state, and municipal officials enabled residents of La Crosse and other smaller middle western cities to make and remake their city’s commercial story from within. They were dynamic agents of the shifting and evolving political economy of the region before 1900.

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Yet, similar to other middle westerners who celebrated the spirited frontier tales of Theodore Roosevelt or the publishing house of Beadle and Adams as the United States industrialized, the people of La Crosse continued to laud their city’s early founders near the end of the century as independent adventurers who had blazed a trail west, conquered savage Red Men, exploited natural resources, and bestowed the gift of urban prosperity on their grateful descendents. Early American migrants did in fact lay the foundation for this thriving river city. But as we will see, they often did so in ways that Professor Turner’s late nineteenth-century audience would have found puzzling, and perhaps even a little unsettling.

PA R T I PAVING THE WAY

chapter one

Red Bird’s Tale

In the summer of , a Ho-Chunk Indian chief named Red Bird (Figure 1), who lived in a village near Prairie La Crosse, became one of the most notorious inhabitants of the Old Northwest. Tensions had long festered between the Ho-Chunk and American settlers in southwestern Wisconsin. During the War of 1812, the Ho-Chunk had joined forces with Great Britain, their trusted partner in the North American fur trade, against the United States and continued to favor the British after the war’s close. As a result, the Ho-Chunk were not inclined to welcome the Americans with open arms. The situation became even worse in the 1820s when American traders, lead miners, and soldiers invaded Ho-Chunk territory and pressured the Indians to abandon their land. In 1826, the stage was set for a violent conflict when American authorities accused two Ho-Chunk warriors of murdering a French-Canadian family. In the face of this growing discord, the Ho-Chunk searched desperately for any leader who could stem the white invasion. Red Bird seemed to fit the bill. In response to growing Ho-Chunk anxiety, Red Bird and two of his followers set out to strike a blow against white settlement. In June 1827, they traveled to Prairie du Chien, a busy fur trading post to the south of La Crosse. On June 27, they arrived at the cabin of Registre Gagnier and dined with the Frenchman, his wife and children, and a family friend named Solomon Lipcap. After a few hours, a pleasant visit turned tragic. Without warning, Red Bird shot Gagnier in the chest, while one of his cohorts killed Lipcap and stabbed and scalped Gagnier’s infant daughter. Unfortunately for the Indians, Gagnier’s wife and ten-year-old son escaped the slaughter and sounded the alarm. After the attack, Red Bird returned to his village a conquering hero. In the months to come, however, the federal government mustered soldiers,

Figure 1. In 1827, a Ho-Chunk Indian named Red Bird tried to spark an indigenous insurrection in southwestern Wisconsin when he and his followers killed several white settlers outside of Prairie du Chien. Although Red Bird’s uprising failed, his desperate attack is significant because it suggests just how profoundly federal soldiers and explorers had transformed the Ho-Chunk by the 1820s. Wisconsin Historical Society Image ID #3911.

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made alliances with other Indian nations to work against the Ho-Chunk, and forced tribal leaders to surrender the Indians responsible for the attack. On February 16, 1828, Red Bird died at Fort Crawford and his uprising came to a quiet end.1 Red Bird’s resistance, much like that of the Sauk Indian chief Black Hawk in 1832, has long fascinated American historians. Most scholars interested in Red Bird’s uprising contend that it was a local response to a particular issue: the American invasion of Ho-Chunk mining lands in the 1820s.2 Settlers certainly heard the siren’s call of lead ore. Yet the insurrection was also symptomatic of a much more deeply rooted trend that eventually remade the lives of Indians and settlers in southwestern Wisconsin and paved the way for the emergence of La Crosse: the growing presence of American military power in the region. Red Bird’s story, in fact, opens a remarkable window on the consequences of federal efforts to capture and settle the territory that would one day become the site of the city.3 Much like thousands of other Indians who lived in southwestern Wisconsin during the antebellum era, Red Bird inhabited a world shaped by the American state. On the one hand, the U.S. military had crushed indigenous resistance and paved the way for white settlement. The War of 1812, in particular, crippled the Ho-Chunk and many other Indian nations that had fought alongside the British. In the years that followed, American soldiers built forts, favored friendly merchants, and continued to suppress Indian uprisings like the one led by Red Bird in order to protect white settlers. At the same time, the U.S. government helped remake southwestern Wisconsin when it sponsored a series of high-profile military and scientific expeditions led by such notable figures as Zebulon Pike, Stephen H. Long, Henry Schoolcraft, and David Dale Owen, who charted the region’s natural resources and painted an intriguing portrait of its commercial possibilities for potential migrants to the east and in Europe. For Red Bird, much like native peoples elsewhere who had struggled to keep control of their land and resources, the expansion of American military power and the growing presence of explorers and traders was further proof of the unsettling dissolution of the cultural middle ground that had long defined indigenous and white relations in the region.4 For most American settlers, however, this extension of federal power was a prudential godsend. Decades before these ambitious migrants made their way to Prairie La Crosse, the federal government had largely crushed indigenous resistance, captured Indian land, secured the sur-

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rounding territory, and, in so doing, forged a radical new world in which white settlers could begin to build a merchant city.

An Outpost of Empires In 1827, Red Bird’s tale of bitter hatred, his desperate and bloody attempt to exact revenge, and his unmitigated failure to reassert native power in the face of the growing American presence in southwestern Wisconsin was far from unique. Instead, his story would have been painfully familiar to indigenous people who had lived near the Great Lakes for generations. In fact, it was part of a larger transnational narrative of European and American efforts to control the heart of the continent that began more than a century and a half earlier.5 As early as the 1670s, southwestern Wisconsin promised a number of strategic advantages that captured the attention of European traders, missionaries, and soldiers. First, the region’s soil, especially in the Mississippi River Valley, was fertile and well suited for tobacco, oat, and fruit farming. The hilly countryside was also home to some of the richest lead deposits in North America, and mines would soon dot the Wisconsin landscape from Cassville in the west to Monroe in the east.6 Furthermore, a number of rivers, including the Mississippi, Wisconsin, Kickapoo, and Black, interlaced the region and provided a transportation network for European soldiers and merchants. Finally, this section of the future state of Wisconsin was home to several thriving Indian and European settlements, including locations at Prairie du Chien and Prairie La Crosse, which lay at the confluence of rivers and were well positioned to become commercial hubs. Southwestern Wisconsin thus provided much of the raw material necessary for different civilizations to take root during the precolonial and colonial eras of American history. Not surprisingly, such features made the region an attractive destination for a host of Indians who had inhabited the land for centuries before the first European adventurers crossed the Atlantic. Some of the Indian peoples who called the location home were Red Bird’s forebears: the Ho-Chunk. According to tribal legend, the Ho-Chunk originated on the shores of Green Bay and eventually dominated a swath of territory that covered much of the eastern part of modern-day Wisconsin. By the sixteenth century, however, Indians from farther east, such as the Ojibwa and Potawatomi, had invaded these lands, besieged the Ho-Chunk, and forced them to move south and west. This migration did not bring an end to Ho-Chunk conflicts. Instead, as they

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fled one group of indigenous enemies, they soon encountered others, such as the Kaskaskia and Illinois, who were not happy to see the Ho-Chunk refugees. And around 1570, growing ecological, cultural, and martial pressure fractured the Ho-Chunk and forced them to compete with still other tribes, including the Sauk and Fox.7 Thus, well before the first Europeans made their way to southwestern Wisconsin, Red Bird’s ancestors had long struggled to survive in a fluid indigenous world remade again and again by ongoing contests over land, resources, and political power.8 The first Europeans to make their way to southwestern Wisconsin and document what they found in the region were French missionaries. In 1673, Jacques Marquette, a Jesuit priest who navigated the Mississippi River in search of Indian converts, passed by the area.9 Marquette had much good to say about the region and its abundant resources. He described the lands near Prairie du Chien and Dubuque as “beautiful” and populated by “deer and cattle, bustards . . . Swans without wings” and “monstrous fish.” 10 Marquette was not alone in sharing tales of southwestern Wisconsin with a larger French audience. In the spring of 1680, Louis Hennepin, a Franciscan priest keenly dedicated to “enlarging the Limits of Christianity, and converting the barbarous Americans to the Belief of the Gospel,” skirted southwestern Wisconsin on his way from the mouth of the Mississippi to the site of modern-day Minneapolis. Although Hennepin was not nearly as impressed as Marquette by what he discovered, he did recall that the Black River, near Prairie La Crosse, fed into the Mississippi.11 Marquette and Hennepin called attention to southwestern Wisconsin. But French traders were the first Europeans to understand the economic potential of the region and to begin to build a vast commercial empire that would eventually enmesh the Ho-Chunk and other Indians. While Spanish conquistadors found wealth in the gold and silver of South and Central America, French adventurers pursued a very different treasure: animal pelts. The earliest French merchants, most notably Samuel de Champlain, who made his way to New France and founded a colonial outpost at Quebec in 1608, faced a simple challenge. Unlike in the case of the Spanish, who had used superior tools of war, played upon religious fears, and built political and military alliances with indigenous peoples to capture Indian cities and plunder the Aztec and Inca empires, the nature of Indian societies and the fur trade forced the French to explore different economic tactics.12 In short order, Champlain and other French explorers recognized that their commercial prospects depended almost entirely on establishing strong cultural connections with Indians and

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negotiating with them in New France. To this end, he and his followers visited Indians, became students of their languages and cultural ways, and provided them with aid during their ongoing struggles with other indigenous people in North America.13 The French, in turn, gained the help of Indians in their ongoing effort to find the best trapping grounds and to make Quebec into a flourishing colony and reliable source of wealth for the monarchy. Champlain and his fellows thus offered an effective model of cooperation and coexistence with indigenous people that other ambitious French traders and explorers were eager to follow in years to come. Champlain and early French merchants were so successful, in fact, that many who followed continued to push farther and farther west in search of beaver and other animals during the seventeenth century. In the process, some of these people soon made their way to southwestern Wisconsin. The first French voyageur to arrive in the region was an experienced trader named Nicolas Perrot. Although born in France in 1644, Perrot had migrated to North America and begun to work as a servant for the Jesuits in 1660. In the company of priests, he journeyed among Potawatomi and Fox Indians, and become fluent in their languages and familiar with their cultures. In the middle of the 1660s, he applied these skills to become an effective Indian trader who crisscrossed the Great Lakes region in search of indigenous customers.14 By 1685, he had built a trading post north of Prairie La Crosse at present-day Trempealeau, Wisconsin, and began to exchange his wares with nearby Sioux Indians. He did not stay long; he soon moved up the Mississippi and traded with other tribes.15 But the French remembered the trading post’s fortuitous location. In 1731, France, eager to fend off British encroachment on its colonial fur trade, erected a fort near the site of Perrot’s original settlement. For the next five years, the French tried to maintain good commercial relations with nearby Indians, most particularly members of the Sioux tribe. Yet all was not well. Under growing pressure from tribes other than the Sioux, the French removed their Prairie du Chien trading post farther north. Still, French settlers continued to trade with Indians and call southwestern Wisconsin home, even after this relocation.16 The French were not alone in their efforts to control the wealth of the Great Lakes region in the colonial era. British politicians and military leaders such as Jeffrey Amherst and William Johnson had also shown a growing interest in the region’s riches and its strategic location, particularly after their victory over the French in the French and Indian War in 1763.17 In the wake of this victory, the British were eager to seize control of French and Indian

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commerce. Yet when they began to unilaterally recast the basic terms of the fur trade, they rapidly discovered that they were not the only people who had a stake in this trade. The British, in fact, made several ill-fated decisions that upset Indians. To encourage greater self-sufficiency among tribes, for example, the British limited gift giving to Indians. British traders, moreover, raised prices, cut back the supply of alcohol available for purchase, and forced Indians to march longer distances to specially designated trading posts. In the end, this hard-charging plan to cement British authority on the northwestern frontier ratcheted up tensions between the British and their professed Indian allies, many of whom had grown accustomed to the former munificence of French neighbors. This anger finally sparked Pontiac’s War, an indigenous revolt that swept across the Northwest in 1763 and forced the British to close off trade in the region until 1765.18 British leaders, however, were not willing to give up territory that they considered rightfully theirs. When Pontiac’s uprising neared its end, the British began to reconsider their overall commercial strategy in the Old Northwest in ways that would leave a lasting impact on southwestern Wisconsin. In 1765, British agents negotiated a peace settlement that helped restore a measure of order to a largely unsettled region. In doing so, however, they did not assert ultimate and absolute control. Instead, they loosened earlier economic restrictions, resumed gift giving, regulated commercial prices, and labored to rebuild diplomatic bridges with Indians. In doing so, they essentially resurrected the preexisting system that had governed European and Indian relations since Champlain had made his way west. Once again, state officials had determined the terms of trade with indigenous peoples.19 Within this shifting commercial framework, a British colonial explorer named Jonathan Carver set out on an expedition that brought him to southwestern Wisconsin. Born in Massachusetts, Carver had joined the colonial militia during the French and Indian War and battled both the French and their Indian allies in the Connecticut River Valley.20 In 1766, Robert Rogers, a backwoods guerilla fighter who had made his name during the French and Indian War, organized an expedition in search of a northwest passage. Rogers was no stranger to frontiering, and he quickly recognized the need for a skilled mapmaker who could provide an accurate chart of the Northwest. Carver seemed an ideal choice. His experiences as a western soldier almost certainly captured Rogers’s attention. More important, Carver had trained himself in the taxing art of land surveying and cartography. Rogers quickly hired Carver as his draftsman and they soon set off with a small party to

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Michilimackinac, a British fort situated at the meeting point between Lakes Michigan and Huron.21 From here, Carver commenced a two-year journey in which he mapped the Old Northwest, documented the Indian worlds he encountered, and celebrated the wealth of the region. By Carver’s own account, he traversed the countryside taking notes between 1766 and 1768. In doing so, he focused a good deal of attention on southwestern Wisconsin. In October 1766, he and a traveling companion made their way down the Wisconsin River and eventually entered the Mississippi River south of Prairie du Chien. At this point, he began to weave fantastic tales about the goodness of its lands and the fabulous wealth of its peoples. On October 15, he described the waters at the confluence of the rivers as “exceedingly clear, and through it you may perceive a fine and sandy bottom, tolerably free from rocks.” He had more to say about the surrounding landscape: “The land near the river also seemed to be, in general, excellent; but that at a distance is very full of mountains, where it is said there are many lead mines.” As Carver journeyed north, he continued to laud southwestern Wisconsin when he sang the praises of Prairie du Chien: “it is a large town, and contains about three hundred families; the houses are well built after the Indian manner, and pleasantly situated on a very rich soil, from which they raise every necessary of life in great abundance.” He was particularly struck by the city’s ideal commercial location. In his words, the “town is the great mart where all the adjacent tribes, and even those who inhabit the most remote branches of the Mississippi, annually assemble about the latter end of May, bringing with them their furs to dispose of to the traders” who either “sell their goods at this place, or carry them on to Louisiana, or Michilimackinac.” 22 Carver’s southwestern Wisconsin adventure did not end at Prairie du Chien in 1766. Instead, he journeyed farther up the Mississippi, passed Prairie La Crosse, and eventually made his way to Lake Pepin, a point where the river widened between present-day Wisconsin and Minnesota. He described the riverside along the way in almost edenic terms: “Verdant plains, fruitful meadows, numerous islands, and all these abounding with a variety of trees that yield amazing quantities of fruit, without care of cultivation; such as the nut-tree, the maple which produces sugar, vines loaded with rich grapes, and plum-trees bending under their blooming burdens, but above all, the fine river flowing gently beneath, and reaching as far as the eye can extend, by turns attract your admiration and excite your wonder.” 23 Carver’s ultimate message seemed to be that Prairie du Chien and its hinterland offered entic-

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ing economic possibilities for anyone who would follow in his pioneering footsteps. Carver’s borderland expedition ended in 1768 when he returned to Boston with high hopes of publishing his discoveries and becoming rich. He was optimistic enough that on September 12, he purchased an advertisement in the Boston Chronicle that asked readers to buy subscriptions that would cover the printing and engraving costs of the project. The painful reality, however, was that few Bostonians were interested in financing his literary venture. In 1769, Carver journeyed to England in search of a house willing to publish his masterwork. The first edition of his journal finally appeared and helped cement his name and reputation as a compelling storyteller in 1778. Yet sales from the book did not make his life easier. Just two years after publication of his journal, Carver died penniless in London.24 Scholars have rightly questioned some of Carver’s more remarkable observations about his expedition through a region that included southwestern Wisconsin. Even at the time of publication, critics wondered about the truth of some of his more striking claims about Indians. Others doubted whether Carver had actually visited the places that he described in his journal. Furthermore, many explorers who followed were not always convinced that the journal met the increasingly exacting scientific standards of their age. Zebulon M. Pike, Henry Schoolcraft, and Joseph N. Nicollet, respected explorers who trekked across the Old Northwest in the nineteenth century, had little good to say about Carver’s work. By the 1850s, Carver’s reputation was damaged and his journal seemed little more than a historical curiosity prepared by a manipulative charlatan in search of fame and fortune.25 Yet even in the face of such harsh criticism, Carver left an indelible mark on both British and American perceptions of the Northwest, including the lands of southwestern Wisconsin. Carver’s work attracted a wide audience in Great Britain, its North American colonies, and Europe. By the 1790s, versions of the journal had appeared in Philadelphia, Boston, and other colonial cities. Editors also released German, French, Dutch, and other foreign language translations that fueled Carver’s popularity in Western Europe.26 His journal also likely inspired other explorers, or at least set the stage for future expeditions to places such as southwestern Wisconsin in the decades to come. Pike, for example, had clearly read Carver’s account and noted it when he visited the region almost forty years later.27 As Carver documented the economic possibilities of Prairie du Chien, the village became an increasingly attractive meeting point in southwestern

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Wisconsin for European traders and Indians who had put aside their earlier differences and found common cause. On the eve of the American Revolution, the settlement hosted a cosmopolitan collection of British merchants, Spanish traders, and Indians such as the Sioux and Ho-Chunk, all of whom exchanged goods. The war itself upset the steady flow of furs and European wares to Prairie du Chien and other British frontier outposts, particularly after American forces invaded Canada and the Northwest after 1775. Yet even when fighting between Britain and its former colonies had come to an end and the British had ceded their western lands in North America, they continued to have a commercial presence on the frontier. British traders were more than happy to pretend that the Revolution had never taken place. And for at least a time, this wishful dream seemed a happy reality for the British in places like southwestern Wisconsin. They, in fact, continued to call Prairie du Chien their own until the War of 1812.28 Ultimately, the tale of French and British efforts to take and control southwestern Wisconsin is a twisting narrative with European and Indian contact and negotiation at its heart. When French traders like Perrot arrived in the area in search of indigenous trading partners, they quickly understood that they and their Indian neighbors inhabited a variety of very different cultural worlds. The reality of ongoing cultural difference had a lasting impact on Europeans and Indians. Neither the Europeans nor the indigenous peoples of the area had the military strength necessary to dominate the other and dictate the terms of trade. In the absence of overwhelming military might, Europeans and Indians could profit from the presence of the other in places such as Prairie du Chien only if they learned to transcend their deep-seated differences and find common ground. Europeans and Indians certainly did not always coexist peacefully; the possibility of disagreements and violence shadowed their interactions on the North American frontier from the earliest moments of contact. But the French, British, and Indians such as the Ho-Chunk were often able to set aside their differences, communicate and cooperate on relatively equal ground, and forge a rich, multiethnic commercial society that took fitful root in the seedbed of southwestern Wisconsin before 1815.

Enter the Americans Yet Americans had very different ideas about how to control the lands and riches of places such as southwestern Wisconsin. Rather than negotiate and coexist with local native peoples, U.S. agents were committed to a policy that

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had already defined American–Indian relations in more eastern places: military pacification and forced Indian removal.29 The American military had already enjoyed some success with this aggressive strategy in the Ohio River Valley in the 1790s. American settlers had contested Indians for control of this area, which provided an avenue into the heart of the continent, since the close of the American Revolution. In the 1780s and 1790s, Americans streamed into the valley and claimed these lands for themselves. In response, Indians like the Miamis and Potawatomies forged an alliance to defend their territory. Under the Ohio chief Little Turtle, indigenous armies frustrated the struggling nation’s efforts until 1794, when an American expedition led by General Anthony Wayne shattered Indian resistance in the Battle of Fallen Timbers. In the ensuing treaty that ended the conflict, American officials forced Little Turtle and his followers to give up a huge chunk of their territory, including parts of modern-day Ohio and Indiana, to the United States. For American Indians, this policy of pacification was crippling. Broken in body and spirit, many Ohio River Valley Indians abandoned their lands or struggled to survive in a world ever more populated by aggressive white settlers.30 For American soldiers, however, it offered a model to follow in years to come. The American military embraced a similar plan to secure the Old Northwest. In a bold effort to pacify Indians in places such as southwestern Wisconsin, military leaders established a presence in the region that paved the way for future American and European migration to settlements like Prairies du Chien and La Crosse. That Americans would succeed in this ambitious undertaking was not a foregone conclusion, particularly near the turn of the nineteenth century. The upstart nation had struggled to assert control over the Northwest in the aftermath of the American Revolution. Although the British had promised to vacate the disputed territory in 1783 and again in 1796, its agents continued to arm the region’s indigenous peoples and provide them with better quality goods than American merchants.31 As a result, by the time war finally broke out between the British and their American rivals in 1812, most western Indians, including many who lived near Prairies du Chien and La Crosse, fought alongside the British. Their chief target was Fort Madison, a vulnerable American outpost established at Prairie du Chien in 1808. In the fall of 1812, a party of two hundred Ho-Chunk and Sauk Indians attacked the fort, burned boats, killed livestock, and terrified American soldiers. Indians continued to harass the fort in the summer of 1813. And by the fall of that year, the garrison’s com-

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mander ordered his starving and disheartened troops to set Fort Madison to the torch and flee to safety. The near-constant threat of an American return, however, frightened Indians in the region and convinced many to maintain close military ties with the British. In 1814, three hundred indigenous warriors from the area, including many Ho-Chunk, signed up for service with British Indian agent Robert Dickinson to attack St. Louis. For many native peoples, the war between Great Britain and the upstart United States seemed a golden opportunity to strike a blow against Americans in and around Prairie du Chien.32 In the end, this attack never occurred. And when the war halted in 1815, British forces evacuated southwestern Wisconsin and abandoned their Indian allies in the region. Yet the War of 1812 did not bring a close to American and indigenous conflict. Instead, most American military leaders, federal Indian agents, and national politicians accepted a straightforward but fatally oversimplified explanation for indigenous actions during the war: when Indians took up arms, they did so as a British proxy army, not as independent people with their own legitimate concerns. For this reason, the argument went, American soldiers had to break the back of Indian resistance to end British influence and ultimately secure the region.33 One influential American politician who embraced this idea was John C. Calhoun, a South Carolinian who served as secretary of war under James Monroe between 1817 and 1825. Calhoun was certainly no pacifist. Earlier in the decade he had been an assertive War Hawk, one of a collection of younger leaders who rallied to the cause of American nationalism and urged his compatriots to take up arms against Great Britain in the War of 1812.34 The secretary’s militancy was also evident in his effort to deal with indigenous people on the nation’s borders. Like many Americans at the time, including such founding luminaries as Thomas Jefferson and James Madison, Calhoun believed that a link existed between the vitality of the United States and ongoing western expansion.35 He also feared that unless the federal government established a much more assertive military presence in places such as southwestern Wisconsin, the British would continue to encourage Indians to harass American settlers and erode the nation’s security on the borderland. Calhoun articulated this fear in a letter of 1819. In his words, Indians “on our north-western border . . . are open to the influence of a foreign power, and many of the most warlike and powerful tribes, . . . by the extension of our settlements, are becoming our near neighbors.” His solution to this festering frontier problem was direct:

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“To guard against their hostility, it has been thought proper to increase our forces on that frontier, from one to three regiments; and to occupy new posts, better calculated to cut off intercourse between the Indians residing in our territory, and foreign traders or posts; and to garrison them with a force sufficiently strong to overawe the neighboring tribes.” 36 Calhoun’s answer was not one of negotiation. Instead, it was one of brute and convincing force. One of the outposts that Calhoun promised to support as a bulwark against Indian resistance was Fort Crawford, a garrison located at Prairie du Chien. Fort Crawford was one of a network of similar stations built under William Crawford, Calhoun’s predecessor in the War Department (Figure 2).37 In 1816, troops arrived in town, began construction on the fort, and federal agents took steps to make Prairie du Chien an even more secure commercial entrepôt on the frontier. In particular, they established an Indian trading post, known as a factory, nearby.38 The factory system first took root in the eighteenth century. Beginning in the 1790s, many federal officials, including President George Washington, had worried that traders were cheating Indians and, in the process, aggravating frontier tensions.39 In response, Congress established government trade factories to provide affordable goods to Indians in 1796.40 Initially, the system worked rather well. Few private traders complained about government competition and most Indians were pleased with factory prices and services. After the United States won the War of 1812 and drove British traders from the Old Northwest, however, some wealthy capitalists who reaped the riches of frontier commerce, such as fur baron John Jacob Astor, and western politicians, such as Lewis Cass, governor of the Michigan Territory, lobbied federal lawmakers to end the factory system and give private merchants greater authority to craft the market as they saw fit. Under growing political pressure, Congress voted to disband the factory system, including the post at Prairie du Chien, in 1822.41 During the time a federal factory’s doors remained open, however, it could have a potent impact on local commerce. The factory founded near Fort Crawford in 1816, in fact, helped transform Prairie du Chien into an even more important frontier destination. As federal soldiers policed commerce in and around the region, the village attracted more and more visitors.42 In the summer of 1818, St. Louis boats laden with goods sailed to the village as merchants courted Indians and traded for animal pelts.43 Between July 23 and September 18 of that same year, a trader named Michael Brisbois purchased from the factory goods worth almost $1,900 that he planned to

Figure 2. In the aftermath of the War of 1812, the U.S. military established a series of outposts in the Old Northwest to police the frontier and intimidate indigenous people who called the region home. One of these outposts was Fort Crawford, which boosted Prairie du Chien into an attractive western destination for settlers, merchants, and other potential entrepreneurs in the southwestern corner of the future state of Wisconsin. Wisconsin Historical Society Image ID #42236.

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trade with Indians.44 When federal agents audited the nation’s Indian factories in 1824 as the government prepared to shut them down, they assessed the total merchandise, cash, debts, and buildings at the Prairie du Chien location at more than $38,000, an amount roughly equivalent to $875,000 in 2008.45 Together, fort and factory boosted the town into a bustling hub that linked federal troops, government agents, local traders, and nearby tribes in new ways in the 1820s. As Fort Crawford helped make Prairie du Chien an even more significant trading post in the West, federal agents also pressured Indian leaders to sign treaties that further opened the town and its hinterland to future migration. By the early nineteenth century, treaty making had long been a painful reality of life for many native inhabitants around the Great Lakes and in the Old Northwest.46 In the years before Red Bird’s raid, the United States had used treaties to win land and other concessions from indigenous signatories across the region. In a notorious 1804 treaty, Sauk and Fox Indians ceded fifty million acres of territory east of the Mississippi River and between the Wisconsin and the Illinois Rivers.47 After the War of 1812, federal agents cajoled these Indians to endorse two new treaties that confirmed the 1804 agreement.48 The Ho-Chunk also felt the impact of treaties. In 1816, federal agents crafted a peace agreement with Ho-Chunk who lived on the Wisconsin River in which the Indians promised to remain separate from other Ho-Chunk in the region.49 In each case, American officials forged territorial compacts that worked in their favor and against that of the Indian people of southwestern Wisconsin. One of the peculiar realities of this treaty making was that indigenous designees and federal officials who negotiated territorial control of southwestern Wisconsin did so from a distance. For the most part, St. Louis remained the locus of western Indian policymaking in the 1820s. By the time of Red Bird’s attack in 1827, however, Fort Crawford had made Prairie du Chien an increasingly important meeting site for Indians and federal officials. This significance had become clear by 1825, when American agents traveled to the burgeoning town and convened a meeting of virtually every major tribe in the Old Northwest. Federal Indian agents had long feared that ongoing intertribal warfare would destabilize the entire region. The treaty that emerged from this conference tried to address this issue by setting formal boundaries on tribal lands.50 For the first time in American history, Prairie du Chien had emerged as a vibrant focal point of federal Indian policy on the frontier. After Red Bird’s defeat, the federal military built up and maintained a

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presence in southwestern Wisconsin, increasingly pressured Indians to forfeit their land claims, and, in the process, paved the way for American settlers. In 1829, federal agents at Prairie du Chien forced Ojibwa, Ottawa, and Potawatomi Indians to give up most of their land in the future state of Wisconsin.51 Just days later, the village hosted another meeting between federal officials and the Ho-Chunk, who agreed to cede their territory.52 Finally, in 1830, negotiators secured a treaty that pushed the Sauk and Fox even further west.53 By the end of the 1830s, federal officials such as Calhoun and Cass proved largely successful in their efforts to take control of southwestern Wisconsin from Indians. In the years that followed, federal agents would begin to open up this land to European and American migrants eager to mine lead and cultivate crops in places such as Prairies du Chien and La Crosse. The same treaty system that had allowed federal officials to seize control of Indian lands in the Ohio River Valley a generation earlier made it possible for the federal government to capture native territory and undermine indigenous cultures in southwestern Wisconsin. As federal agents boosted trade and wielded treaties as a weapon to secure southwestern Wisconsin, they showed little hesitation in using martial power to crush any perceived Indian uprising. By the 1830s, the American army already had a long history of using force against indigenous peoples on the nation’s northwestern borderlands. In the 1810s, for example, American soldiers in Indiana had shattered a pan-Indian insurrection led by the Shawnee chief Tecumseh and his prophet brother, Tenskwatawa.54 As more and more settlers trekked to the Northwest in the decades that followed, army commanders were more than willing to respond with brute force in the face of perceived Indian resistance. The hammer of American military might fell most notably upon Indians in the region in 1832 when General Henry Atkinson pursued Black Hawk, the Sauk Indian chief, and a host of followers across Wisconsin. One year earlier, soldiers had driven Black Hawk’s people away from Saukenuk, a community at the heart of their territory in northwestern Illinois, west of the Mississippi River. By the spring of 1832, Black Hawk was convinced that the Sauk needed to return home to save their society. White settlers, however, had very different opinions. Many viewed the return as the first sortie of an impending Indian invasion of Illinois. In response, Governor John Reynolds called up the state militia to bolster the federal army and drive out the invaders. Black Hawk was no fool. He divined that the odds were against his followers, decided that flight was their only hope, and led his band on a frantic getaway

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into Wisconsin. But the state militiamen and federal troops, many of whom had mustered at Fort Crawford, were unwilling to let their indigenous prey escape. Over the course of the summer, they hunted Black Hawk’s people as the Indians tried to flee to the Mississippi River. In early August, American forces overtook the Sauk as the Indians prepared to flee across the river at a point just thirty-five miles north of Prairie du Chien and twenty miles south of Prairie La Crosse. In the ensuing Battle of Bad Axe, American forces slaughtered the Indians on the river’s bank and captured their leader.55 In the end, Black Hawk’s War was hardly a “war.” Instead, it was a fruitless flight that ended with a massacre of Indians at the hands of the American military. Black Hawk’s utter defeat and ultimate capture, even more than Red Bird’s rout, was a powerfully symbolic moment in American history. In 1833, Black Hawk’s captors took him on a tour of New York, Philadelphia, and a number of other big eastern cities. That same year, he published a celebrated autobiography, which opened a window on the often desperate lives of northwestern Indians for a largely white audience enthralled by the exoticism of their subjugated enemy.56 Over time, in fact, many Americans came to celebrate Black Hawk because doing so helped them feel a connection to an imperiled culture while they ignored the more troubling realities of invasion and conquest. In the words of historian Kerry A. Trask, Black Hawk’s tale “unwittingly enabled white people to feel good about themselves.” 57 But it also had another effect on the nation. For many Americans eager to head west in the 1830s, Black Hawk’s defeat validated the notion that assertive federal power could pave the way for civilization in places such as southwestern Wisconsin.

Exploring an American Country The extension of American armed power in southwestern Wisconsin was evident not only in the fortified walls and battle-ready troops of Fort Crawford. Federal officials also helped pave the way for commercial development in places such as Prairie du Chien and Prairie La Crosse when they sponsored some of the earliest scientific expeditions in the nation’s history to map the territory and chronicle its natural wealth.58 In 1805, just a few years after Meriwether Lewis and William Clark had set out with their famed Corps of Discovery in search of the rumored northwest passage, the military effort to chart the Old Northwest began in earnest when James Wilkinson, former head of the army and then governor of the Louisiana Territory, chose Zebulon Pike, a young and ambitious officer, to begin a search for the source of

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the Mississippi River that would eventually take him through southwestern Wisconsin and help establish the popular perception of the area.59 Wilkinson was not a particularly admirable character in antebellum history. Most notoriously, he likely had some involvement in former vice president Aaron Burr’s plot to found a new nation in the American Southwest.60 It is clear that Wilkinson had high hopes for what Pike would find. Wilkinson urged Pike to chart the region with care: “take the course of the River and calculate distances by time, noting rivers, creeks, Highlands, Prairie, Islands, rapids, shoals, mines, Quarries, Timber, water, Soil, Indian Villages and Settlements, in a Diary to comprehend reflections on the wind and weather.” Wilkinson had interests beyond maps and weather. He also instructed Pike to judge the commercial potential of the Northwest. In Wilkinson’s words: “It is interesting to government to be informed of the Population and residence of the several Indian Nations, of the Quantity and Species of Skins and Furs they barter per annum, and their relative price of goods; of the Tracts of Country on which they generally make their hunts, and the People with whom they trade.” Finally, Wilkinson ordered his charge to assess the strategic potential of the region, particularly near Prairie du Chien and the Wisconsin River, find a location “suitable for a Military Post,” and “obtain the consent of the Indians for their Erection, informing them that they are intended to increase their trade & ameliorate their conditions.” 61 Armed with these general instructions, Pike left St. Louis and began his journey up the Mississippi on August 9, 1805. On September 1, the expedition reached Dubuque, a small river town in present-day Iowa, and passed into southwestern Wisconsin. And on September 4, Pike’s party arrived at Prairie du Chien. Pike was apparently impressed by the commercial potential of the community and its surrounding countryside. In his final report, he held that the Wisconsin River “is the grand source of communication between the lakes and the Mississippi, and the route by which all the traders of Michilimackinac convey their goods.” The village’s location was especially important because it attracted Indian traders. Frontier commerce was not, however, always a pretty sight. In Pike’s opinion, there “are a few gentlemen residing at the Prairie des Chiens, and many others claiming that appellation; but the rivalship of the Indian trade, occasions them to be guilty of acts at their wintering grounds, which they would blush to be thought guilty of in the civilized world.” Pike made a further observation about how commerce worked in Prairie du Chien: he noted thriving cross-cultural connections in town. In his words, the inhabitants’ “mode of living had obliged them to

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have transient connexion with the Indian women; and what was at first policy is now so confirmed by habit and inclination, that it is become (with a few exceptions) the ruling practice of all the traders; and, in fact, almost one half of the inhabitants under 20 years have the blood of the aborigines in their veins.” 62 Pike thus concluded that Prairie du Chien was an ideal location for American and Indian commerce, and might offer an excellent model for future economic success in southwestern Wisconsin. Pike, moreover, noted another intriguing site farther north: Prairie La Crosse. On September 12, 1805, Pike and his party passed by the Prairie as they journeyed farther up the Mississippi. He noted in his journal that it “is a very handsome Prairie, with a Small Square Hill on its summit.” Pike, always the soldier, seemed especially intrigued by the evidence of Indian military defenses on the Prairie: “Mr. Frazer shewed me holes dug by Sioux when in expectation of attack—into which they first put their women and children, and then crawl themselves.” Pike was duly impressed by the military ingenuity of the holes: “The moment they apprehend or discover an Enemy on a Prairie, they commence digging with their Knives, Tomahawks and a Wooden Ladle; and in an incredible short space of time, they have a hole sufficiently deep to cover them and family from the balls or arrows of the enemy.” Skillful digging meant certain defense since enemies could never capture “those subterraneous redoubts by storm; as they would stand a chance to loose a good number of men in the attack, which, although successful, would be considered as a very imprudent action.” 63 In 1805, Pike portrayed southwestern Wisconsin as a country to be seized and settled. Pike’s journey up the Mississippi came to a close in 1806 when he returned to St. Louis convinced that he had discovered the river’s source at Leech Lake, a small body of water in present-day Minnesota. In hindsight, however, his expedition had accomplished very little. Most striking, Pike was not much of a mapmaker. He failed to discover any new lakes or rivers, his journal was disorganized, and his maps were largely inaccurate. Pike, in fact, would not make any lasting scientific or geological contributions until after he explored the American Southwest.64 Yet Pike did shape how Americans viewed the Old Northwest. His story entranced President Thomas Jefferson. In 1806, Jefferson was pleased with federal explorations and singled out Pike for his performance: “Very useful additions have also been made to our knowledge of the Mississippi by Lieutenant Pike.” 65 Wilkinson understood the power of mention in a presidential address as well as anyone. In 1806, Jefferson ordered Pike to cross the Mississippi and map the source of the Red River. This time,

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Pike’s expedition was a disaster and he eventually wandered into modern-day New Mexico and was captured by the Spanish. Shortly after Pike’s release from Spanish captivity, Wilkinson sent Pike an encouraging letter that reminded him of the mark he had already made on American history: “The president mentioned you and your explorations to the source of the Great river, in his address to congress, in handsome terms, and I am convinced he has a proper sense of your merits, and will do you ample justice.” 66 Pike’s trip through southwestern Wisconsin may not have been a scientific or geographic success, but Wilkinson recognized that Pike had impressed Jefferson and had the president’s ear. Pike also had a broader impact. Although his Mississippi trip did little to enhance science, his efforts focused the attention of the scientific community on places such as southwestern Wisconsin. Jefferson himself presented a copy of Pike’s journal to the American Philosophical Society, perhaps the most important scientific organization in the nation, in 1807. Pike also sparked interest beyond the scientific community. In the aftermath of his expedition, many leading newspapers and journals in the East, including the National Intelligencer in Washington, D.C., the Pittsburgh Gazette, and the Monthly Anthology printed either excerpts or the entire text of the journal for their eager readers.67 They spread the word of Pike’s adventures along the East Coast. In the end, Pike, much like Carver in the century before, contributed to the popular idea that frontier places such as southwestern Wisconsin were potentially attractive destinations for restless people on the make in antebellum America. In doing so, Pike helped set the stage for an increasing competition between white migrants and irate Indians who had called the region home for generations.68 The construction of Fort Crawford in 1816 also opened the door for another American explorer who shared his opinions about the commercial prospects of places like Prairies du Chien and La Crosse. In 1817, Secretary of War William Crawford appointed Major Stephen H. Long to go west, assess Fort Crawford, chart the area’s waterways, plot possible canals and roads, and keep careful track of any encounters with Indians.69 Long was an officer in the Topographical Corps, a division of the Department of War organized to chart the countryside and help guide and position soldiers during the War of 1812.70 In the aftermath of the war, the corps became instrumental in exploring the nation’s farthest reaches, searching for foreign meddling on the frontier, surveying resources, and alerting settlers to the potential risks and rewards of moving to faraway places like southwestern Wisconsin.

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On June 1, 1817, Long and a small expeditionary party boarded a skiff near St. Louis and set out on a round-trip journey that would take them to both Prairies du Chien and La Crosse. On July 11, the expedition passed by the latter. Long had little to say about the Prairie itself, but he did note that his men collected iron ore, sandstone, and other mineral samples from the area. He also observed that the Black River, which flowed into the Mississippi River near the Prairie, passed through “an abundance of pine timber of an excellent quality.” Long had far more to say, however, about the presence of indigenous people nearby. As he and his fellows continued their journey north, they encountered a Ho-Chunk settlement six miles above the Prairie. The party proceeded to exchange items with the Indians and Long argued (incorrectly, in fact, given that the Ho-Chunk had sided with the British and fought against the Americans in the War of 1812) that “These Indians . . . have always manifested a friendly disposition towards the Americans.” 71 Long had a great deal more to say about Prairie du Chien and its surrounding countryside.72 Most important, he painted an optimistic portrait of untapped possibilities. Although the settlement did not, in his words: “exhibit any display of elegance or taste,” it did sit smartly on a “handsome tract of low land . . . occasionally intersected by ravines & valleys, which afford easy communications with the hilly country situated back of the bluffs. . . . In some parts it is hansomoly variegated with swells & valleys that are secure from the inundations of the river.” He also noted the settlement’s intriguing agricultural possibilities: “About one mile back of the village is The Grand Farm, which is an extensive enclosure cultivated by the inhabitants in common. . . . Upon this farm, corn, wheat, Potatoes, &c. are cultivated to considerable advantage; and with proper care no doubt large crops of these articles, together with fruits of various kinds, might be raised. . . . Wry, Barley, oats, &c. would undoubtedly succeed well upon the farm.” Finally, Long made an observation that had also captured Pike’s attention. In his eyes, Prairie du Chien had a multiethnic population defined by a reality he, and certainly many other Americans alive in the 1810s, found disconcerting: sexual intercourse between Indian women and white men. In Long’s words, “The Inhabitants are principally of French & Indian extraction. There are very few of them that have not savage blood in their veins.” In his mind, this reality had dire consequences: “If we compare the village & its inhabitants in their present state with what they were when Pike visited this part of the country, we shall find that instead of improving they have been degenerating.” 73 Long seemed to suggest that Prairie du Chien could become a thriving community in southwestern Wisconsin, but only if

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pure-blood white Americans journeyed west and helped save local residents from themselves. Long would soon make more of a name for himself on a wide-ranging exploration through the Plains and Southwest. His journey up the Mississippi in 1817, however, had a crucial impact on the United States and ultimately on the lives of settlers and Indians in southwestern Wisconsin. Most important, he was deeply troubled by the commercial ties that continued to hold among British, Canadian, and Indian traders on the northern border of the Northwest and encouraged Secretary Calhoun and other War Department officials to reinforce American military power in the region. To this end, Long suggested that the department provide soldiers throughout the West with armed keelboats, more horses, and better rations. Although Long was certainly not the only one who made these suggestions, Calhoun likely considered the major’s thoughts when he invested in the nation’s western defenses. Long’s report may not have been readily available to the general public. But it did entice politicians eager to enhance American power in places such as southwestern Wisconsin.74 Long’s southwestern Wisconsin trip was also significant because it paved the way for Henry Schoolcraft’s survey of the region in 1820. By this time, Schoolcraft had made his reputation as inspector of the rich lead fields of Missouri. In 1819, he had published a geological account of Missouri that captured the attention of Lewis Cass. Cass, like Calhoun and Long, was concerned that Indians in the Old Northwest continued to exchange goods with British merchants and fearful that royal agents were encouraging their indigenous trading partners to form a western confederacy on the American border. Cass planned an expedition to find the true source of the Mississippi River, visit Indians, persuade them to abandon their economic connections to the British, and lay a foundation to secure title to tribal lands in places like southwestern Wisconsin. Beginning on May 24, 1820, Cass and his party set out from Michigan, journeyed to Lake Superior, and descended the Mississippi to Dubuque, before heading back to Detroit. In the end, Cass’s expedition certainly made an impact on western Indian policy during the 1820s. But it was also crucial because it gave one member of the troupe, Schoolcraft, an unusual chance to record his observations about the region and share them with people in the East.75 On his journey south from St. Peter, Minnesota, Schoolcraft passed by Prairie La Crosse. He said little about the surrounding landscape and resources, but he did point to a newly constructed sawmill on the Black River

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as confirmation of assertive American civilization on the march and the barbaric state of local Indians: “Thus is the empire of the arts, and the march of European population, gradually into regions which have, heretofore, only resounded to the savage war whoop, or if they have ever before witnessed a civilized population, . . . the light of history, and the voice of traditions, cast not a solitary beam to illumine our researches, or direct us in elucidating the mysterious history of the aboriginal tribes, and the ancient state of society, arts, and religion, upon our continent.” 76 Like other explorers who had come before, Schoolcraft also sang the praises of Prairie du Chien: “The village . . . is pleasantly situated on the east bank of the river, on the verge of one of those beautiful and extensive natural meadows, which characterize the valley of the Mississippi.” Furthermore, Schoolcraft, like Pike and Long, was taken by life on the Prairie’s middle ground. Because of French and Indian intermarriage in the village “we behold the only instance which our country presents, of the complete and permanent civilization of the aborigines. . . . The result, in the present instance, is such as to equal the most sanguine expectations of the philanthropist, in regard to a mixed species.” The impact was astounding: “They are said to exhibit evidences of enterprise, industry, and a regard to order and the laws, at the same time, that we perceive the natural taciturnity of the savage, happily counterpoised by the vivacity and suavity of the French character, producing manners which are sprightly without frivolity, and serious without becoming morose.” 77 Schoolcraft found Prairie du Chien intriguing, but he was just as interested in seeing the lead mines that lay south of the village, “which had acquired some celebrity from their reputed extent, and the novel circumstance of their being worked by the Indian tribes.” Such a visit was not easy. Although Schoolcraft convinced Cass to let him make the trip south, he had heard rumors that Indian miners “had manifested a great jealousy of the whites— were afraid they would encroach on their rights—denied all former grants, and did not make it a practice even to allow strangers to view their diggings, etc.” He finally won their permission, however, when he gave them gifts of whiskey and tobacco. With the help of two white traveling companions and two Fox Indian guides, Schoolcraft embarked on his survey. Even though he could not spare the time to conduct a thorough exploration, he painted a clear portrait of lead ore available for the taking in southwestern Wisconsin.78 Finally, on September 23, 1820, Schoolcraft reached Detroit and continued his journey home.79

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After Schoolcraft completed his western sojourn, he followed in Pike’s footsteps and published the journal of his adventures through the Northwest. Beginning in early 1821, he crafted a detailed narrative of his travels. In May, he published his story and quickly sold twelve hundred of its original print run of fifteen hundred copies. The work soon captured national attention. Not every reader was pleased. One anonymous Albany critic asserted the narrative was filled with erroneous scientific data. Many other Americans, however, looked beyond such criticisms and celebrated the narrative as an informative portrait of a mysterious world.80 By publicizing his western adventures, Schoolcraft, much like Pike and Long, helped focus fresh attention on intriguing frontier places such as southwestern Wisconsin. They told eastern Americans what the West looked like and hinted at what it might become following settlement. While treaties and soldiers allowed the federal government to capture Indian land and smash indigenous uprisings in the 1820s and 1830s, Fort Crawford and other military outposts made it possible for federal agents to continue to map, tabulate, and assess the wealth available in southwestern Wisconsin. In 1839, the federal government sponsored a new geological expedition to the Old Northwest that would include the lands and rivers of the region. That federal officials would do so was not unusual by the 1830s. By this time, state and federal officers were investing heavily in explorations to chart the nation’s natural resources. The legislature of North Carolina led the way in 1823 when it subsidized a geological survey to suggest potential transportation routes in the Tar Heel State. In the 1830s and 1840s, twentyone states conducted far more extensive geological outings that charted and described the range of natural resources available at home, from salt to coal to precious metals. State-financed geologists and state lawmakers were not always on the same page when it came to questions of practice and financing. In 1840, for example, Michigan lawmakers cut funding for a state survey because many remained unconvinced about its tangible benefits.81 Still, statefunded geological missions helped pave the way for settlers who were unclear about the commercial possibilities available in the nation. State lawmakers were far from alone in their burgeoning fascination with geological and scientific surveys. By the 1830s, federal officials had become increasingly interested in funding geological expeditions. Yet even though Long and other topographical engineers had played a critical role surveying and mapping places such as southwestern Wisconsin, many politicians were hesitant to invest in the corps in peacetime and were likely uneasy about

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27

using it for scientific surveys and other nonmilitary projects. In 1826, the House Committee on Military Affairs rejected Secretary of War James Barbour’s insistent request for increased topographical funding and asserted “that the provisions they have instituted will meet all the immediate wants of the service.” 82 In 1831 Secretary of War John Henry Eaton, likely recognizing that standing armies remained a sore point for many Americans, stressed to House members that the corps needed patronage during periods of tranquility in order to prepare for future wars.83 By the 1830s, however, as more and more Americans followed the Erie Canal and fanned out across the trans-Appalachian West, Congress began to show fresh interest in documenting the country’s natural wealth and lawmakers came to view the Topographical Corps as an organization ideally suited to map the nation. This new attitude became clear in 1832 when Senator William Marcy of New York successfully lobbied his fellows in Washington, D.C., to invest in a geological study of New York and portions of its surrounding states. One year later, John J. Abert, head of the United States Topographical Bureau, provided French explorer Joseph Nicollet with scientific equipment and letters of introduction to federal agents whom he might encounter on his privately financed expedition to the Old Northwest. And in 1834, Congress gave Abert an extra $5,000 a year for the “national encouragement of a regular system of scientific investigation pursued with steadiness and intelligence” to help ambitious Americans tap and process the growing nation’s seemingly boundless mineral wealth. As a result of this newfound largess, the total number of corps engineers increased from twenty-six in 1826 to fortynine in 1835.84 These efforts reached their apex in 1839, when David Dale Owen surveyed and explored the resources in 11,000 square miles of public land that included southwestern Wisconsin.85 Owen’s curiosity about the geology of the Old Northwest coincided with that of federal agents. In 1839, officials were interested in maintaining frontier peace. The source of the problem this time, however, was neither disgruntled Indians nor troublemaking British agents. Instead, ongoing conflict between American farmers and miners over land and resources sparked anger on the border. To deal with this persistent predicament, Congress issued a resolution that ordered Levi Woodbury, the secretary of the treasury, to survey the Old Northwest. Woodbury passed this request along to James Whitcomb, head of the General Land Office and, fortuitously for Owen, a fellow Hoosier. In the summer of 1839, Owen received his appointment, which came with a set of clear instructions. He was to focus

28

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his efforts on the lead country of Mineral Point, Galena, and Dubuque and calculate the mineral wealth of the region.86 Between August and November 1839, Owen and his company investigated and charted the geology of the lead region on both sides of the Mississippi River. And in the summer of 1840, he submitted his final results and initial conclusions to Congress. He was particularly intrigued by the bountiful mineral wealth and commercial potential of southwestern Wisconsin. In his 1840 survey report to Congress, he recalled that as he “proceeded with the geological survey of the Wisconsin lead region, I became more and more strongly impressed with its great value and rich promise of commercial importance. This conviction urged me to the task of carefully collecting and collating such facts as might supply materials for a comparison between the geological character of this region and that of the richest lead districts in Europe.” 87 Owen also urged readers to remember that lead was just one of the region’s many treasures: “The copper ore of the Wisconsin Territory forms an item in its mineral wealth, which would be considered of great importance, and would attract much attention, but for the superior richness and value of the lead, the great staple of the Territory.” Furthermore, southwestern Wisconsin was not simply a miner’s paradise. According to Owen, it also burst with agricultural promise. He was especially impressed by the area’s rich soil: “the dark mould which prevails over a large proportion of Iowa and Wisconsin . . . has proved itself, wherever the farmer has trusted to its certain returns, instead of attempting the more hazardous venture of the mine, an excellent and productive soil; especially adapted to the culture of every species of culinary vegetables and small grain, and producing, probably, as good Indian corn as the State of New York, or any other State of the same latitude.” Owen ended his report to Congress with this enticing assessment: “I know of no country in the world, with similar mineral resources, which can lay claim to a soil as fertile and as well adapted to the essential purposes of agriculture.” 88 Southwestern Wisconsin had just what many enterprising Americans were looking for in 1840. Owen’s 1840 report captured the attention of Americans from around the country. It inspired the government land office to ask Congress to appoint a permanent surveyor to map the remaining land in the public domain. Others lauded Owen’s report as a model of American scientific achievement. While many of the nation’s geologists sang its praises, one reviewer for the United States Magazine and Democratic Review celebrated Owen’s real effort to illustrate old northwestern geology in “clear and plain language.” Perhaps

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most critically, Owen’s report reached an important audience beyond either the political or scientific communities: potential settlers. Travel guidebooks cited it to illustrate the wealth available in southwestern Wisconsin at midcentury, while engineers and potential investors read it as they planned their next mining projects.89 In the end, Owen, much like other federally sponsored explorers who had come before, painted an alluring picture of potential prosperity just as many young people across New England and in the Middle Atlantic states were struggling as farmers or searching for jobs in cities like New York or Boston.

Beyond Red Bird’s Tale Red Bird’s failed insurrection in 1827 was a key moment that reveals a great deal about the travails that many indigenous people faced as American and European settlers streamed to western places in search of land and treasure during the 1820s and after. At the same time, however, it unveils important truths about the origins and long-term impact of American government on southwestern Wisconsin, in particular, and across the Old Northwest, more generally. First, by the 1810s, the American military had defeated the British and achieved a lasting foothold in southwestern Wisconsin. This presence helped establish Prairie du Chien as both a growing economic and military hub along the frontier. Second, American martial power paved the way for federally funded explorers who would help to publicize commercial opportunities available in the region. Together, Pike, Long, Schoolcraft, and Owen worked for federal agencies and wrote official reports that painted an intoxicating portrait of frontier places such as Prairie du Chien and Prairie La Crosse. These reports riveted Thomas Jefferson and other of the nation’s leaders and almost certainly captured the attention of easterners in search of new opportunities in the West. Federal power thus helped pave the way for settlement of southwestern Wisconsin and other frontier places well before the first migrants made their way to the banks of the Mississippi River. Frederick Jackson Turner’s inspirational tales of hardy men heading west and conquering a wilderness in the nineteenth century was more complicated than it seemed, at least on the Wisconsin frontier. This story of La Crosse’s political economy, however, did not begin and end with federal soldiers and explorers in the first half of the nineteenth century. In years to come, in fact, government continued to frame economic life in the

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fledgling city. In particular, federal and state officials invested in transportation projects, ratified Indian treaties, and devised a creative scheme of public land distribution that attracted ambitious settlers to southwestern Wisconsin. And as we will soon see, one of the people who benefited from these federal and state initiatives was a callow young New Yorker named Nathan Myrick who made his way to Prairie La Crosse in 1841 and founded the trading post that would soon become a town.

Chapter Two

A Story of Settlement

Nathan Myrick’s decision to leave his home in eastern New York and head west in the 1840s was not an unusual choice (Figure 3). Like countless other young men east of the Appalachians, he felt stifled by social conventions and commercial limitations and was eager to escape to a new land of economic opportunity. In 1841, a teenaged Myrick left home and made his way to Prairie du Chien. That same year, after a fruitless attempt to make a living as a fur trader and tanner, he took a chance and followed the Mississippi River north to Prairie La Crosse. There, he and a partner built a trading house and eventually made a small fortune exchanging goods with local Indians. Other settlers soon followed in his footsteps and began to lay the foundation for a town. Myrick remained on the prairie until 1848, when he picked up and moved to St. Paul. In coming decades, as La Crosse increased in size, industrialized, and faced fresh challenges on the verge of a new century, many of its residents would hold him up as a symbol of their city’s frontier spirit.1 When La Crosse residents honored Myrick as a bold, pioneering creator who had planted the first seeds of civilization on the prairie in the 1840s, they were telling just part of his story. Like many other nineteenth-century American and European settlers who made the long journey to start their lives anew in a largely unknown country, Myrick was highly motivated and hardworking. His trek to southwestern Wisconsin and his ensuing commercial success on the frontier, however, would probably not have been possible absent federal and state power. Like many settlers who came before and followed in years to come, he benefited from government in several critical ways. First, when he left eastern New York, he sailed on the Erie Canal, a state-financed, -engineered, and -managed waterway that made possible his western trip. Moreover, after he arrived at Prairie La Crosse he became

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Figure 3. By the 1890s, Nathan Myrick was a hallowed figure in La Crosse. In 1841, he had made the long journey from Westport, New York, and established an Indian trading post at the site that would become the city of La Crosse. Courtesy of La Crosse Public Library and La Crosse County Historical Society.

a successful Indian trader largely because a federal treaty system granted annual payments to southwestern Wisconsin’s indigenous peoples and, in so doing, made them dependent on American traders for goods. Finally, he prospered because generous federal preemption laws allowed him to claim Prairie La Crosse and secure title to the lands of the future city. Myrick was certainly adventurous and dedicated. But his settlement story demonstrates that federal and state policymakers assembled a legal framework that made his prosperity, and that of La Crosse, possible in the 1840s. It also suggests that government may have helped encourage a general sense of adventure

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and dedication among many Americans who found the frontier intriguing at midcentury.

Nathan Myrick’s Memories In 1892, Mayor Frederick A. Copeland invited Myrick to share his memories of the founding of the city at its fiftieth anniversary celebration. Although an illness kept Myrick from making the trip to southwestern Wisconsin, he wrote a letter recalling his experiences as a young migrant to a largely foreign land. On the first night of the celebration, Copeland read this letter to an expectant crowd.2 On the surface, Myrick’s story of his La Crosse adventures is a straightforward tale of a self-reliant man who came of age in the civilized East, left his comfortable home, and conquered the Wild West. Myrick was born in Westport, New York, near the heart of the Adirondacks on Lake Champlain on July 7, 1822. His father, Barnabas Myrick, seemed the personification of early nineteenth-century success. After the War of 1812, Barnabas had moved from Middlebury, Vermont, to Westport in search of his fortune.3 In the next few decades, Barnabas kept a successful general store, profited from lake shipping, and built a small lumbering empire in Albany, New York. He also led a prominent public life. He served for a time as New York’s loan commissioner, became a state representative in the 1830s, and helped found a children’s academy in Westport. Furthermore, according to his son’s recollection, Barnabas seemed to enjoy a fulfilling home life by the 1840s. He and his wife, Lovinia, had raised five children who lived to adulthood. By the day’s standards, Barnabas had established himself as an independent, western man.4 Barnabas Myrick’s economic success in Westport, however, apparently did not translate into personal satisfaction for his son. Nathan remembered his father as “an austere man, thoroughly engrossed by many enterprises,” who maintained a tight rein on his children and shaped every aspect of their early lives. When Nathan was ten years old, he left district school and attended his father’s Westport academy. According to Nathan, when he reached the age of thirteen, he began work in his father’s tannery and, five years later, he helped run the family store.5 In 1841, when Nathan turned eighteen, he was anxious to escape his father’s long shadow, leave the family’s home, and embark on a life of his own. Around this time, he and Edwin Hatch, a friend from Westport and the son of Charles Hatch, one of Barnabas Myrick’s commercial

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rivals, became convinced that they could find the freedom and fortune they sought in the Northwest. In particular, the two young men spoke of following some Westport acquaintances to Prairie du Chien, still mainly a fur-trading outpost on the Mississippi in southwestern Wisconsin as when Red Bird’s bloody tale had unfolded fourteen years before.6 Barnabas Myrick, however, had little patience for his son’s romantic yearnings. In 1841, fathers in small communities like Westport still maintained powerful legal and customary claims to their children’s labor, and a son’s desire to leave home at an early age (to “have his time”) could upset a family’s economy and undermine a father’s domestic power.7 For this reason, a son often had to gain his father’s permission before he could either control his own wages or leave home. Such conversations sometimes led to family conflict. Nathan, for example, recalled that his father reacted angrily when he asked him for his time to travel west: “One evening I went over to Mr. Hatch’s store, and the West was discussed and talked about. I returned to my father’s store, and as we were about to close the store for the night I asked my father if he would give me my time. He almost flew into a passion and said, ‘you have already had too much of your time.’ ”8 In the end, however, Barnabas granted his son’s request and Nathan prepared to leave New York and head to southwestern Wisconsin. In the spring of 1841, when navigation opened on the icy lakes and canals of the East, Nathan Myrick joined a great western migration that had already transformed the Middle West and antebellum America more broadly by the time he left home.9 On May 1, 1841, Myrick began his month-long trek to Prairie du Chien. He had hoped to leave with Hatch, but a family illness kept his friend in Westport, and Myrick decided to travel alone. With his life savings of $100 in hand, he made his trip over land, canal, and lake to Chicago, a distant merchant community that served as a way station for western settlers.10 From Chicago, Myrick hired a team to carry him to Galena, a small Illinois frontier town, before eventually arriving at Prairie du Chien on June 5. His chief task was to find employment and earn a living. He first applied for work with the American Fur Company, but his lack of experience with Indian languages and customs disqualified him from becoming a company trader. Later, he turned down a job at a local tannery when the proprietor refused to meet his salary demands. By Myrick’s own account, his prospects seemed grim in the summer of 1841. Yet his fortunes began to turn when he overheard H. J. B. Miller, a local butcher, remark that he was looking for a traveling companion to accompany him on a hunting and sightseeing trip to the Cedar River in

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35

southeastern Minnesota. Miller agreed to hire the younger man and the two set off on their adventure. During the next several weeks, Myrick continued his journey and became familiar with the geography and commercial possibilities of southwestern Wisconsin.11 After Myrick returned to Prairie du Chien, he and Eben Weld, a local merchant, agreed to ascend the Mississippi together and establish a new Indian trading post near Prairie La Crosse. Although the Prairie’s soil was mostly sandy, light, and loose near the river, it featured a sliver of fertile earth protected by overhanging bluffs that was well suited for farming.12 It was also located at the confluence of the Mississippi, La Crosse, and Black rivers and had long served as a meeting place for Indians.13 In other words, the Prairie’s rich farmland offered Myrick and Weld an opportunity to grow their staple crops and its location at an Indian crossroads gave them a chance to become prosperous traders. On November 4, 1841, the two men borrowed a government keelboat from an offical at Fort Crawford, loaded it with goods they had acquired from local businesses, and headed up river. Five days later, they poled their boat to Barron’s Island, a small landmass in the Mississippi just across from Prairie La Crosse, unloaded their precious cargo, and built a trading cabin.14 Soon after they arrived, Myrick remembered, they began to trade with nearby Indians. Furthermore, they expanded their business on the river. During the winter of 1841, they purchased lumber and sold cordwood to steamboats that passed by their island campsite. They also maintained close connections with white merchants who traveled up and down the river, particularly Miller, Myrick’s earlier traveling companion, who now trapped and traded on the Black River for the American Fur Company. To facilitate commerce with local Indians, Myrick and Weld made plans to move their camp from Barron’s Island to Prairie La Crosse. Myrick hired Miller to haul logs from the island to the mainland and to help build a larger cabin to accommodate their bustling business. Although this new location served them well, they faced some hardships early on. Myrick recalled one particularly brutal winter night at the new campsite: “The wind kept on rising until finally a gust of wind came, stronger than any of the others, and off went the roof with it. . . . There was no more sleep for me that night, as the wind howled and the snow was flying in all directions, and when morning came about six inches of snow were in the cabin, and we were nearly frozen. . . . It was the bluest morning I ever experienced; I was sick, and homesick, too, and it was the only time I wished myself back home in the East.” When the weather improved, however, many Indians

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Paving the Way

eager to exchange goods flocked to Myrick and Weld’s new outpost at Prairie La Crosse and their trade flourished into the new year.15 Not every Indian in the area, however, welcomed Myrick and Weld with open arms to lands that many of them still considered their own. Indians’ growing resentment of the presence of American traders, as it had in places across the continent since the earliest moments of European and indigenous contact, occasionally led to frightening violence on Wisconsin’s frontier.16 Myrick, for example, claimed that local Indians attacked him twice in 1842.17 Furthermore, he contended that a group of Indians drove a man named Philip Jacobs from his trading cabin in Onalaska, Wisconsin, and threatened to seize or burn the building if he returned.18 Myrick also reported that Edwin Hatch, his Westport acquaintance who joined him in Prairie La Crosse in 1843, nearly killed an Indian who had attacked him with a club on the banks of the river.19 Even as Myrick and Weld reaped financial reward exchanging goods with native peoples in the region, their presence in and around Prairie La Crosse intensified conflicts between Anglo-American settlers and local Indians during the 1840s. By his own account, Myrick wanted to establish a permanent settlement at La Crosse. His plan took shape in the spring of 1842 when Weld sold his interest in their Indian trading post to him and relocated to Minnesota. In April, Myrick sailed down the Mississippi to Prairie du Chien to sell the store of furs he had acquired from Indians. On the trip, he encountered Miller in a canoe loaded with animal pelts. Miller offered his friend a ride and the two men continued downriver, docked in Prairie du Chien, and made a tidy profit selling their wares to the American Fur Company. On their boat trip south, Myrick became convinced that he wanted Miller to join him as a trading partner in Prairie La Crosse. After a few days, Myrick persuaded Miller to purchase a half interest in his camp. They secured goods to trade with Indians and paddled and poled Miller’s canoe back to Prairie La Crosse. For the next few years, the partners became prosperous trading with Indians on the Prairie.20 Myrick remained in Prairie La Crosse and worked to transform the former Indian trading post into a permanent settlement until the summer of 1848. In May of that year, Myrick, White, and Henry M. Rice, a merchant who would eventually make a name for himself as a federal Indian agent in the Old Northwest, traveled by riverboat to St. Paul, Minnesota. Ostensibly, their purpose was to investigate the location of a reservation for the Ho-Chunk Indians at Long Prairie, Minnesota. Myrick used the occasion,

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however, to explore new business opportunities. In 1847, flooding had devastated the lumber trade in Prairie La Crosse and Myrick lost faith in his ability to make money shipping timber up and down the Mississippi. When he returned home, he prepared to move his family north. Before he left, Myrick gave Miller half interest in the land he owned in the town site, and, fulfilling a prior promise, granted full title to people who had built homes and businesses on his lots. Myrick thus left La Crosse’s future to generations of settlers who would follow in his footsteps (Figure 4).21

A State Waterway In the 1890s, many La Crosse residents accepted Myrick’s colorful autobiography as their city’s origin story. Yet he had never been quite as independent as he remembered in the 1890s. In fact, he had relied on every level of the American state, from federal to municipal, to facilitate his journey from Westport youth to southwestern Wisconsin pioneer. Early on, like many Americans and Europeans eager to migrate to places west, he benefited from state and municipal investment in transportation projects that made it easier to leave eastern New York in 1841. Just a few decades before, such a journey would have been almost unthinkable for residents of eastern New York, or indeed for most people who called the Atlantic seaboard home. When Barnabas Myrick had settled in Westport in 1815, roads in the area were unpaved and littered with mud holes and tree stumps. New York also did not have a canal longer than two miles.22 Furthermore, it was difficult for New Yorkers to traverse the Adirondacks; mountain pathways could be treacherous, while wild rapids and other natural hazards often blocked waterway navigation.23 Finally, few people in eastern towns like Westport had ever visited the Old Northwest. Early in the nineteenth century, then, a land or a water journey of just a few leagues over well-known country, let alone a trip of several hundred miles over rugged and unfamiliar terrain, was extraordinarily strenuous and time consuming for most East Coast inhabitants. By the time Myrick began his journey in 1841, however, American politicians had long debated what role government should play in building up the nation’s transportation infrastructure. Early in the century, many leaders, including such unlikely allies as Albert Gallatin and John C. Calhoun, dreamed of a national plan for integrated transit that would transcend petty interests and bind the nation together. 24 In 1811, federal officials took a tentative step in this direction when they began construc-

Figure 4. By the 1850s, La Crosse was well on its way to becoming a dynamic hub of middle western commerce. As this survey demonstrates, by 1857 ambitious settlers had laid out lots, built homes and businesses, and established a new city on the prairie. Courtesy of Murphy Library, University of Wisconsin–La Crosse.

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tion on the National Road, which would ultimately run from Maryland in the east to Illinois in the west.25 Not everyone, however, agreed with such grand plans. In the late 1810s, in fact, politicians who feared centralized federal power, such as Louisianan Thomas Bolling Robertson, rallied against and defeated efforts to fund a comprehensive national transit network.26 This distrust of federal investment in roads and canals lingered for decades. In 1830, for example, President Andrew Jackson vetoed federal investment in the Maysville Road, a Kentucky highway intended to link up with the National Road, on the grounds that it was a state project that did little to serve the national interest.27 By the 1840s, most of the nation’s leading politicians were not ready to advocate or accept a strong federal presence in transportation. In the absence of a focused federal effort to boost national transit, Myrick, and the countless western migrants who had come before and who would follow in his footsteps, relied on state and municipal projects to make their way west.28 Most important, Myrick benefited from state investment in the Erie Canal, an ambitious project that eventually linked eastern New York to the Great Lakes, made it easier for migrants like Myrick to go west, and helped transform New York City into one of the world’s great commercial meccas by midcentury.29 One of the great champions of the Erie Canal project was the state’s governor, DeWitt Clinton. In 1817, Clinton convinced New York state legislators, led by an articulate state senator named Martin Van Buren, who would himself become governor of New York in 1828 and eventually ascended to the presidency of the United States in the 1830s, to commit public money to the plan.30 New York lawmakers provided a creative array of revenue streams—including a state loan, profits from the sale of state lands to ambitious speculators, money from a state lottery, and new state taxes—designed to channel money into a special fund to finance the canal. Since construction of the 350-mile canal was such a monumental engineering task, the 1817 bill divided the project into three sections and defined only its middle route between the Mohawk and Seneca rivers, leaving the exact paths of its eastern and western sections to later legislation.31 As state lawmakers financed the Erie Canal, municipal lawmakers, particularly in Buffalo, also made political choices that influenced its construction.32 When work began on the canal in 1817, state legislators were still uncertain about which town would become the canal’s terminus on Lake Erie. The candidates were Black Rock, situated on the Niagara River, and Buffalo,

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its neighbor to the south. For two decades, Black Rock had been one of the only safe harbors at the eastern end of the lake and seemed a natural entrance to the canal. Yet Black Rock’s harbor suffered from a monumental fault: the Niagara’s strong current and prevailing westerly winds prevented ships from moving north from harbor to lake without help from a team of oxen. Politicians and businessmen in Buffalo, however, also faced a significant problem that threatened their chances to win the canal. Although Buffalo Creek provided the town with a serviceable harbor, a sand bar blocked the creek’s mouth and forced ship captains to put in anchor half a mile from shore and transport their goods to Buffalo in smaller boats. Faced with these problems, residents of both towns realized that state and municipal political decisions, rather than geographic considerations, would ultimately determine which town would become the western gateway of the Erie Canal.33 As a result, politicians and merchants in Black Rock and Buffalo waged a furious political struggle to gain state funding to improve their harbors and draw the canal home. In the end, Buffalo’s civic boosters won the day. In 1818, the town’s harbor committee petitioned state legislators for public aid. On April 7, 1819, the same day that the state legislature authorized construction of the canal’s western section, it granted money to improve Buffalo’s harbor. Although Black Rock’s residents continued to hold out hope that the canal would arrive in their town, New York lawmakers made two decisions that finally crushed their dreams. In February 1822, the state legislature named Buffalo the western terminus of the Erie Canal and, in the spring of 1825, after intense lobbying by Buffalo’s boosters, it voted to build the canal parallel to the Niagara River and to bypass Black Rock entirely.34 In the end, canal workers finished the middle section in 1819 and completed the entire project, which linked the Hudson River to Lake Erie at Buffalo, in 1825. More than geographic imperatives, municipal and state lawmakers determined the canal’s course. In the end, government investment in the Erie Canal reshaped familiar migration patterns and, in so doing, facilitated Myrick’s long journey to southwestern Wisconsin.35 Before the canal opened in 1825, most inhabitants of the Middle Atlantic states who went west followed overland trails, such as the National Road or the Catskill Turnpike, to the Ohio River and then concluded their trek in central Indiana or Illinois. When state and municipal officials invested in the canal, however, they provided Myrick with a relatively easy route to the Great Lakes and the country beyond.36 Starting at Westport, he sailed down the Hudson River to Troy, New York. From Troy, he contin-

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ued his trip to Albany, where he took a train to Schenectady, the canal’s eastern terminus. There Myrick found passage on a packet boat to Buffalo.37 In Buffalo, he boarded a Great Lakes steamship and voyaged to Chicago, a premier destination for migrants to the Old Northwest during the 1840s. From Chicago he trekked to the western Illinois town of Galena. He soon realized that few stages or boats traveled north and hired a team to make the twoday journey into the Wisconsin Territory. Finally, on June 5, more than one month after he had departed from his home in Westport, he reached Prairie du Chien.38 Ultimately, state and municipal lawmakers made this trip possible and paved the way for the city of La Crosse. Without state and municipal investment in the canal and Buffalo’s harbor, Myrick might have settled in Indiana or Illinois, or simply chosen to stay in New York. He also would have had an extraordinarily difficult time acquiring eastern goods to trade with Indians and might have become one of those intrepid few who chose western trapping as a career.

Federal Treaties and Traders While Myrick depended on publicly funded transportation to head to Wisconsin, he, like other similarly situated individuals, also relied on federal Indian policy in order to become a commercial success. Federal agents helped Myrick the most when they signed treaties that promised Indians in Wisconsin annuities of cash and goods in exchange for their territory. In 1826, Lewis Cass and Thomas L. McKenney, the Indian commissioners in charge of the Northwest, agreed to pay the Ojibwa $2,000, or roughly $44,000 in 2008 dollars, a year in cash or goods for the right to mine their land.39 In 1829, government officials promised $16,000, an amount worth about $380,000 in 2008, annually to the Ojibwa, Ottawa, and Potawatomi for a tract of territory in southwestern Wisconsin. That same year, federal agents granted the HoChunk yearly payments of $18,000 (or nearly $430,000 in 2008) over thirty years in return for territory in southern Wisconsin.40 In 1837, the government concluded three treaties that secured Sioux, Ho-Chunk, and Ojibwa territory in exchange for federal assumption of Indian debts, various services, and annual payments of cash and goods.41 On balance, federal treaty making was a disaster for Wisconsin’s Indians. In just a few decades, Indians gave up ancestral lands that they had hunted, fished, and farmed for generations. Furthermore, total federal payments and annuities never came close to the actual commercial value of Indian property

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ceded to the government.42 Treaties also confined indigenous peoples to small reservations, disrupted their cultural practices, and created intra-tribal divisions between members who defended old traditions and those who sought to accommodate white settlers. Even worse, treaties failed to provide some tribes, most notably the Ho-Chunk, with reservations altogether and left many to wander Wisconsin without any legal claim to their former homelands.43 Finally, in the absence of either British merchants or government-run trading outposts, treaties rendered Indians throughout Wisconsin ever more dependent on American traders for essential goods and services. For Myrick, however, Indian treaties were a great gift. By providing annuities to Indians, federal agents guaranteed that he and other traders would have ready customers on the Prairie. Soon after Myrick arrived, for example, local Indians purchased his goods using annuities provided by federal officials near the Turkey River in Iowa.44 In the fall of 1843 he continued to build on his success in southwestern Wisconsin. He journeyed back to New York and returned, likely following the Erie Canal, with a cache of trade items. He recalled that when he and Miller “opened our new stock of goods, and when the Indians returned from the payment of their annuities at Turkey river we had a good trade.” 45 Myrick and other American settlers thus depended on Indian annuities for their survival almost as much as the indigenous people who received payments from the federal government for their land. Myrick also profited from federal efforts to drive unscrupulous merchants out of business. Even after Congress had shut down its federal Indian factories, including the one near Prairie du Chien, in 1822, it continued to license and regulate Indian traders in the West. The very same day that lawmakers eliminated factories, they required Indian agents to report on the total number of licenses granted and prohibit traders from selling whiskey in Indian country.46 In 1834, Congress bolstered the federal licensing system. Under the law, the superintendent of Indian affairs in St. Louis could now issue twoyear licenses to traders east of the Mississippi. The law also gave federal agents discretion to grant licenses based on their own assessment of a trader’s moral character, and authority to revoke licenses if traders committed crimes in Indian territory. The 1834 act further declared that licensed merchants could exchange goods with indigenous people only at places designated specifically by federal agents.47 Extralegal trading likely continued in Wisconsin and other western places in the 1830s and after. But federal efforts to regulate this trade just as likely made it easier for merchants such as Myrick to become wealthy at midcentury.

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Squatters and Settlers While state-funded transportation projects and federal Indian agents conditioned Myrick’s western experiences in the 1840s, federal land policy also shaped his world and facilitated his achievements. Myrick, like many other western migrants at midcentury, understood that acquiring land could help bolster his commercial welfare. He also knew that although the government encouraged western settlers to purchase public land under the terms of the Land Ordinance of 1785, Congress was sometimes willing to recognize the property rights of squatters who trekked west and claimed federal land without legal title. The issue of squatter’s rights had long troubled American politicians. On the one hand, many believed that such people were lawless ruffians who would plunge the nation’s western lands into chaos. Others, however, had a different view. Some of the nation’s leading Democrats, such as Senator Thomas Hart Benton of Missouri, argued that squatters were actually advancing civilization and ensuring American equality when they settled on federal land.48 In 1830, under mounting pressure from western and southern politicians, federal lawmakers passed an act that recognized the rights of squatters then living on government-surveyed land and gave them the chance to purchase up to 160 acres of that land before it went to public auction.49 Although the act was valid for only a year, Congress, by approving the law, made squatter’s rights central to federal land policy and encouraged settlers to stake independent claims in frontier places like southwestern Wisconsin. During the 1830s, federal lawmakers continued to pass legislation that expanded the legal rights of northwestern squatters.50 Yet in southwestern Wisconsin and other regions far distant from Washington, D.C., federal surveyors were unable to keep pace with the tide of settlement. In response to growing demand for federal recognition of western claims, Congress in 1841, the same year that Myrick arrived on the prairie, approved the nation’s first general squatter’s act. Under the terms of this new act any single man who was twenty-one years old, any family head regardless of age or sex, or any widow could preempt 160 acres of public land before government auction. The 1841 act, however, placed two critical limitations on squatting: it decreed that settlers could not claim western lands owned by Indians or federal territory that the government had not yet surveyed.51 When Myrick arrived in 1841, this federal legislation conditioned how he viewed the surrounding world. He firmly believed that the new law guaranteed his right to the lands at Prairie La Crosse. In 1842, he articulated this

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position in a letter to his father: “who ever lives on it [the land] is entitled to it when it comes to be sold.” He went on to describe an incident that he believed demonstrated how settlers determined landownership. Shortly after he and Miller had arrived at Prairie La Crosse, two other traders had challenged their claim. But, as he explained to his father, “they were to late, and I told them not to build on my claim if they did they must expect to lose it.” Although it is impossible to know if the interlopers actually agreed with this position, they soon abandoned their challenge to the land and made a new claim to the south.52 Early on, Myrick believed that his land claim was defensible under the terms of federal law. As Myrick and other settlers would soon discover, this federal legislation was not nearly as straightforward as it seemed. On the surface, Myrick and Miller’s efforts seemed to comply with the 1841 legislation. Most important, they had worked hard to improve their land claim. Soon after they had staked their claim at Prairie La Crosse, Miller left for Rockford, Illinois, to purchase domestic animals, while Myrick stayed behind and prepared two acres for planting. A few weeks later, Miller returned with five yoke of oxen and he and Myrick enlarged their garden, plowed a furrow around nearly one hundred acres of land for a future town site, and marked off two other claims. Early in the summer of 1842, they shipped in pine logs from the Black River and bricks from Galena, and replaced their rickety cabin with a sturdy house.53 Myrick also hired Ira Brunson, a private surveyor from Prairie du Chien, to plot a new town site at Prairie La Crosse.54 After Brunson surveyed the town, Myrick and Miller tried to aggressively assert their claim by selling deeds and encouraging newcomers to build homes, start businesses, and improve their land.55 The first migrant to purchase a deed was a military officer named Colonel Mills, who moved from Dubuque to a lot on Myrick and Miller’s survey late in 1842. In that same year, four other men traveled to Prairie La Crosse, acquired property, and built houses.56 In 1843, Dr. Snaugh and Asa White arrived on the Prairie, made their own land claims, and began to trade with Indians. One year later, a group of religious dissenters known as the Latter-Day Saints, or Mormons, migrated north from the city of Nauvoo, Illinois, founded a new settlement four of five miles to the south of the Prairie, and hired themselves out to cut cordwood and to make shingles.57 For the rest of the decade, many more settlers, including Lafayette Bunnell, John and Charles Naigle, a small cohort of either Swiss or French migrants, and John M. Levy, arrived at Prairie La

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Crosse and helped to transform Myrick and Miller’s paper town into a busy trading post.58 Myrick grew more and more optimistic about establishing a permanent settlement on the Prairie as migrants continued to arrive. In January 1843, after other arrivals had started to stake claims, he spoke excitedly about such a town’s commercial potential in a letter to his father: “It is situated at the mouth of Prairie La Cross and Black Rivers the lands on Black River are good for farming and about 50 miles up there is five sawmills and more are a going to be built next season . . . and as there has been iron ore found they are going to build forges etc. and they say that there is as good signs of lead mineral as there is in any place . . . and as the farming advantage are good and being the only place to ship mineral and produce of all kinds and the only place of receiving goods from steam boats etc., every one that has lived through the settling of this Western Country sais that it must be a place of importance.” He believed that such crucial advantages would allow him to found a town and grant him the freedom and wealth that had eluded him living and working in Westport. In his words to his father, “I think if I should hold on to this place for a few years that it will be a fortune to me or any other one that does.” 59 Myrick, Miller, and every settler who had followed them to Prairie La Crosse believed they had fulfilled the 1841 federal squatting law to the letter and held legal title to their land. In reality, however, they had violated the terms of the act from the very beginning. Myrick could not gain legal ownership of the land under the law because he had not yet turned twenty-one when he and Miller plotted their town site. A more critical problem, and one that had potentially damaging consequences for every prairie resident, was the fact that the federal government had not yet surveyed the land when Myrick and his neighbors had claimed it for themselves.60 This meant that even if they were able to meet the basic requirements of federal law, officials would not recognize their title to the lands. As a result, the legality of Myrick’s claim remained dubious, particularly after the federal government finally surveyed the area near the end of the decade. In retrospect, Myrick admitted that he and his neighbors had made a big mistake and not “complied with the pre-emption laws . . . consequently we had to take our chances in bidding in our land.” 61 In January 1848, after years of farming, trading with local Indians, and laying the foundation for a town, Myrick, White, Snaugh, Levy, and Peter Cameron traveled to the federal land office at Mineral Point to bid on land that they already considered their own.62 Myrick was most concerned that

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they would lose their homes to speculators. As he recalled: “Not knowing what might happen, I thought it best to go prepared to protect myself, in case there were bidders on the land. I took with me about all the money we had, which amounted to $700 or $800; on my way stopped at Prairie du Chien to see H. L. Dowsman, and from him received a letter of introduction and also of credit to Mr. Parish, the Receiver of the Land Office, in which he requested him to accept my bid for any amount that I saw fit to bid on the land, and that he would be responsible in case there was any competition, which Mr. Parish consented to do.” Myrick had little to fear; no one else dared bid against him and his cohort for title to Prairie La Crosse. Under federal law, each man paid $1.25 per acre for the town site as first surveyed by Brunson in 1842, and they purchased either an additional 240 or 320 acres of territory adjacent to their original claims.63 Finally, after much legal wrangling and hand-wringing, Myrick and his fellows could call the lands of the Prairie La Crosse their own. With titles secure, they made plans to build a new community in the West. The struggle that Myrick and his neighbors faced in acquiring public land at Prairie La Crosse reveals the messy problems that could arise when migrants tried to use federal law to secure territory in the Northwest. On the one hand, federal land policy clearly shaped the perceptions of western settlers; federal land laws convinced Myrick and others that they had a state-sanctioned right to claim territory that they had improved. On the other hand, an incomplete understanding of these policies undermined their claims. Although the federal act of 1841 granted new rights to western settlers, it placed limits on where migrants could go and what they could do after they arrived. Myrick and other settlers’ misapplication of this legislation to claim land at Prairie La Crosse could have cost them their chance to build a merchant town. In Prairie La Crosse and elsewhere in the Northwest, federal land policy, as much as private initiative, shaped the decisions of settlers like Myrick in complicated and often contradictory ways during the 1840s.

Beyond the Memories In 1892, just a few years before Frederick Jackson Turner braved the icy winds of a Wisconsin winter to weave his stirring tales of pioneer independence in town, Nathan Myrick apparently remembered the smallest details of his journey from New York and his efforts to found a town at Prairie La Crosse. Hidden within his colorful recollection of gumption, hard work, private initiative, and individual freedom, however, is a second, more elu-

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sive story connecting La Crosse’s settlement and state power in the middle of the nineteenth century. Like many other migrants from the East Coast or Europe, Myrick would have had an extraordinarily difficult time making his long journey in 1841 without the state-financed Erie Canal to carry him west. Federal treaty making and Indian policy made it possible for him and others like him to become successful traders with Indians in southwestern Wisconsin. Moreover, he, like many other migrants who made their way west during the 1840s, took advantage of generous federal land policy to establish ownership of the Prairie. Ultimately, and perhaps unintentionally, Myrick’s vibrant narrative of his long journey and La Crosse’s early founding reveals a great deal about how Americans took advantage of government policy to leave the East and build cities in the West. At the same time, the reaction among town leaders in the 1890s to his story suggests a great deal about the kind of leadership and talents many La Crossers searched for at a time when Myrick’s generation had passed from the scene. This story of the state framing the commercial possibilities of La Crosse did not disappear when Nathan Myrick left the Prairie in 1848. Instead, lawmakers and judges continued to make critical decisions that enabled the residents of La Crosse to foster and protect their economic interests and develop their hinterland entrepôt on the banks of the Mississippi. During the next half century, in fact, local politicians, business leaders, and other eager residents increasingly worked within an expansive legal framework to bolster their city’s commercial power. And La Crosse inhabitants took particular advantage of federal and state laws and court decisions to make their city a lumber capital of the Old Northwest in the 1850s.

Chapter Three

Politics and Pine

To an average eastern visitor, La Crosse would not have been a particularly impressive sight in the 1850s. The settlement’s population remained small, and the town would have seemed jarringly rustic compared to small communities in New England or the Middle Atlantic states. It lacked even the most basic amenities of eastern life. The Reverend Spencer Carr, who published one of the earliest accounts of the new village of La Crosse in 1854, noted that “the very foundations of all those moral, social, literary and religious institutions, which are peculiar to Christian countries, were yet to be laid; and to a mind imbued with love for these benign institutions, a residence here was still a dreary existence—like making a home on islands of ice or amidst polar snows.”1 Charles L. Colman, however, was not an average visitor, at least not when it came to his ability to imagine La Crosse’s business possibilities after he arrived in town in 1854 (Figure 5). Where some saw a spare, hardscrabble frontier community, Colman saw a town nestled at the meeting point of three major rivers, the Mississippi, the Black, and the La Crosse, and well situated to command a vast empire in pine in western Wisconsin. Colman’s vision was an intoxicating one that many of his fellow settlers embraced at midcentury. In the 1850s, he and other would-be lumber barons sent loggers into the state’s pineries, built sawmills and lumberyards, and began to ship finished wood products up and down the Mississippi. What Colman and his fellow lumbermen quickly understood was that federal and state officials had assembled a sturdy legal scaffold that made it possible for them, and their city, to navigate the challenges of the industry and assert control over lumbering in western Wisconsin. Time and again, Colman and his fellows formed special corporations under state law to raise money and protect their financial interests. They relied on federal and state land distribution policy to purchase tracts of forest and ensure a steady supply of logs. Furthermore, they turned to court-enforced contracts to order their industry. And in 1864,

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Figure 5. Charles L. Colman was one of the most successful lumbermen in La Crosse during the second half of the nineteenth century. Like other sawyers and mill owners in town, he took advantage of a host of legal tools, from state incorporation to court-enforced contracts to federal land distribution to become a commercial success in the river city. Courtesy of La Crosse Public Library and La Crosse County Historical Society.

the city’s lumbermen lobbied state lawmakers to grant them legal privileges to improve transportation on the Black River and bypass rival mills to the north. In the end, federal and state lawmakers and courts ordered western Wisconsin’s lumber industry in a way that allowed enterprising people like Charles Colman to become wildly successful. They also helped ensure that the small western town of La Crosse would one day become a bustling river city.2

The Origins of La Crosse Lumbering To understand exactly why Colman and other La Crosse businessmen benefited so much from federal and state action as they built the city’s lumber

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business, we need to explore the challenging realities they faced as they embarked on lumbering in Wisconsin after 1850.3 The earliest white migrants who traveled to Wisconsin showed little interest in its pineries. Instead, they exploited other natural resources. For nearly three centuries, French, British, and American traders took advantage of the future state’s vast animal populations and made their fortunes acquiring furs and exporting them to Europe.4 During the 1820s and 1830s, Americans also invaded Indian country to mine the deposits of iron ore that dotted southwestern Wisconsin.5 Fur trading and mining proved quite lucrative; the powerful American Fur Company, which maintained operations in Wisconsin, nearly doubled its national exports from $442,000 in 1827 to $842,000 in 1833 (or from $9.8 million to nearly $22.3 million in 2008 dollars), while one authority estimated that miners produced almost 90 million pounds of lead between 1836 and 1840.6 Both industries, however, declined in the 1840s after John Jacob Astor and other fur traders migrated farther west and prospectors began to exhaust the Badger State’s mines. As fur trading and mining waned in Wisconsin, a number of factors encouraged enterprising American settlers to explore the economic possibilities of lumbering in the territory. Potential lumbermen, many who had already cut their teeth harvesting the New England and Middle Atlantic forests, were particularly drawn to Wisconsin’s thick northern timberlands. These rich woodlands stretched almost entirely north of a line from Manitowoc, on the shores of Lake Michigan, to Portage, in south central Wisconsin, to the falls of the St. Croix River in the northwestern corner of the state and contained some of the richest timberlands in North America.7 The southernmost edge of this spacious territory included bountiful tracts of hardwood trees such as birch, maple, and beech, but lumbermen were much more interested in the seemingly limitless supply of softwoods, particularly white pine, which grew farther to the north. Pine was tailor-made for western settlement at midcentury; although it was soft and easy to craft, it was also unusually strong. In other words, pine was an excellent building material.8 As more and more migrants erected wooden houses and barns across the Old Northwest and onto the Great Plains, the demand for, and the value of, white pine increased tremendously. To potential lumberers, the thick pine groves that covered much of northern Wisconsin were as good as gold. The shimmering promise of abundant pine, however, was not the only reason why Wisconsin’s northern forests were so appealing. The state’s landscape was also suited to water transit. The glacier that had covered most of

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Wisconsin thousands of years earlier had carved out lakes and rivers that provided natural highways to ship logs to market. In the spring, runoff from melting snow raised northern waterways and made it possible to float freshly cut logs downriver to mills and lumber yards. Rivers were also an essential power source that drove saws, shingle cutters, and other mill machinery. Moreover, the major rivers that flowed out of the northern pineries—the Menominee, Wolf, Wisconsin, Black, Chippewa, and St. Croix—fed eventually into either Lake Michigan to the east or the Mississippi River to the west and linked Wisconsin’s timberlands to national lumber markets.9 Wisconsin’s natural waterways, as much as its millions of board feet of pine, attracted potential lumbermen from New England and Canada, and from as far away as Great Britain.10 Along with Wisconsin’s lush forests and rolling rivers, other factors encouraged potential lumbermen to settle in the area. After the state joined the union in 1848, its lawmakers, perhaps recognizing the economic benefits of drawing investors to the state, helped private capital flow to lumbering when it set a minimum interest rate of 12 percent on borrowed money and allowed enthusiastic lenders and borrowers to agree to even higher rates. Furthermore, the quick depletion of eastern forests forced many lumbermen from Maine, New Hampshire, New York, and Pennsylvania to pick up and move west.11 Optimistic articles printed in eastern newspapers also related wondrous tales of Wisconsin’s forests and argued that its bustling lumber towns promised untold profits to expedient investors and settlers. In 1853, for example, a correspondent for the New York Daily Tribune visited La Crosse and reported that it “is a thriving village, situated on an elevated and beautiful prairie on the eastern bank of the Mississippi River and near the mouth of the Black River. Immense quantities of lumber are manufactured on this river, there being now no less than forty saw mills on its banks, in full operation, and a large number more in course of erection. This vast lumber trade is principally monopolized by La Crosse.” 12 Together, early efforts of Wisconsin lawmakers to boost investment, deforestation in the East, and glowing newspaper reports encouraged capitalists from eastern states and from Canada to invest in Wisconsin lumbering at midcentury.13 Many of these settlers likely believed that La Crosse was a good place to build lumber empires in the West. For one thing, they realized that the city’s location at the meeting point of the Mississippi and Black Rivers provided access to the thickly timbered Black and Chippewa River pineries of northern Wisconsin. They could also ship boards, shingles, and other lumber products

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down the Mississippi to cities like Prairie du Chien, Dubuque, Hannibal, and St. Louis. Furthermore, the arrival of the city’s first railroad in 1858, another important story of La Crosse’s citizens mobilizing government in their interest (and the subject of Chapter 4), gave lumbermen a critical connection to the thriving markets of Chicago and the East. By the middle of the century, businessmen anxious to exploit La Crosse’s fortuitous geographic position moved to the growing town and tried to make their fortune in the lumber business.

The Challenges of the Industry La Crosse’s fine location did not necessarily guarantee economic success to local lumbermen, as the story of Nathan Myrick, the city’s founder, demonstrated in the 1840s. Myrick, as we have seen, was one of the first settlers to explore La Crosse’s potential as a lumber center. Soon after he and his partner, Eben Weld, arrived they began to cut and sell wood for $1.25 a cord to steamboats that passed by their island trading camp. In 1842, Weld left for Fort Snelling, near modern-day St. Paul, Minnesota, and Myrick entered into a his new partnership with H. J. B. Miller. Two years later, Myrick and Miller began to investigate the possibility of logging timber that grew along the Black River. The partners hired a number of local Mormons to cut cordwood and timber and, at year’s end, sent a raft of lumber downriver to St. Louis. In doing so, Myrick and Miller became the very first lumbermen at their growing trading post.14 Yet their success in the lumber industry did not last long. In 1846, they joined forces with O. H. Dibble, a fellow prairie resident, and purchased a mill site on the Black River and sawing machinery from St. Louis to expand their logging operations. Work on the new mill progressed slowly, however, and Dibble decided to withdraw from the project, so Myrick and Miller had to complete construction on their own. Poor weather also hampered their lumbering efforts. Two years of sparse rainfall left the Black River low and made it almost impossible to float logs from the pinery to La Crosse and other points south.15 And when the rain came, it often left destruction in its wake. In 1847, for example, a violent thunderstorm ripped out Myrick and Miller’s dams and scattered their logs far and wide downriver.16 According to Myrick, “It took six weeks to pick out our lumber” and they were forced to sell their salvaged logs to a Black River lumberman to try to recover their losses.17 Ultimately,

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this gamble failed to pay off and Myrick and Miller ended their partnership, which had seemed so promising just a few years before. Bankrupt, sick, and frustrated, Myrick gave up his Black River adventure, moved his family from La Crosse to St. Paul, and abandoned the lumbering business for good in 1848.18 Myrick and Miller’s story of struggle and failure on the Black River illustrates the challenges that La Crosse entrepreneurs faced when they tried to make a go in the lumber business at midcentury. Their need to form a partnership and their desperate ploy to sell their logs, for example, demonstrate how costly the business could be in the 1840s. Local lumbermen continued to face increasing expenditures in the 1850s and after. Simply buying land to build a new sawmill remained almost prohibitively expensive for most people in La Crosse. The price of La Crosse’s riverfront property, a prime location for any mill, for example, rose dramatically after 1850. In 1851, Myrick, who had held on to some property after he left town, had asked $75 for a riverfront lot. Just over three years later, he sold the same piece of property for $1,400.19 Mill machinery was also expensive at midcentury. In 1860, Charles Colman noted that a new steam mill engine could cost as much as $2,000 (about $53,000 in 2008 dollars), and estimated that he would need more than $1,800 (almost $32,000 in 2008), to purchase a mill in Viroqua, Wisconsin, in 1863.20 Even used machinery could be pricey; a second-hand mill engine went for as much as $350 (more than $9,000 in 2008) in 1856.21 Finally, lumbermen had to invest a good amount in wages. In 1855, Colman paid from $72 to $120 a month in total wages to six employees.22 Such costs were the norm for other lumbermen, and the expense of the business continued to determine who entered the field, and whether they succeeded, for the rest of the century. Myrick and Miller’s Black River adventures also demonstrate how unpredictable and risky lumbering could be in the 1840s and after. Local loggers and mill owners, for example, were often at nature’s mercy. As Myrick discovered in 1847, heavy rains could flood Wisconsin’s rivers and wash away log booms, dams, and lumber.23 Furthermore, fire remained a frightening and almost constant threat to lumbering at midcentury and well after. Fires in La Crosse sometimes consumed entire sawmills and were devastating both economically and psychologically. In 1867 and again in 1886, for example, fire rampaged through Colman’s La Crosse mill.24 Although Colman rebuilt and modernized his operations in each instance, he worried about how the disasters would affect his family. As he wrote to his parents in 1886, “if it were not for my boys I would close up forthwith as I have enough left to take

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care of myself & wife but the trouble is to find occupation for my boys & make business men of them.” 25 While fire wreaked financial and emotional havoc on local sawmills, it also imperiled the timberlands that many La Crosse lumbermen owned in northern Wisconsin. In 1871, for example, a blaze consumed thousands of acres of pineland along the Black River in Clark County controlled by some of the city’s most influential lumberers, including Ruel Weston, Abner Gile, and N. B. Holway.26 Lumbermen who followed in Myrick and Miller’s footsteps faced another risk as they became increasingly successful and shipped their goods throughout the region and nation. Although the opening of new markets in Chicago, St. Louis, and cities in the East made La Crosse lumbermen rich, it also made the city’s lumber industry more susceptible to regional and national economic crises. The economic panic that gripped the United States in 1857, for example, crippled Wisconsin’s entire lumber business for three years and undoubtedly left La Crosse mill owners reeling.27 The economic disruption of the Civil War also left a mark on lumbering in Wisconsin and La Crosse. By 1860, the lumber business had begun to emerge from the Panic of 1857. The election of Abraham Lincoln to the presidency in 1860, however, raised the specter of southern secession and convinced many Wisconsin lumbermen they would soon lose access to lucrative southern markets on the lower Mississippi. And when war came in 1861, many of these fears became realities. In July, lumber agents had difficulty selling south of Muscatine, Iowa, while political instability altogether ended sales to Missouri. Although prosperity returned with increased federal demand for lumber at the end of 1861, the unrest caused by secession revealed how susceptible Wisconsin lumbering had become to national crises as early as the 1850s.28 Finally, a panic in 1873 sent lumber prices plummeting along the Mississippi, left St. Louis merchants with a backlog of finished wood products, and made it virtually impossible for any Wisconsin lumbermen to sell goods downriver. The struggles that Myrick and Miller faced as lumbermen were not unique. Lumbering, in fact, continued to be an expensive, unpredictable, and risky venture in La Crosse for the rest of the century. Yet even facing such profound economic challenges, many local businessmen were not hesitant about their chances to prosper in lumbering. This confidence grew out of a simple fact that most local lumbermen almost certainly realized at midcentury and after: although lumbering was difficult, federal and state policies made it easier for risk-taking settlers to succeed in the busi-

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ness. Starting in the 1850s, local lumbermen took advantage of a wide variety of government policies to build and maintain the city’s lumber industry. They formed new corporations under state law, purchased government timberland to furnish their mills, relied on legally binding contracts to protect their growing financial interests in the pineries and downriver, and secured state franchises to control river commerce. Federal and state policy thus enabled Colman and many other La Crosse lumbermen to become increasingly wealthy and influential during the second half of the century.

Mustering Money and Power La Crosse lumbermen took advantage of a variety of federal and state policies to build their businesses and enhance their wealth after 1850. First, many of the city’s loggers and mill owners organized corporations under state law to enhance their financial security and to bolster their commercial power as the century wore on.29 In the industry’s earliest days, local lumbermen often dealt with their chronic lack of capital and influence by forming private partnerships to pool resources. Colman, for example, organized two partnerships that provided him with money at crucial points in his career. In 1853, he formed a partnership with John Balch to cut shingles and dig fountains in Fond du Lac, Wisconsin. Both men contributed cash and a variety of goods to their new business.30 Although Colman sold Balch his interest in the firm and dissolved their partnership just a few months later, his relationship with him resulted in a small profit and gave Colman a taste of the industry.31 Colman once again turned to partnership as he struggled to make a living cutting shingles in La Crosse. On November 15, 1854, he and Morgan L. Noble, a friend who had entered the business with Colman, formed a partnership with Harris W. Granger to cut shingles in La Crosse and ship their goods between the Wisconsin cities of Fond du Lac and Sheboygan.32 This new partnership had a capital stock of more than $2,000 (an amount equivalent to $53,000 in 2008) and bolstered Colman’s fortunes on the Mississippi. He soon saw an opportunity. On January 30, 1855, he made arrangements to buy out his partners in the shingle factory and sell off the teaming business.33 One day later, he dissolved his partnership with Noble and Granger and took full control of their shingle-making business.34 Although Colman struggled for a time to establish himself in the industry, the profits from his second partnership helped lay the groundwork for his future success. He later expanded his operations, cut more shingles, built commercial ties downriver,

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hired more hands, and became one of the richest men in La Crosse by the end of the century. Several other local millers and loggers also formed legal partnerships that, in one way or another, helped them succeed in the industry. In 1852, for example, Cadwallader C. Washburn formed a partnership with Cyrus Woodman in Mineral Point to purchase large tracts of virgin timberland on the Upper Mississippi that helped him succeed in the business after he settled in La Crosse.35 Gideon Hixon and Niran Withee formed a new partnership in 1856 to build a sawmill in La Crosse and to purchase pineland in Clark County.36 Furthermore, N. B. Holway and Abner Gile organized a partnership to buy the Robert Ross Tub and Pail Factory sawmill in 1864.37 In each instance, the partners made money, established a firm foothold in La Crosse lumbering, and enjoyed healthy financial success. Legal partnerships thus provided La Crosse lumbermen a quick and easy way to start up in a brutally competitive industry. Such partnerships, however, had problems that often limited their usefulness during the middle of the century and after. First, partners had unlimited liability: each was fully responsible for any debts incurred by the business. Furthermore, partnerships were often ephemeral legal agreements that expired after a set time period or following the death of a participant. Finally, partnerships granted individual partners extraordinary influence over business governance. Each partner could make binding agreements with outside parties or take other actions that they deemed to be in their own interest at the expense of their colleagues. Partnerships were thus not well suited to lumbering, an industry that required long-term investment, became more and more complex, and remained ferociously competitive until the end of the century. As La Crosse lumbering became more expensive and complicated, many local loggers and mill owners did what turnpike and canal companies, insurance agents, bankers, railroad owners, and other American entrepreneurs had been doing for decades: they decided to organize corporations under state law to maintain and boost their economic power.38 State charters promised greater financial protection and commercial authority than partnerships. First, charters granted limited liability to investors by the 1840s. If a corporation failed, stockholders would lose only their initial investment. Chartered corporations also had a legal existence separate from that of their stockholders. If an individual shareholder died without leaving heirs, the corporation’s board of directors could sell that person’s stock without injuring the company. Charters also declared that elected boards would make corporate decisions and

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limit the ability of individual stockholders to shape corporate policy. Thus, state charters, much more than partnerships, provided the stability necessary for lumbermen to muster economic power and build an industry.39 Wisconsin was a good place for lumbermen to organize corporations after 1850. Wisconsinites, like residents of other Middle Western states, were uneasy about granting economic privileges to private interests after the terrifying Panic of 1837 had crippled the treasuries of Illinois, Indiana, and other nearby states.40 Wisconsin’s 1848 constitution, in fact, placed strict limits on private banks, insurance companies, and internal improvement businesses. Many state lawmakers, however, likely believed that they could bolster the state’s economy by granting legal privileges to lumber companies. To this end, in 1849 and 1856, the legislature passed general legislation that allowed three or more individuals to incorporate lumber companies. Between 1848 and 1871, moreover, legislators granted special charters to sixty-three lumberrelated corporations in the state. Wisconsin, in other words, was an excellent place to do business for budding lumber barons.41 Many La Crosse lumbermen were willing to take advantage of state lawmakers’ aggressive chartering policy and form new lumber corporations. In 1871, for example, Cadwallader C. Washburn, a significant figure in state politics and one of the city’s best-known residents, combined resources with four of the city’s most successful lumbermen, Gideon C. Hixon, N. B. Holway, J. H. Weston, and J. R. Shepardson, to form the La Crosse Lumber Company. The five lumbermen began with a capital stock of $100,000 and built the largest sawmill in La Crosse in 1872.42 In 1873, this mill reportedly cut 11 million feet of lumber, manufactured 5 million shingles, and produced 3 million laths, thin wooden strips that carpenters fastened together to create a base for plastering walls. In 1875, Washburn decided to buy out his fellow shareholders and take full control of the thriving company. Under his management, the company continued its operations. In 1878, it reportedly produced 7.5 million feet of lumber, 4 million shingles, and 1.5 million laths. Furthermore, by 1881, the company’s mill employed more than 150 hands, took up twenty-seven city lots, and housed three gigantic mill engines that drove saw and shingle machinery.43 In the end, state incorporation made it possible for Washburn to raise the money necessary to expand his lumber operations and, in turn, helped him to become a prosperous mill owner. In the 1880s and 1890s, other local lumbermen followed the lead of the La Crosse Lumber Company, incorporated their operations, and, in so doing, took advantage of state law to protect and enhance their wealth and power.

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In 1885, P. S. Davidson and several associates incorporated the Davidson Lumber Company to engage in logging, shipping timber, milling, and other lumber-related projects.44 Two years later, La Crosse stockholders incorporated the Henry A. Salzer Lumber Company and the C. H. Nichols Lumber Company.45 City lumbermen also continued to incorporate after the industry went into decline in the early 1890s. In 1899, Charles L. Colman organized the C. L. Colman Lumber Company and the Hixon family formed Hixon & Company to manage Gideon C. Hixon’s lumber operations in 1900.46 By century’s end, many of La Crosse’s most influential lumbermen had formed new corporations under state law to protect their economic welfare. When La Crosse lumbermen like Charles Colman formed new corporations, they gained special legal advantages from the state government that helped them prosper in a cutthroat industry. Corporate charters granted by the state legislature provided Colman and other loggers and sawmill owners with special privileges and protections that enabled them to raise capital and to expand their operations and participate in a competitive regional market. Not every miller or sawyer in town benefited equally from incorporation. Some were simply craftier entrepreneurs or enjoyed better luck in their efforts to make money. Still, state-sanctioned corporations were necessary for success. After 1850, they allowed a handful of local lumbermen such as Colman to acquire impressive personal wealth and commercial power.

Securing the Forest La Crosse lumberers also relied on the government to help them solve one of their most pressing problems after 1850: ensuring a steady supply of logs for their mills. Local lumbermen realized early on that they would not last long in the business without freshly cut timber at their disposal. Owners also understood that they had two options when it came to supplying their mills. They could either buy from private logging companies or cut their own trees. Many chose the latter option and purchased sections of forestland in northern Wisconsin during the second half of the century. When they did so, they again took advantage of government policy to build successful lumber and milling businesses. Local lumbermen benefited from the same federal land distribution program that had bolstered Nathan Myrick’s earlier efforts to found a town on the prairie. Federal land distribution policy began to take shape when Congress passed the Land Ordinance of 1785, which articulated a plan to transfer the

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nation’s vast public holdings to ambitious settlers. Ideally, this policy would prevent concentrations of wealth and create instead a population of hardy, politically independent American farmers who would preserve the nation’s republican heritage.47 Federal lawmakers modified this plan during the nineteenth century in ways that would ultimately have profound implications for La Crosse lumbermen. In 1820, Congress passed the Land Act of 1820, which declared that private investors could buy at auction up to eighty acres of public land for $1.25 an acre.48 Since the federal government controlled large tracts of public territory in Wisconsin, such laws gave local lumberers an opportunity to buy forestland and to ensure a steady supply of trees for their mills. Before federal officials could auction off sections of prime Wisconsin timberland to eager lumbermen, however, they first had to acquire that land from Indians. Well into the 1830s, Dakota, Ojibwa, and Ho-Chunk Indians continued to own and inhabit much of Wisconsin’s best forestland. Although a few headstrong white settlers had disregarded Indian claims and run smallscale logging operations on Indian territory near Green Bay and in the Wisconsin, Black, and Chippewa pineries, most migrants ignored lumbering as long as they made money trading furs and mining lead. Yet as these industries declined, federal officials, most notably Secretary of War Lewis Cass, concentrated on removing Wisconsin Indians and gaining legal title to their lands in the northern pineries. In these efforts, Cass and others relied on a weapon that had served the United States well during its decades-long struggle with native peoples: the treaty. Beginning in 1829, federal agents convinced representatives of the Dakota, Ojibwa, and Ho-Chunk nations to sign a series of treaties ceding their lands in Wisconsin to the United States. Most important to potential lumberers, the government obtained almost all the Ojibwa’s precious pinelands by 1837. By the end of the 1830s, federal officials had removed most of the Indians from Wisconsin’s northern forests and opened this immense country to ambitious loggers and lumbermen.49 With Indian timberlands secured, federal lawmakers next distributed this land to private investors. Most lumbermen acquired federally owned pineland under the terms of the Land Act of 1820: they bought 80 acres of land at auction. Some secured land by taking advantage of the Preemption Act of 1841.50 Wisconsin lumberman could also purchase timberland directly from the state government. Between 1838 and 1866, federal lawmakers gave Wisconsin and other states millions of acres of public land, much of it covered by timber, with the intention that territorial and state officials would

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sell it and use any profits to finance education and internal improvements. In 1849, following statehood, Wisconsin’s legislature created a commission to appraise this land and to sell up to 160 acres to individual buyers. Together, then, federal and state legislators tried to distribute Wisconsin forested land to eager entrepreneurs as quickly as possible.51 Timberland, however, was much different than farmland and serious problems plagued its distribution from the start. For one thing, federal and state land policy did little to prevent trespassing on public and private timberland. In 1879, for example, federal agents reported the theft of 13 million board feet from Wisconsin forests.52 That most lumbermen were far more interested in owning the trees that grew on the land than the land itself further complicated matters. A basic premise of government land policy throughout the nineteenth century was that private citizens purchased land to establish small farms and homesteads. Yet lumbermen rarely used public land for this purpose. Instead, they believed they were paying for an unregulated right to log distinct tracts of land, rather than for the land itself. As a result, they established a tragic pattern that transformed Wisconsin’s forests: many bought land, removed its trees, and either defaulted on their property taxes or sold their poor, cutover land to farmers.53 Federal and state land policy, then, left little room for conservation and dramatically accelerated the deforestation of much of northern Wisconsin in the nineteenth and early twentieth centuries.54 Yet even in the face of such difficult economic and social problems, federal and state land policy opened millions of acres of Wisconsin forestlands and provided ambitious lumbermen in the state with new economic opportunities. During the second half of the century, Wisconsin lumbermen secured valuable tracts of timberland at unusually affordable prices. Between 1855 and 1870, for example, private pineland sold for anywhere from $2.50 to $20.00 an acre, while lumbermen rarely paid more than $1.00 when they bought an acre of state timberland.55 From the point of view of Wisconsin lumbermen, in fact, government land distribution had been wonderfully successful; by the early twentieth century, federal and state officials had transferred virtually all of Wisconsin’s public timberlands to private investors.56 This generous public land policy was a blessing for lumbermen in La Crosse, who almost certainly believed that Wisconsin’s northern forests could provide an almost endless supply of pine for their mills and thus reinforce their wealth after 1850. Many of these lumbermen were particularly eager to purchase public timberland in the Black and Chippewa River pineries. Few in the city were more aggressive in doing so than Gideon C. Hixon, a

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local businessman whose career in the industry spanned more than three and a half decades. Like so many of the city’s accomplished merchants and industrialists, Hixon was not originally from the Badger State. Instead, he had been born in Vermont in 1826. Shortly after his birth, his family migrated to Massachusetts, where he eventually apprenticed with a tinsmith. New England, however, could not contain the ambitious Hixon for long. After he completed his apprenticeship, he worked as a contractor in Pennsylvania before he decided to try his luck on the Illinois frontier. In Illinois, Hixon worked as a tinsmith. But he also got involved in mining. Together, tinning and mining apparently treated him well. By the 1850s, he had accumulated a small fortune of $10,000. Hixon had also acquired something else: a brother-in-law named William W. Crosby, newly arrived in La Crosse, who convinced him to make his way to the bustling river town and invest in its burgeoning lumber industry. Hixon heeded Crosby’s advice. In 1856, he moved to town, formed a partnership with Niran H. Withee, and opened a sawmill. The partners eventually decided that they needed to buy timberland in northern Wisconsin and soon secured a tract along the Black River in Clark County.57 Beginning in 1866, they expanded their lumbering operations and bought more pineland to supply a sawmill in Hannibal, Missouri.58 Ultimately, by the 1870s, Hixon and Withee’s timberland holdings reached into the Chippewa River pinery and allowed them to thrive in La Crosse lumbering. Hixon’s ability to purchase public timberland also provided him with entirely new opportunities to expand his logging and milling operations. In 1879, he sold to Withee his interest in their Clark County lands and his share of their lumber operation in 1881. Two years later, he used the profits from these sales to join forces with fellow La Crosse lumberman A. W. Pettibone and to buy half the timber holdings of T. B. Scott, a lumber company in Merrill, Wisconsin. This transaction proved quite lucrative for Hixon and Pettibone.59 In 1888, after selectively harvesting white pine, the two lumbermen sold off part of their land for $425,000, an amount roughly equal to $9.9 million dollars in 2008. Hixon enjoyed an estimated profit of nearly $190,000 (or a tidy $4.4 million in 2008) from this sale.60 Hixon’s story of government policy, pineland, and economic prosperity was certainly not the norm for most La Crosse lumbermen. It does suggest, however, that some residents were able to take advantage of public land policy to prosper in the lumber industry.61 Another La Crosse lumber baron who purchased tracts of northern

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timberland on a vast scale was Cadwallader C. Washburn, who served in Congress and eventually became Wisconsin governor in 1871. Like Hixon, Washburn was raised in the East. He had been born in 1818 and come of age in Maine. After working on the family farm, he attended school and became a teacher. Life in the East, however, was apparently unsatisfying for the young Washburn. Over time, he saved his pennies until he had enough money to head west to the Iowa Territory, where he taught at a private school in Davenport. Here Washburn discovered his path. After just three months of teaching, he accepted a position with David Dale Owen’s Iowa Geological Survey and began to hone the skills that would eventually make him one of the shrewdest land experts in the Middle West. In 1842, Washburn again relocated to Mineral Point, Wisconsin, and established a law practice. Two years later, he formed a partnership with Cyrus Woodman, a land agent with the Boston and Western Land Company, to acquire, manage, and sell public land.62 For a time, Washburn continued to work as a lawyer, but he soon abandoned his practice and focused attention on securing public pineland along the Upper Mississippi. In 1852, he and Woodman staked a claim to their first piece of public timberland in the Wisconsin River pinery. One year later, Washburn became even more ambitious and formulated a plan to monopolize the best timberland in western Wisconsin and eastern Minnesota. He began by purchasing valuable sections on the Black and Chippewa rivers. Although Washburn and Woodman dissolved their partnership that same year, Washburn retained their timber holdings and continued to buy public and private land. By 1856, he owned forty thousand acres and was logging millions of feet of lumber annually in the Black River pinery. In 1861, he moved to La Crosse and continued to secure timberland through economic times good and bad. In 1871, the year he helped to incorporate the La Crosse Lumber Company and was elected governor of Wisconsin, Washburn reportedly owned 200 million feet of timber in the Black River pinery alone.63 In 1882, at the time of his death, he held seven hundred tracts, ranging in size from twenty to sixty acres each, of timberland in Clark, Wood, Taylor, Polk, and Baron counties.64 Many other La Crosse lumbermen also purchased public timberland after 1850. George Edwards and Ruel Weston, for example, each possessed forestland in the Black River pinery.65 David Austin secured land in the Black River and Chippewa River pineries.66 N. B. Holway controlled twenty-five thousand acres of pineland in Clark, Wood, and Taylor counties in 1892.67 Like Hixon and Washburn, these local lumbermen realized that their for-

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tunes were connected to Wisconsin’s northern forests and they did what they could to purchase timberland and secure a steady supply of trees for their mills and lumberyards in La Crosse. Federal and state land policy thus shaped La Crosse’s lumber industry after 1850. La Crosse lumbermen, including Hixon, Washburn, Edwards, Weston, Austin, and Holway, took advantage of this land distribution policy and purchased thousands of acres of prime timberland in northern Wisconsin. The acquisition of tracts of federal and state-owned pineland allowed La Crosse lumbermen to supply their mills with freshly cut timber and thus provided them with a key advantage in the industry. In this way, federal and state land policy directly subsidized lumbering in La Crosse; it gave city lumbermen an opportunity to establish and maintain their operations and to assert their financial clout after 1850.

Ordering Trade As La Crosse lumbermen purchased public land to replenish their mills, they also relied on another arm of nineteenth-century state power, Wisconsin’s emerging legal system, to enforce contracts that made lumber transactions more predictable and less risky.68 Initially, the city’s lumber business had been fairly localized. Nathan Myrick and a few early settlers, for example, had sold logs to Mississippi steamboat captains.69 Large-scale demand for lumber, however, soon transformed logging and milling from a local into a regional industry. By the mid-1850s, Charles Colman and other lumbermen were journeying up and down the Mississippi selling lumber, collecting payments, and searching for new customers.70 La Crosse lumbermen also began to pay much greater attention to Chicago, St. Louis, and other cities where lumber markets dictated the price of logs and finished goods as the nineteenth century wore on.71 Increasingly, La Crosse millers and loggers conducted their business over great distances with people they often hardly knew.72 La Crosse lumbermen needed a way to manage an industry that became more complicated as the century wore on. In the earliest days of lumbering, local mill owners would have had little trouble keeping record of their business transactions. Myrick, for example, sold just one hundred cords of ash wood in the winter of 1842–1843.73 Yet two decades later, the scope of local business had increased drastically. In 1869, for example, Hixon recorded more than a thousand transactions related to all aspects of his business, from rafting to log sales.74 Two decades later, in 1886, the T. B. Scott Lumber Com-

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pany, as noted, partly owned by Hixon and fellow La Crosse lumberman A. W. Pettibone, reported an inventory of more than 15 million board feet of lumber and almost 2.5 million shingles.75 Such figures suggest that local lumbering became more labor and capital intensive as the nineteenth century wore on and, as a result, ever more challenging to manage (Figure 6). As the number of transactions grew, La Crosse lumbermen, like business owners across the Middle West and nation at midcentury, increasingly relied on a vital legal tool to manage their expanding and ever more complex operations: the legally enforceable contract. After 1850, legal contracts helped Colman and other local lumbermen order their businesses in three important ways. First, they defined how parties would execute and fulfill a basic economic agreement. A typical logging contract outlined how a logger would transport cut timber to a mill owner, the steps needed to complete this sale, and how much he would earn. Second, contracts helped standardize an often messy industry; they normalized log measurements and made binding long-standing trade customs and practices. Finally, contracts made state courts final arbiters of disputes between parties. If a logger believed that a mill owner had not fulfilled a contract’s terms, he could take the owner to court.76 By making contracts, local lumbermen relied on the state government to help them enforce transactions and protect their economic ventures during the second half of the century. Hixon and other La Crosse lumbermen depended on legally binding contracts in almost every phase of their operations after 1850. Whenever Hixon purchased privately owned timberland, for example, he made contracts that precisely defined the tract of land he was buying, the amount of money he was spending, and other legal obligations, such as who would pay taxes on the land.77 He also signed contracts with loggers and drivers to cut and haul timber from his northern pinelands throughout the 1880s and 1890s; such agreements often stated where loggers would harvest trees, how many logs they would cut, how drivers would ship newly cut timber, and how much Hixon would pay them for the job.78 Furthermore, when Hixon and his partners in the T. B. Scott Lumber Company purchased lumber or sold rights to other companies, they made contracts that listed the exact quantity of goods purchased, terms for storage, cost of shipping and handling, and other obligations.79 At every stage of his operations, from felling virgin pine to shipping finished lumber, Hixon, much like other local loggers, relied on legal contracts to protect his financial interests.80 In most cases, such lumber contracts worked well without the interven-

Figure 6. As the nineteenth century wore on, La Crosse’s lumber industry became increasingly dynamic and ever more complicated. This woodcut of a steamship, smokestacks, and neatly ordered piles of freshly cut lumber at Charles Colman’s mill suggests how much the industry had grown since the 1840s. Courtesy of Murphy Library, University of Wisconsin–La Crosse.

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tion of state officials. Apparently, Hixon and other parties almost always fulfilled a contract’s terms of their own accord. Occasionally, however, one party accused the other of failing to live up to its contractual obligations and filed suit for damages in state court. Early in the 1890s, for example, Charles L. Sheridan, a lumberman from Eagle River, Wisconsin, brought suit against both the Alexander Stewart Lumber Company and Hixon’s T. B. Scott Lumber Company for trespassing and logging on his private timberland. Sheridan claimed that he owned a tract of land that his father had bought from the Stewart and Scott companies in 1888. According to his complaint, the parties had agreed to a contract that stipulated that the companies could continue to harvest timber from the land provided that they notify him of their intentions to do so within a reasonable time period. Since neither company had contacted him, Sheridan claimed full ownership of the land and its rich stock of trees. Yet he complained that both companies continued to log this land without permission, to transport freshly cut timber to their sawmills, and to sell the finished lumber. In the end, Sheridan argued that the companies had stolen his property and he demanded damages of $120,000, a figure roughly equal to $2.8 million in 2008 dollars.81 Although the final outcome of Sheridan’s efforts remains unclear, the defendants’ response to his claims suggests just how seriously they took statesanctioned contracts in the 1890s.82 On November 28, 1893, lawyers representing Stewart sent a letter to Frank P. Hixon, Gideon Hixon’s son, who had inherited his father’s holdings in the T. B. Scott Company one year earlier. Stewart’s lawyers explained that they needed Hixon’s help to prepare for a potential trial; they asked for copies of contracts and documents relevant to the case and they also questioned why Hixon’s company had failed to notify Sheridan of any cutting that took place on his land.83 Stewart’s lawyers, and likely Stewart and Hixon themselves, were clearly concerned the court would rule against them if they were unable to explain why they had apparently violated their contract with Sheridan. Had the tables been turned and Sheridan violated some terms of their contract, moreover, Hixon and Stewart likely would have shown little hesitation to bring suit against him in county or state court. The possibility that private parties would call on courts to settle disputes among lumbermen gave contracts teeth; such state-enforced agreements allowed Colman and other La Crosse sawyers and millers to create order and predictability in their business transactions. For more than half a century, local lumbermen like Colman and Hixon used legally binding contracts to

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establish and maintain impersonal connections with strangers over great distances. City mill owners and loggers also relied on contracts to standardize and manage an increasingly labyrinthine industry. In the end, contracts helped La Crosse lumbermen maintain prosperity and survive the commercial twists and turns of a brutally competitive industry. Their use also demonstrated a striking paradox: when La Crosse residents lauded Colman and other lumbermen as pioneering individualists in the 1890s, they were actually honoring a cohort of men who had depended on government for their individual economic success from the beginning.

Controlling the Market As La Crosse lumbermen took advantage of federal and state policies to pool their resources, buy timberland, and make contracts to bolster their financial welfare, many of them continued to demand from lawmakers greater privileges and powers to control their growing industry. In particular, a group of them petitioned state lawmakers for authority to improve Black River transportation in ways that would help shift control of the lumber industry from this river to the Mississippi. During the 1850s and 1860s, competition from sawmills on the Black was the single greatest threat to La Crosse lumbermen. Lumberers on the Black River enjoyed a crucial advantage over their counterparts in La Crosse. They were closer to pinelands and, as a result, shipping logs to their sawmills was less costly. La Crosse lumbermen realized they would have a tough time competing with Black River millers unless they could make it easier to float logs out of the pinery. To solve this problem, they once again turned to the state government for aid. Eventually, lawmakers granted their request and incorporated the Black River Improvement Company. In so doing, they helped shift industrial power away from the Black River lumbermen and boosted the influence of La Crosse loggers and millers. Tensions had long festered between lumbermen in Mississippi River cities such as La Crosse and millers along the Black River. The greatest source of conflict was logs. Black River lumberers had long enjoyed almost unlimited access to the best timber in the pinery and had established a lucrative lumber trade well before the first sawyers arrived in La Crosse.84 When Mississippi River lumbermen entered the business, however, they began to buy land and logs on the Black River and shipped timber downriver, bypassing local mills. Not surprisingly, many Black River millers viewed the rise of Mississippi lum-

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bering as a threat to their welfare and some used force to try and prevent outsiders from harvesting surrounding timber. As early as 1856, for example, Black River millers held up logs destined for Mississippi River sawmills. In response, drivers employed by Mississippi River lumbermen sometimes cut the booms of Black River millers and drove all of the newly freed logs, whether they belonged to their employers or not, downriver. Quarrels between millers and drivers occasionally exploded in tragic violence. In one terrible instance, an irate Black River mill owner gunned down a driver who threatened to cut his boom.85 By the 1860s, lumbermen in La Crosse and along the Mississippi had little ability to end this conflict, which threatened their log supply, their political clout, and their earnings. In 1864, amidst this turmoil, a collection of La Crosse lumbermen and businessmen, including Abner Gile, Gideon Hixon, N. B. Holway, S. L. Nevins, and William C. Root, looked to the state legislature for new legal powers that would allow them to take control of the industry and drive their northern competitors out of business.86 In particular, they formed a political alliance with fourteen other Mississippi and Black River lumbermen, argued that a transportation franchise would serve the public interest, and persuaded state lawmakers to give them a franchise that granted them greater control over lumbering on the Black.87 Much like a corporation, a franchise was a legislative grant of authority to private interests with a public end in mind. The 1864 franchise vested its incorporators with a feast of legal powers. First, it gave them the right to improve river navigation. They could remove obstructions; break log jams; enlarge and straighten channels; and build booms, piers, levies, and dikes to speed delivery of logs from the north. The legislature also authorized the new company to “enter upon, take possession of, use, occupy and enjoy any property, land and premises along the banks or chutes of the Black river and lakes near the north of the same, for the purpose of making the improvements hereinbefore mentioned.” State lawmakers further vested the company with authority to charge tolls for running logs on the river. Company power was not absolute. The legislature, in particular, specified how its incorporators would organize and manage company affairs and tried to protect private landowners by ordering franchisees to pay fair market price for lands taken as they improved the river.88 For the most part, however, state lawmakers gave Mississippi River lumbermen immense legal authority to alter the Black River for their commercial benefit.89 The Black River Improvement Company franchise proved to be an eco-

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nomic boon for its incorporators and for Mississippi River cities like La Crosse that depended more on lumbering during the second half of the century. After 1864, the franchise gave incorporators a large measure of authority over river commerce and made it more difficult for Black River mill owners to prevent log shipments downriver. In just a few years, the company closed several treacherous river chutes, removed sandbanks and old trees that blocked boats, widened and straightened the river, built miles of embankments to prevent floods, and improved log shipping on the Black.90 La Crosse lumbermen, in fact, continued to sing the company’s praises years after its incorporation. In 1874, for instance, Hixon noted with satisfaction that “Since We have Improved the river 60 per cent of our logs Will come to the boom [will be shipped downriver and stored] Without any expense Whatever While previous not more than 10 per ct.” 91 Better transportation enabled La Crosse lumbermen to expand their operations. In coming years, they would build larger saw and shingle mills, buy more pineland on the Black River, and ship goods around the nation. Not every lumberman who depended on the Black River for timber, however, was thrilled with the company’s project to improve navigation. In 1867, a host of Jackson County and Clark County residents, including sawmill owners, manufacturers, and river pilots, complained to the state legislature that the company was bottling up lumber shipments and, in so doing, ruining commerce in the Black River pinery.92 Leading the charge against the company was J. A. Watrous, a Civil War veteran and newspaperman who represented both Jackson and Clark counties in the state assembly.93 In 1867, Watrous introduced a bill to repeal the company’s charter and, as a member of a three-person panel appointed by the Committee on Internal Improvements to study the issue, defended the interests of Black River lumberers from La Crosse and other Mississippi lumber cities.94 Watrous’s greatest concern was that the state legislature had unfairly intervened in a private economic affair and destroyed the spirit of free competition in the lumber business. He made this position clear in a report submitted to the committee. As he saw it, the improvement company had violated its charter because it simply had not improved the river in the interests of all. Instead, it had built a series of booms, dams, and piers that obstructed log rafting. In effect, it had empowered a small cadre of wealthy Mississippi River lumbermen “to so completely monopolize the river . . . as to cut off all chances for [Black River] mill owners to get their sawed lumber to market, and to eventually compel them to stop their mills.” The only way for the state legislature

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to protect the interests of the Black River pinery and reestablish free and fair commerce in the lumber industry, he maintained, was to take away entirely the company’s franchise. Watrous issued an ominous prediction: “There are in Jackson county alone, on Black river and its tributaries, twenty-two saw mills. . . .Repeal the charter and these mills will continue in operation and increase their capacity. Repeal the charter and in a few years there will be three times as many mills in operation. Refuse to do so, and you not only cut off the last hope of securing more, render certain the crushing out of those we now have, but encourage log-driving to such an extent that in a very few years the wealthiest portion of that part of the state will present nothing but a vast and gloomy wilderness of pine stumps.” According to Watrous, Wisconsin lawmakers held the fate of his hapless constituents, a key state industry, and perhaps free enterprise in a democratic society in their hands.95 Yet the two other members of the select committee appointed by the standing committee, Angus Cameron, a La Crosse assemblyman clearly concerned about the welfare of his own constituents, and L. H. Cary, a lawmaker from Fond du Lac, a city on Lake Winnebago in eastern Wisconsin, disagreed entirely with Watrous.96 In their majority report, Cameron and Cary held that the company had clearly fulfilled the legal terms of its state charter—it had invested at least $30,000 in constructing works that allowed lumbermen to float their logs to La Crosse and other Mississippi River cities. Since the company had held up its end of the bargain, the state could not “repeal the charter without gross violation of good faith—nor without incurring an obligation upon the part of the state to reimburse the stockholders for the losses they would sustain by reason of such repeal.” 97 Put simply, they believed that state lawmakers could not revoke a company’s corporate status if it had met the legal terms of its state charter. Cameron and Cary also argued that taking away the charter would hurt La Crosse County residents who depended on lumbering: if “the improvements of said company are removed, it will not be possible to run logs to the mouth of the river, and the large capital invested in these mills would be of no value, and the city of La Crosse and the villages of North La Crosse and Onalaska, where these mills are situate, and the adjacent country, would be greatly injured.” 98 Much like Watrous, Cameron and Cary recognized that the state legislature’s decision regarding the fate of the Black River Improvement Company would have lasting economic consequences for lumbermen in La Crosse and other cities in western Wisconsin. In the end, Cameron and Cary’s arguments prevailed. The state assembly

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rejected Watrous’s bill by an eighty to fifteen vote and allowed the La Crosse incorporators and their colleagues to keep their Black River improvement franchise. The decision was a dream for lumberers in La Crosse and other Mississippi River cities. For the rest of the century, the company continued to furnish a steady supply of logs for their mills and helped them expand their operations. The legislature’s actions also proved to be an almost-fatal blow to the influence of Jackson County and Clark County lumbermen. With the franchise securely in place, control of western Wisconsin lumbering soon shifted from the banks of the Black River, where some of the state’s earliest loggers and sawyers had built a new industry, to cities such as La Crosse, where a new generation of capitalists took control. Decades later, some Black River residents wistfully recalled the landmark assembly vote that defeated Watrous’s bill in 1867. In 1910, Watrous himself wrote: “as I look at the long silent, decaying mills on Black river I still insist that there was merit in that assembly bill of forty-three years ago.” 99 Ultimately, J. A. Watrous’s melancholy conclusion that Wisconsin lawmakers had crippled Black River lumbering was correct. When the state assembly upheld the charter of the Black River Improvement Company, it granted lumbermen in La Crosse and other Mississippi River cities legal advantages over their competitors in the Black River pinery. La Crosse lumbermen used these state-sanctioned benefits to expand their lumbering operations.100 In the process, they surpassed their northern rivals. The story of the battle over the Black River Improvement Company suggests once again how the decisions of state lawmakers, as much as geography or hardy individualism, allowed lumbermen to prosper in La Crosse.

Law and Lumber in La Crosse Charles Colman and other La Crosse lumbermen certainly showed individual initiative when they entered the industry. They faced tough challenges and made crucial economic decisions that helped them gain prosperity and greater economic power. They also took ready advantage of their prime location at the meeting point of three rivers that flowed out of the state’s northern pineries. In this sense, they resembled the independent western pioneers whom Frederick Jackson Turner described when he lectured in La Crosse in 1895. Yet these men also enjoyed financial success because they took advantage of a host of significant government polices after 1850. Much like other

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ambitious business owners across the Midwest and the nation at the time, La Crosse’s lumber barons formed state-sanctioned partnerships and corporations, purchased federal and state-owned land, made state-enforced contracts, convinced state lawmakers to grant them a franchise to improve the Black River and survive in a risky business, and mobilized to protect that franchise and ensure their own competitive advantages. They benefited from a legal culture that provided entrepreneurs with powerful rights and protections that bolstered risk taking in southwestern Wisconsin and elsewhere. State and federal policy, as much as personal genius or dedicated work, helped La Crosse lumbermen become wealthy and powerful. As the century wore on, Colman and other lumbermen became some of the best-known and most influential figures in town. They helped establish the La Crosse Board of Trade, served on municipal committees, and maintained a high profile in city politics.101 Others eagerly donated their wealth to charitable causes and cemented their names in La Crosse’s pantheon. Albert W. Pettibone, Gideon Hixon’s partner in the land holdings of the T. B. Scott Lumber Company, for example, spent $80,000 to maintain a public park in La Crosse, while Cadwallader Washburn bankrolled the city’s library.102 By working within a federal and state framework to make La Crosse a midwestern lumber mecca, Colman and other local lumbermen shaped the city’s character and course until the end of the century. The effort of Colman and other La Crosse lumbermen also laid a foundation upon which other industries thrived in town. Through their own success, lumbermen showed that the city was a fertile destination for settlers with different business dreams. On the one hand, the needs of La Crosse’s nineteenth-century lumber industry boosted other city businesses. In 1890, for example, whirring sawmills not only employed more than two thousand hands and produced $4 million (equivalent to more than $97 million in 2008) worth of goods, but benefited thousands of local loggers, rafters, carpenters, door makers, and other residents who relied on wood for their well-being.103 La Crosse lumbermen also underpinned the local economy when they invested in commercial opportunities outside of logging and milling. Gideon Hixon, for example, not only helped expand the city’s lumber industry but also invested in grain and flour mills, cofounded a bank, and sold real estate in town.104 In so doing, Hixon and other lumber barons helped diversify the local economy in ways that allowed La Crosse to weather a national economic collapse and widespread deforestation across northern Wisconsin that combined to shut down sawmills and cripple the city’s lumber industry during the

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1890s. In the end, La Crosse lumbermen did not simply deploy federal and state law to build their own businesses. They also did so in ways, intended or not, that prepared their city for a new industrial century. While Colman and other La Crosse lumbermen helped pave the way for their city’s thriving economy, they and other residents realized a simple reality as early as the 1850s: their promising city could fulfill its commercial potential only if they forged new links to growing markets to the east and west. With this dream in mind, boosters turned their attention to attracting new railroad lines that promised to enrich the city even more. Once again, they took advantage of government to try and win the day. Beginning in the middle of the century, state lawmakers provided La Crossers with legal tools necessary to attract trains and continue to transform their small frontier town into a thriving industrial city.

PA R T I I BOOSTING MUNICIPAL POWER

Chapter Four

Iron Tracks to the City

Perhaps more than any other citizen of La Crosse, Thomas Benton Stoddard recognized the intrinsic overlap between the worlds of government and railroads in the nineteenth-century Middle West (Figure 7). Stoddard had, in fact, long navigated the choppy waters of both worlds. For one thing, he had been born into politics in 1800. Stoddard’s father, Richard, had served as the first sheriff of Genesee County, New York, and been a leading member of the Federalists, an influential political party devoted to the idea of greater federal intervention in the American economy, in the western part of the Empire State.1 As a young man, Thomas honed his political skills when he lived among the Seneca Indians, learned their language and culture, and helped the tribe negotiate its claims with federal agents. Moreover, after he arrived in southwestern Wisconsin in 1851, he worked with state politicians to organize La Crosse County. In 1856, grateful voters of the new city of La Crosse elected him mayor. Stoddard was thus more than a little familiar with the often-ticklish ways and means of federal, state, and local government in nineteenth-century America. Stoddard was also well versed in the often mind-boggling intricacies of midwestern railroad building. Stoddard understood that La Crosse’s residents were locked in a competition with neighboring cities, such as Winona, Minnesota, for railroads. He also clearly recognized that the most effective railroads boosters were those who took advantage of state policies and institutions to bring trains home. Beginning in the 1860s, Stoddard applied this lesson to his own commercial circumstances. In 1864, he won land concessions from Minnesota legislators, and convinced local city council members to invest public money in his railroad company, the Southern Minnesota. As a result, on November 18, 1870, gleeful La Crossers welcomed the railroad to town.2 Ultimately the Southern Minnesota helped link La Crosse to an

Figure 7. Thomas Stoddard played a foundational role in making La Crosse a railroad city. Perhaps more than anyone else in town at the time, Stoddard understood the political economy of hinterland railroading. This knowledge ultimately helped him bring the Southern Minnesota Railroad to La Crosse in 1870. Courtesy of La Crosse Public Library and La Crosse County Historical Society.

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emerging regional railroad network that eventually transformed the city into a hub of western commerce in the second half of the century. Historians typically describe the efforts of Stoddard and other midwestern railroad boosters in small cities as a tale of high hopes but ultimately failed dreams.3 Beginning at midcentury, as this conventional narrative goes, midwesterners like Stoddard recognized that winning a rail line could determine whether their community flourished or failed. For this reason, they took whatever steps necessary to attract trains: boosters across the region sang their town’s economic prospects, haggled with company agents, and lobbied aldermen to sell municipal bonds and invest in railroad projects. In many cases, these efforts were successful. Yet as railroad corporations expanded their lines and became ever more powerful, hinterland communities began to lose their ability to compete in the grand chess match of tracks and trains. Time and again, railroad men ignored or disregarded the concerns of hinterland city residents and made vital business decisions, such as bypassing a desperate town or raising shipping rates, that magnified their profitability at a small city’s expense. Even worse for hinterland urbanities, railroad regulation was largely futile in the Middle West.4 Railroads bullied or bribed lawmakers and undermined public schemes to protect passengers and consumers. By 1900, wealthy railroad corporations had forged a vibrant, wide-ranging transportation network centered on Chicago that integrated the Middle West into the national economy. Yet they had done so largely on their own terms. According to this familiar story, rather than framing midwestern railroading until the end of the century, people in many smaller, hinterland communities watched as iron tracks, steaming locomotives, and commercial life passed them by. Yet Stoddard’s tale and the often colorful story of La Crosse railroads more generally offer intriguing clues about the dynamic ways in which smaller cities outside of Chicago or Minneapolis continued to influence railroading until the century’s end. Time and again, La Crosse’s citizens used the machinery of municipal government to leave their mark on railroads. In 1853, 1864, and 1876, for example, Stoddard and other boosters convinced the city council, which was often dominated by lumbermen and merchants who viewed the arrival of railroads as a boon for the city and their own pocketbooks, to fund railways and help forge commercial links to Milwaukee, Minneapolis, Chicago, and markets in the East. La Crosse’s influence over railroading, however, did not start and stop with public investment. Beginning in 1883, after state lawmakers had amended the city’s charter and given municipal officials

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new police powers, aldermen forced railroad executives to clear city streets, prevent damage to private property, and guarantee the personal safety of local residents. Moreover, even when La Crosse residents lost a fight with railroads, as they did when they waged the equivalent of a holy war over the ultimate location of a Mississippi River Bridge in the 1860s and 1870s, they forced railroad men to pay attention to their civic concerns. In the end, the case of Thomas Stoddard and La Crosse suggests that lawmakers and courts enabled residents of hinterland cities to determine the course of railroads, and capitalism more broadly, in the nineteenth-century Middle West.

From Rivers to Railways At midcentury, La Crosse’s location at the meeting point of the Black, La Crosse, and Mississippi rivers made it an especially appealing destination for Myrick, Colman, and other migrants. These rivers linked residents to a larger world and paved the way for local commercial growth.5 Following waterways, lumbermen like Colman gained access to the fertile timberlands of northern Wisconsin, while local merchants exchanged their wares in river ports to the north and south. As La Crosse’s lumber- and merchant-based economy began to flourish, more and more American and European migrants flocked to the settlement in search of fame and fortune. In 1853, one local newspaper reported that the town’s population, which had numbered just a handful of traders a decade before, had spiked to 548 residents.6 Moreover, a rough outpost of just a few rickety buildings in the 1840s had blossomed into a bustling merchant community home to groceries, dry goods stores, taverns, law offices, apothecaries, and an assortment of other shops and trades.7 By the early 1850s, La Crosse’s riverine advantages had defined it as a western town on the make. Yet many in La Crosse, like many residents of similar communities seeded across the Middle West, had far more ambitious booster dreams. Many, in fact, recognized that although rivers had made their prosperity possible, railroads would ultimately determine whether their city would eventually grow into a thriving commercial mecca or remain a relatively remote economic satellite (Figure 8). Midwesterners had good reason to celebrate the transformative power of the iron horse. Since the early 1800s, when American inventors and entrepreneurs first experimented with steam-powered locomotion, railroads had revolutionized the nation’s economy. East of the Appalachians, railroad corporations laid track that compressed distance, shortened travel

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time, and, in so doing, lowered shipping costs.8 In the process, they bolstered the financial clout of eastern cities such as New York and Baltimore.9 Many eager American investors and potential settlers also recognized that a mountain range, no matter how vast or imposing, could not contain the explosion of railroad building for long. By the middle of the century, westerners were eager to draw railroads into the heart of the continent and establish fresh commercial ties with the Atlantic seaboard. Chicago boosters enjoyed the most profound success. In 1852, when the Galena and Chicago Union line forged an iron bond between Chicago and Rockford, Illinois, it became evident that the Windy City would eventually become the great terminus of the trans-Appalachian West.10 The rise of Chicago as a frontier railroad hub offered inhabitants of the region’s hinterland towns and cities a rather unsettling lesson: either win a railroad or watch as commercial growth and history passed you by. La Crosse residents embraced this lesson as much as any midwesterners at midcentury. In 1853, for example, one local journalist confidently asserted that if the river town could fashion a new railroad link to Milwaukee, it “would secure the main business of the upper Mississippi . . . which, great as it now is, is but a trifle to what it will be in the course of a few years.”11 Such bold predictions, however, did not answer the fundamental question of exactly how a small settlement like La Crosse could attract a railroad in the 1850s. In response, many of the town’s ambitious merchants, potential financiers, and cheerleading journalists began to look to their aldermen to deal with this incommodious challenge. In so doing, they took significant steps that helped their city influence the course of midwestern railroading.

Financing the Future Perhaps the greatest challenge La Crosse boosters and their rivals in similar towns faced was the awesome expense of forging links with distant merchant cities. The cold fact was that constructing railroads was enormously costly in the nineteenth century. Such steps as surveying possible routes, securing land, buying materials, hiring workers, and purchasing rolling stock and machinery were prohibitively expensive for investors in small, or even large, communities. Even railroad boosters in a city like Chicago initially relied on capital from New York, Boston, and investors back east to weave their iron web in the 1850s and afterward.12 In the face of these financial and technical challenges, La Crosse boosters,

Figure 8. Stoddard and many other La Crosse citizens were eager to mobilize state and municipal power to draw the iron horse home at midcentury. Many recognized that winning a railroad was critical to transforming their small, frontier town into a thriving entrepôt. As this map demonstrates, new rails offered a critical lifeline that linked them to dynamic market economies to the east. Library of Congress, Geography and Map Division.

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much like their fellow urban promoters in the Middle West and across the country at the time, turned to their governments for fiscal help. The problem, however, was that Wisconsin’s constitution barred the state legislature from directly investing public money in railroads and other internal improvements. That it did so was not surprising at midcentury. Most of the delegates who attended the 1848 constitutional convention and ultimately rejected public financing were committed Democrats who embraced the political rhetoric and principles of Andrew Jackson. In the 1820s and 1830s, Jackson had criticized federal funding in transportation projects, growing corporate power, and what he believed was the unjust influence of elite Americans.13 In 1828, this ideology had carried him to the White House, where he thundered against corporations and banks over his two terms in office. Furthermore, Jackson’s effort to destroy the Bank of the United States convinced many politicians and voters around the country anxious about corporate power and the growing influence of wealthy commercial elites that Old Hickory was a true defender of American democracy. Jackson’s message was so potent, in fact, that it rippled across the nation and helped remake politics in Wisconsin and other midwestern places in the years to come.14 Not unexpectedly, then, when Wisconsin’s delegates convened to debate a state constitution in 1848, many Democratic members rejected public investment in railroads on ideological grounds. The most articulate to do so was George Gale, a lawyer from Walworth County, located in the southeastern corner of the territory. Gale attacked public funding as inherently undemocratic. Like a good Jacksonian, he was concerned that it would benefit some residents at the expense of others.15 To highlight this concern, he described a hypothetical railway that ran from Milwaukee to the Mississippi River. The prospect of such a line through the most populous part of the state would almost certainly gain the backing of a majority of state voters. Lawmakers, however, would have to raise taxes on every state inhabitant to fund the project, no matter where these people lived. Yet, for Gale, raising taxes on all Wisconsin residents to benefit some, even a majority of the state’s population, was antithetical to democratic governance. In his words, “it was the duty of the government to make the benefits to be derived from taxation as equal as the burthens. . . . Without following this principle the great objects of civil government would be lost.”16 For Gale and other state politicians who continued to embrace Jackson’s alluring critique of centralized government power and wealthy elite influence, the idea of public investment in railroad projects seemed to imperil the state’s democratic soul.

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Opponents of state-level investment in railroads also had more practical financial concerns: they knew that neighboring states had invested heavily in canals and railroads in the decade before and faced alarming fiscal problems in the 1840s. In 1836 and 1837, Ohio, Illinois, Michigan, and Indiana had sunk huge sums in internal improvements. By the 1840s, these plans had plunged each state into pecuniary distress. Indiana provided a particularly alarming example of the fiscal danger of such projects. By 1847, Indiana’s Wabash and Erie Canal was years away from completion and would never come close to meeting its final construction and management costs.17 Public railroad projects had fared little better in the Hoosier State. In 1843 the Indiana legislature, which had spent more than $1.6 million on a railroad that linked the towns of Madison and Lafayette, was unable to pay its creditors and eventually turned over control of the line to a private corporation, the Madison and Indianapolis Railroad Company.18 Defending Jacksonian principles was one thing. But for convention delegates such as George Gale, who “hoped that no one would attempt to force into the constitution any provision which would allow our state to plunge into the gulf of internal improvements, which had swallowed up the credit and prosperity of so many of our sister states,” maintaining Wisconsin’s fiscal health was just as important.19 In the end, fifty delegates supported Gale’s vision to limit the legislature’s power to invest in internal improvements with only fifteen members opposed.20 As a result, Wisconsin’s 1848 constitution decreed that state lawmakers “shall never contract any debt for works of internal improvement, or be a party in carrying on such works.”21 When it came to public investment, Wisconsin’s constitution was thus a product of the heated political and economic concerns of the day. It grew out of a Jacksonian trepidation that unfettered corporations undermined democracy and a hardheaded realism that even the most enlightened state government that tried to fund transportation projects with public money could face potentially crippling financial problems. By banning state funding for expensive internal projects, Wisconsin’s constitutional delegates sincerely believed they were protecting the democratic rights of their fellow citizens and the financial stability of their future state. Yet within five years entirely new economic realities challenged the notion that state investment in internal improvements, and particularly railroads, would imperil democracy and fiscal responsibility in Wisconsin. As transportation and communication over great distances became more critical to the state’s economy in the 1850s, many state lawmakers, like countless

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politicians in other towns and cities across the American West, sought after railroad connections. Some, such as Byron Kilbourn, who had supported Gale’s stand against state funding as a convention delegate in 1848, but had become an eager railroad booster and the founder of the La Crosse and Milwaukee Railroad in the 1850s, recognized that links to a booming Chicago or Minneapolis would increase trade, boost property values, enrich investors, and bring home needed private capital.22 Kilbourn and others, however, also understood that railroads did not always have the capital necessary to build new lines. In the absence of such assets, political and business leaders urged the use of public money to entice private railroad corporations to build in the state. Yet they faced a thorny legal problem: how could they encourage public funding in a state founded on core constitutional principles that limited their legal power to directly finance internal improvements? In the 1850s, Wisconsin lawmakers began to search for solutions to this dilemma. And as they did so, they plumbed both the exciting possibilities and frustrating constraints of divided government and its ability to change the lives of nineteenth-century Americans. Ironically, state legislators eventually found the authority to finance railroads in Wisconsin’s brand-new constitution.23 The key that unlocked the coffers of public money was the constitution’s definition of the financial relationship between the legislature and municipalities. Although the document outlawed state funding of internal improvements, it granted state legislators power to regulate municipal “taxation, assessment, borrowing money, contracting debts, and loaning . . . credit, so as to prevent abuses in assessments and taxation, and in contracting debts by such municipal corporations.”24 Ostensibly, the constitution gave this power to the state legislature to prevent counties, cities, and towns from recklessly raising taxes and issuing bonds.25 After 1850, however, state lawmakers used this authority in a different way: to grant cities like La Crosse leeway to sell bonds, invest public money in private corporations, and construct a railroad network in the state. A liberal interpretation of this section of Wisconsin’s constitution gave state lawmakers the power to tap a valuable reservoir of potential revenue for new railroad projects, while also upholding the core democratic principles articulated by the document’s framers in 1848.26 In 1853, in a concerted effort to generate capital enough to invest in railroads, the state legislature began to pass special laws that granted counties and cities the power to sell bonds and invest in railroad projects and that became a model for future legislation.27 The first act to do so authorized Columbia

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County to sell bonds and invest in a railroad that would run from Milwaukee west to Portage City.28 State lawmakers included three important provisions in this act. First, they defined how much money the county could invest in railroads and how it would issue any bonds. It gave the Columbia County board authority to loan up to $300,000 to private corporations to build and maintain the line.29 Second, the law declared that private companies engaged in the project had to fulfill a set of fundamental requirements before they received county funds. Most important, the Milwaukee and Watertown Railroad Company and the La Crosse and Milwaukee Rail Road Company, the corporations interested in building the new road, could receive county aid only if they finished construction within a set period of time. If these companies failed to fulfill their legal commitments, then the Columbia County board could withhold or channel the money to other private companies willing and able to finish the project.30 Third, the act decreed that a majority of the county’s eligible voters had to agree to fund railroads before the county board could issue bonds.31 Throughout the 1850s and 1860s, Wisconsin lawmakers continued to pass special laws that followed the legal blueprint laid out in 1853.32 By the early 1870s, however, requests for state authority to raise public money for railroad projects began to overwhelm Wisconsin lawmakers. The legislature had rarely passed more than a handful of such special acts annually in the 1850s and 1860s.33 This trend changed after the Civil War as legislators spent more and more time debating municipal requests for permission to invest in private railroad corporations. Between 1866 and 1872, the legislature passed eighty-six special acts that granted villages, towns, cities, and counties across the state the power to issue bonds and raise property taxes to fund railroads. Furthermore, as more people settled in Wisconsin in the second half of the nineteenth century, state lawmakers began to realize that requests for authority to raise money for railroads would only increase. In 1872, to lessen the burden of special legislation, Wisconsin lawmakers passed a general law that applied to every Wisconsin community that sought permission to invest in railroads. This act freed lawmakers from spending valuable time drafting special acts for individual cities and counties that, in many ways, duplicated earlier laws, and gave municipalities greater power to make their own financial decisions.34 Ultimately, by 1872, Wisconsin lawmakers believed that they had constructed a legal framework that solved the difficult dilemma of how to encourage railroad building in a state with a constitution that prohibited

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state funding for internal projects.35 Authorizing communities to invest public money in private railroad companies seemed an effective way to build a rail network that linked La Crosse and other of the state’s pulsing cities to growing metropolises such as Minneapolis and Chicago without violating the letter of the state constitution. Furthermore, common councils across Wisconsin eagerly applied these new financial powers: in 1880, the Wisconsin railroad commissioner, an office created by the legislature in 1874 to investigate the financial practices of railroads and tabulate the results, reported that eighty-four individual municipalities and ten counties around the state had authorized nearly $8 million, or nearly $174 million in 2008 dollars, to invest in private railroad corporations.36

Iron Rails to La Crosse La Crosse was one community that benefited tremendously from these laws. Voters got their first taste of this new financial power in 1853 when the state authorized the La Crosse County Board of Supervisors to sell $100,000 (nearly $2.9 million in 2008 currency) in bonds and use the proceeds to buy stock in the Milwaukee and La Crosse Railroad or any company that built a railroad through the county.37 Businessmen in the city took quick advantage of this act to rally support behind the project.38 Between October 19 and October 21, a group of railroad boosters from La Crosse journeyed north along the Mississippi River rounding up support and soliciting subscriptions in the stock of the new railroad. The La Crosse Democrat reported the group gained pledges of $12,000 in the town of Pierce, over $20,000 from the village of Sparta and the town of Leon combined, and between $2,000 and $3,000 from the village of Neshonoc. Boosters also tried to win over popular opinion in La Crosse. On September 29, supporters convened at the city courthouse and resolved to “use our utmost exertions to help the good work, by taking stock subscriptions ourselves, and by influencing others to do the same; that we are not afraid to pledge La Crosse and vicinity as good for a subscription of $50,000” in the railroad.39 By the end of 1853, traveling parties of local boosters had persuaded many people in the county that a new railroad was an economic necessity worth fostering. Although local railroad boosters had great success rallying support behind the project, construction on the railroad stalled for two years. In 1856, however, the La Crosse and Milwaukee Company combined with two other companies to push through to Portage.40

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When the new railroad opened on October 14, 1858, many residents predicted great things.41 Mayor Theodore Rodolf applauded local people for attracting a road that would alter the city’s prospects. According to Rodolf, La Crosse’s citizens had much to be proud of. The railroad was “one of the great triumphs . . . of the indomitable energy . . . which is so peculiar to the people of this country, which has enabled us to shake hands this evening with our friends from Milwaukee and Chicago, which has brought us within a few days travel of the great commercial emporium of the new worlds, yea, which has even succeeded in throwing across the Atlantic an iron band, which, sooner or later, is bound to lead old Europe captive to Young America.”42 By securing the required state legislation and then investing public money in company stock, La Crosse’s political and business leaders had taken a big step toward transforming their sleepy river town into a frontier mecca. The history of state-sponsored railroad funding in the city, however, did not end with the opening of the La Crosse and Milwaukee road. Other local boosters also relied on the state to bring railroads to La Crosse. One of these boosters was Thomas Benton Stoddard.43 Stoddard believed that a second railroad tying La Crosse to the scattered farming communities of southern Minnesota would make the city even more prosperous. In 1855, he organized the Root River Valley and Southern Minnesota Railroad Company to raise money, acquire land, and construct such a road.44 Early on, this company seemed in good financial shape. In 1857, it sold bonds and began laying track in Minnesota.45 The devastating economic panic of 1857, however, crippled the fledgling company’s ability to continue the project. In 1860, it defaulted on its bond payments and Minnesota state officials began to sell off company property to reimburse investors.46 Just five years after Stoddard had pledged to build a new railroad and tap the agricultural wealth of the Middle West, his company sat perched on the brink of financial ruin and the project was in danger. The railroad’s fortunes changed in 1864 when Stoddard leveraged government power to prop up its sagging finances. First, he appealed to state legislators to resuscitate his cash-poor company. In 1864, he rechristened his company the Southern Minnesota Railroad, and Minnesota lawmakers, perhaps seeing a golden opportunity to build a new connection between outside markets and local farmers and merchants, granted him a new charter and tracts of public land to resume construction across the state’s southern counties.47 Stoddard also turned to Wisconsin’s legislature for help. In another of those special pieces of legislation, on April 2, 1864, Wisconsin lawmakers

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granted La Crosse’s Common Council authority to call a citywide vote to determine whether the city should issue bonds, raise $50,000 (or more than $700,000 in 2008 dollars), and invest the proceeds in the railroad.48 Stoddard next focused on mobilizing political support behind the project. In November 1864, he and two partners submitted a petition signed by nearly one hundred La Crosse residents, including some of the most influential businessmen in the river city, which urged the Common Council to call a municipal vote on the question of funding for the Southern Minnesota.49 Such lobbying paid off. A sympathetic council, which included such notable members as T. B. Edwards, who would help incorporate a railroad company to build a brand-new line that connected La Crosse and Lake Superior in 1869, scheduled the vote for February 23, 1865. On this date voters authorized their aldermen to issue bonds and invest in railroad stock.50 Once again, Stoddard and his supporters had turned to government, in this case, La Crosse’s Common Council, to save his railroad dreams. Finally, on November 18, 1870, after years of tricky negotiations, frustrating false starts, and agonizing stops, La Crossers convened to celebrate the arrival of the Southern Minnesota.51 Well into the 1870s, city leaders considered additional measures to fund private railroad companies and boost local commerce. In March 1876, the council accepted a petition from the Green Bay and Minnesota Railway Company that requested $75,000 in public funds to defer the cost of building a branch line between La Crosse and Onalaska, a city five miles to the north.52 Previous experience had apparently hardened local people to often excruciating rail negotiations. From the start, residents asked tough questions about the proposed deal. One of the biggest concerns was its overall cost. Some critics maintained that the Green Bay and Minnesota could build the road for far less than $75,000 and they worried that such a sum would encourage fraud and graft.53 Others feared that investing in the project would bankrupt the city. One anonymous commentator noted acidly that if local inhabitants “blindly vote for the proposition we will find our city chained fast by a bonded debt amounting in principal and interest to nearly $200,000.”54 Money was not the only concern. Many opponents were unwilling to believe the railroad’s genial promises. One letter to the editor of the La Crosse Daily Republican and Leader pointed out that the Green Bay and Minnesota “proposition . . . does not say how often trains are to be run, nor that this is to be made the western terminus of the road, and leaves open a wide field of conjecture as to what advantages we are to gain while absolute certainty exists as to the amount donated.”55 Yet La Crosse voters were unwilling to pass on

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the chance to invest in the Green Bay and Minnesota road and open another channel of commerce. On March 21, 1876, a majority of the city’s voters cast ballots to approve the bond request.56 The railroad funding debates that gripped La Crosse during the 1850s, 1860s, and 1870s reveal a great deal about how state and municipal governments framed railroading in this period. In the cases of the Milwaukee and La Crosse, the Southern Minnesota, and the Green Bay and Minnesota railroads, Thomas Stoddard and other municipal politicians embraced a vision of local activism and took advantage of state legislation to rally behind the cause of public funding, call elections to consider the question, and allow local voters the opportunity to support these projects. In this way, they made vital choices that helped them draw railroads home. Although this money was a small portion of the total capital required to lay new track and run trains, it was often just enough to cover the cost of local construction and may also have provided city inhabitants with a sense of ownership of the road. This twisting tale of the politics of public railroad financing in nineteenth-century La Crosse offers some tantalizing clues about how hinterland city dwellers may have exercised a profound, yet often overlooked, impact on the creation of a vast railroad network in the Middle West. In the end, La Crosse’s Common Council took advantage of state policies to help tie its city into the iron web that evolved into a sturdy latticework for the emerging midwestern economy. By the 1880s, Wisconsin lawmakers had granted local politicians and business leaders vital financial powers that helped them draw four railroads to town and forge new ties with Milwaukee, Chicago, and other larger markets in the East (Figure 9).57 As a result, the amount of freight flowing into and out of the city by rail increased. Between 1879, when the city’s Board of Trade began tabulating local commerce, and 1900, total freight received in town increased from 150,600 tons to more than 294,000 tons.58 Aside from boosting business, these railroads attracted migrants to La Crosse. Between 1865 and 1890, the city’s population increased from just 5,000 to 25,000.59 And when these people made their way west, they built new businesses and diversified city commerce. In 1890, La Crosse was home to factories that employed 8,000 workers and produced goods worth $16 million, or an amount roughly equivalent to $390 million in 2008.60 In terms of geography, the city was also noticeably larger than it had been in the middle of the century (Figures 10 and 11). Ultimately, by using state-sanctioned financial power, La Crosse’s citizens helped transform their remote frontier outpost into a busy commercial hive and one of the most

Figure 9. By the end of the nineteenth century, La Crossers had invested public money in private railroad corporations that extended their lines into the city and helped make it an important transportation hub in the Middle West. The city’s rail hinterland, as this 1898 map published by the La Crosse Board of Trade highlights, reached from the Black Hills of the Dakotas in the West to Chicago in the East. Courtesy of Murphy Library, University of Wisconsin–La Crosse.

Figure 10. In the years following the Civil War, municipal investment in private railroad projects helped establish La Crosse as a city on the make. New trains opened La Crosse to the eager travelers who built new businesses and boosted the local population from less than four thousand in 1860 to more than twenty thousand just a decade later. This image of the city viewed from across the Mississippi River in 1867 depicts a bustling river community. Wisconsin Historical Society Image ID #11427.

Figure 11. By the 1880s, railroads had transformed La Crosse from a small city in Chicago’s outer orbit into a thriving industrial hub with an agricultural and merchant hinterland of its own. This bird’s-eye view demonstrates just how much the city changed between 1867 and 1887. Urban construction now reached to the surrounding bluffs while railroads with smoking engines weaved into the heart of the city’s downtown business district. Wisconsin Historical Society Image ID #11429.

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important mercantile communities in the upper Mississippi River Valley. In this case, La Crosse’s municipal government was a driving engine of railroading and capitalism before 1900.

Regulating the Iron Horse As La Crosse’s residents relied on their city’s state-sanctioned financial power to invest in railroads, they also benefited from state decisions that gave their aldermen new authority to regulate trains in town. The question of railroad regulation became increasingly heated in La Crosse during the second half of the century as inhabitants learned a crucial lesson: the arrival of the iron horse transformed their lives in strange and often unsettling ways. People in La Crosse were not alone in this recognition. By the 1850s, people across Europe and North America had long wrestled with the darker consequences of railroading. The truly awesome speed and immense power of trains, for example, helped make the railroad one of the most lethal inventions of the industrial age. Time and again, railway workers lost fingers and lives, careless engineers ploughed into unseen pedestrians, runaway trains careened off bridges, and sparks from train wheels lit buildings and fields afire. Even if trains did not injure bystanders or ruin property, they often impinged on the traditional worlds of Europeans and Americans in other ways. Inhabitants of small towns certainly felt uneasy as new railroad tracks and works redrew familiar neighborhoods and business districts, while train whistles and smokestacks disrupted comfortable routines. Even in world capitals like Paris the arrival of the iron horse threatened to wipe away centuries of encrusted urban history.61 Finally, railroading had deep economic consequences. Many farmers and merchants who relied on trains to ship goods to market accused railroad men of pillaging them with unfair passenger and shipping rates. Modern progress, it seemed, came with a price. La Crosse’s residents shared many of these concerns. They knew for example, that train engines and cars were terribly dangerous vehicles that could easily maim or kill innocent people.62 During one ghastly two-month period near the end of 1870, local railroad workers suffered a variety of agonizing job-related injuries, from amputated legs to badly smashed hands.63 Running trains also imperiled domestic animals and, in turn, the livelihood of La Crosse farmers. In 1870, one city newspaper reported that a doomed calf that had tried to outrun a moving train car “was caught by the cow catcher, which killed the careless animal in the most approved manner of the Sand-

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wich Islanders, by taking his heart out slick and clean, apparently doing no injury to any other portion of the body. The body lay at one side of the road, and the heart in the centre of the track and kept beating for some seconds after it left the body.”64 At the same time, people in La Crosse understood that railroad construction blocked city streets and slowed traffic for hours or days, speeding trains could crack house foundations, and railroad corporations sometimes redirected rivers and marred private property in town in a drive to finish projects.65 By the 1880s, La Crosse residents understood the commercial value of railroads. Yet they, like many fellow Americans in the late nineteenth century, also knew that the business of railroading almost always came with serious, and occasionally gruesome, economic and social costs. Even more galling to many in La Crosse, and many Americans generally, was that state governments had only mixed success when they tried to regulate the behavior of big railroads during the nineteenth century. The spirit to tackle such challenging problems as train safety and shipping rates was clearly alive in state capitals across the nation. Led by such pioneers as Charles Francis Adams, Rhode Island, New Hampshire, Connecticut, Massachusetts, and other states established railroad commissions to monitor and regulate such difficult issues as rail safety and rates. Yet such agencies often lacked the authority, resources, or fervor needed to effectively carry out their responsibilities. The problem of enforcement and the political power of railroads were just as clear in the Middle West. In 1876, Wisconsin legislators eviscerated an earlier law that had limited maximum shipping rates and gave railroads almost free reign to determine their fees.66 The state’s lawmakers were far from alone in this effort to unshackle the iron horse. Although the U.S. Supreme Court recognized the right of state-level agencies to regulate railroads in 1877, legislatures in nearby states actually repealed most ratecontrol laws.67 To many people in La Crosse and elsewhere, elected officials in places like Wisconsin appeared either incapable or unwilling to prevent railroads from running roughshod over their lives. Regardless of the political and economic might of railroad corporations, La Crosse’s citizens did not abandon the dream of reining in their excesses during the late nineteenth century. When state lawmakers failed to act, city residents turned to municipal officials for help. By the 1880s, the idea of municipal regulation had enjoyed a lengthy history in La Crosse. The city’s first charter in 1856 had vending council members with authority to regulate a range of activities, from food vending to gambling.68 Yet the council did not gain power to control railroad corporations until 1883. In January of

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that year, shipping magnate and lumberman Donald A. McDonald, a newly elected Democratic state senator from La Crosse, introduced a bill to amend the city’s charter.69 On March 13, Wisconsin lawmakers ratified McDonald’s bill and granted aldermen new authority over railroads.70 First, they gave the city power to prevent rail engines and cars from blocking traffic on city streets. Second, they gave the council the legal clout to force railroad corporations to keep their local property and works in good repair. Third, lawmakers entrusted aldermen with authority to compel railroad corporations to build and mend railroad crossings and to ensure that these safety measures would protect pedestrians.71 Together, these new measures augmented the city’s traditional police authority. In amending the city charter in 1883, state legislators fundamentally redefined the relationship between municipal government and big railroad corporations and guaranteed that the issue of local railroad regulation would remain a top priority for the city’s politicians and for its residents in the decades to come. La Crosse aldermen eagerly embraced this new regulatory power.72 They first did so in 1885 when attorneys representing two railroad companies— the Chicago, Burlington and Northern and the Chicago and Northwestern— petitioned the council for permission to run trains in town. In September, the council, led by leather and saddle merchant John S. Medary, voted unanimously to welcome the Chicago, Burlington and Northern.73 In November, aldermen also passed an ordinance that granted right of way to the Chicago and Northwestern, but not without controversy. The chief issue was whether the council would allow the company to build a depot that would close Pine and Badger Streets, two roads near the heart of the city. Medary once again took up the cause and argued that a new depot was absolutely necessary for the railroad and the city to prosper.74 Other aldermen were not so sure. George F. Stich, a Republican who represented the city’s Second Ward, for example, argued that “the request was about the galliest he ever heard of ” and wondered why the city would not “give him (Stitch) a street to build a house on.” After an evening of heated debate, the aldermen finally issued a unanimous verdict: they would give the company right of way, but would not cede Pine and Badger. Instead, they ruled that the company could stop trains on those streets, but not build a permanent depot.75 Well before either company made its way to La Crosse, city aldermen asserted their new, state-sanctioned police power and demanded key concessions from company executives. Company obligations also did not begin and end with this debate over where the Chicago and Northwestern would build its depot. Instead, the ordi-

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nances asserted the council’s power to regulate each company after it started operations in town. The ordinances, for example, ordered both companies to keep open city streets and maintain their tracks and operations. Furthermore, they required each company to take measures to guarantee public safety. In particular, they compelled the Chicago, Burlington and Northern to hire a watchman for its Main Street crossing and ordered the Chicago and Northwestern to build bars and gates at its Fourth Street crossing to prevent accidents.76 In both cases, La Crosse’s council granted privileges to the railroads, but also regulated them in ways that influenced the choices that railroad executives made in the 1880s and afterward.77 La Crosse aldermen also used their new police power in an even bolder way: to regulate powerful corporations that had been operating trains in the city long before the charter amendment of 1883. The council’s chief target was the Chicago, Milwaukee and St. Paul, the descendent of the Milwaukee and St. Paul, which dominated railroading in the state by the 1880s.78 In 1886, executives of the Chicago, Milwaukee and St. Paul asked the council for permission to build a new track from its city terminus. Aldermen agreed to this request, but also used the opportunity to apply their new regulatory powers to exercise a measure of control over the corporation and its operations. As in the case of the 1885 ordinances, the Chicago, Milwaukee, and St. Paul ordinance asserted municipal power over the railroad. It required the corporation to move any train cars that obstructed city streets, keep its operations in repair, and pay for any damages to private property.79 In effect, council members granted the railroad the right to lay new track and increase its profits in the city, but also asserted their authority and forced the corporation to alter its business practices. These three ordinances and their amendments created a regulatory framework that the Common Council worked hard to enforce between 1883 and 1900. Aldermen, in fact, flexed their regulatory muscle in three essential ways during the 1880s and 1890s. First, they pressured railroad companies to make sure that engines and cars were not clogging public streets and blocking traffic. On several occasions, council members investigated citizen complaints and issued bold resolutions ordering railroads to make it easier for pedestrians to navigate their tracks and works.80 In 1889, for example, they demanded that the Green Bay and Western Rail Road install new crossings over Market, Ferry, and Madison streets.81 In 1896, aldermen directed the Green Bay and Winona to open crossings on eight major streets that ran through the heart of town.82 Sometimes the debate over who controlled public streets

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took a nasty turn. In 1897, the council informed the Chicago, Milwaukee and St. Paul “to be more careful in the future not to stop their Passenger Trains on Mill St. Crossing And That They are not as yet sole Owner of our Public Street Crossings.”83 The threat of legal action was occasionally enough to force railroads to behave. On October 18, 1887, the council reported that after residents had submitted a petition calling on the Chicago, Burlington and Northern Rail Road to plank its street crossings for pedestrians, the company “did all the work petitioned for at once so it was unnecessary to bring the matter before the council.”84 Together, council investigations and resolutions forced railroad companies to alter their behavior and open city streets in La Crosse after 1883. Second, La Crosse aldermen tried to prevent railroad corporations from inadvertently lowering property values in town. This issue came to a head in the 1890s when the council considered whether to regulate the Chicago, Burlington and Northern Rail Road Company. At the time, the Chicago, Burlington and Northern was a local branch of the Chicago, Burlington and Quincy railroad, one of the most powerful corporations in the Middle West. The Chicago, Burlington and Quincy controlled a vast network of track that stretched from Chicago to the Pacific Northwest, employed 25,000 workers, and had operating revenue of $30 million, about $732 million in 2008 dollars.85 Yet the commercial muscle of the Chicago, Burlington and Quincy did not intimidate the city’s inhabitants. On October 18, 1893, a group of thirty residents submitted a petition to the council that accused the Chicago, Burlington and Northern of “running their trains at an unusual high rate of speed” and “endangering our property which being subjected to such heavy jarring, will make our homes dangerous to reside in and terminate the usefulness of our houses in a much shorter period than is usually allowed good substantial buildings.”86 Shortly after the council received the petition, aldermen warned the company to slow its trains within the city’s limits or “face the consequences.”87 Six days later, the railroad’s managers agreed to do everything in their power to carry out the council’s instructions.88 Furthermore, between 1895 and 1899, residents submitted three separate petitions to the city council that accused railroads of blocking the La Crosse River, flooding their streets, ruining their gardens, cutting them off from municipal services, and, as a result, lowering the value of their land and homes. After an investigation, the council members issued a special report concluding that the city could not provide a legal remedy to salvage falling property values. It did, however, encourage petitioners to sue rail-

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roads in state courts. The report further stipulated that as business increased near the La Crosse River, it might be necessary for council members to take action to protect the property interests of residents living in the area.89 Even when council members believed they lacked authority to order railroads to pay damages, they assumed their constituents had the legal footing to sue the companies in court. Aldermen also reserved their own right to punish these same companies in the future. In each case, city politicians used the machinery of municipal government to force a wealthy railroad corporation to reconsider its basic business practices and take initiatives to protect local property values and local commerce. Finally, La Crosse officials constantly demanded that railroads run safely through town. During the 1880s, many residents blamed the Chicago, Milwaukee and St. Paul for endangering their lives. On January 25, 1887, representatives from the neighborhood of North La Crosse asked the council to order the railroad to build and maintain crossing gates at North Third Street in the interest of safety: “The steadily increasing travel over this crossing, and the very narrow escapes from terrible accidents, that have occurred at this point, show that it is most necessary for the protection of the interests of both the Public, and the Railroad Company that gates be put in.”90 Although it is unclear whether the council actually agreed to this particular request, on May 28, it did order the Chicago, Milwaukee and St. Paul to erect new street crossing signs at Caledonia, Hagar, and Avon streets.91 That same year, Frank J. Toeller, the city attorney, pressured the railroad to erect crossing gates at Mill Street.92 A decade later, the Common Council expanded its focus and ordered all railroads in the city to build passenger platforms that protected local travelers from rain and snow and made travel more comfortable.93 During the 1880s and 1890s, La Crosse aldermen, just like mayors and municipal leaders in larger cities who sought new rail stations to renew and beautify their own communities, successfully leveraged railroad corporations to take new measures that would help prevent injuries and deaths in town.94 Thomas Stoddard died in 1876, seven years before Wisconsin lawmakers saw fit to amend his city’s power to police railroads. As a railroad man, he might have viewed the idea of public regulation with an uneasy eye. In important ways, however, the effort of La Crosse aldermen to rein in railroads was a creative extension of Stoddard’s vision of public and private power converging to solve an important problem related to the iron horse. In the 1850s, Stoddard and other civic boosters turned to municipal government for help in financing railroads. By the 1880s, local concern had shifted from the ques-

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tion of investment to that of regulation. Time and again city elders navigated the intersecting political and commercial worlds and ordered railroads to open city streets, limit damage to private property, and protect passengers and pedestrians from runaway locomotives and natural hazards. In so doing, La Crosse residents demonstrated that their city government provided them with potent legal tools to rein in railroads and craft their economic future in tangible ways.

The Great Bridge Fight In the case of funding and regulation, La Crosse’s municipal government was an arena in which local boosters, politicos, newspapermen, and other residents fought over and influenced railroad development in town. The reality, however, was that inhabitants were not always successful in their efforts to mobilize city power to this end. One incident, in particular, demonstrates the challenges that the city and others like it faced before 1900. In 1869, executives of three separate railroad companies asked the Common Council for an investment of $200,000 to help build a new line between La Crosse and Mineral Point, a prosperous Wisconsin mining town situated a hundred miles to the southeast.95 These requests unleashed a wave of public support for railroad investment. Advocates were convinced that if local government could help draw a new line home, it would increase competition and force the Milwaukee and St. Paul Railway, a company that had taken control of the Milwaukee and La Crosse Railroad in 1863 and maintained a huge influence over shipping prices, to lower rates.96 One journalist urged the council to “Let the citizens vote on giving aid, and at the same time vote which route they wish to open. Do something at once, or be surrounded. And do it boldly, promptly, liberally, then good will come and profit follow.”97 Council members were just as eager to resolve the issue. On May 18, a special committee of aldermen reported to the full council that only one of the companies, the La Crosse, Viroqua and Mineral Point, could actually finish the line. The committee also encouraged the full council to submit the railroad funding question to a public vote.98 For reasons that remain sketchy, however, the Common Council refused to act on this recommendation. This decision baffled many journalists. A writer for the La Crosse Daily Democrat noted in September that the council had done nothing to boost the road: “No election has been ordered and the whole project is likely to fall through, and only by the negligence of our com-

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mon council. . . . This delay of the Council is sapping our city’s greatness.”99 And almost a year after the initial railroad report, the paper’s editor warned that “It is no benefit to La Crosse that she be the ‘Gateway City’ so long as her people stubbornly refuse to open the gate.”100 For many reporters, it seemed as if city aldermen were wasting a golden opportunity to invest public money in a promising railroad project and enrich the city. They were right about one thing. Something interesting was afoot in La Crosse railroading in 1870. Rumors began swirling in town that the Milwaukee and St. Paul was planning to expand its lines and link up with the other nearby railroad, the Southern Minnesota.101 This enticing possibility may have encouraged the council to abandon its Mineral Point plan. Whatever the reason, by the summer of 1870 residents had largely forgotten the La Crosse, Viroqua and Mineral Point petition and were now buzzing about the potential ramifications of this new arrangement. Many people urged this proposed wedding of railroads, at least early on. On June 13, 1870, La Crosse’s mayor and a small delegation of local boosters entertained the Milwaukee and St. Paul’s directors and sang the commercial praises of their city.102 Relations between the company and the city, however, quickly began to fray. As part of the plan to merge the two railroads, representatives of the Milwaukee and St. Paul wanted to erect a brand-new train depot in La Crosse. In June 1870, S. S. Merrill, the general manager of the Milwaukee and St. Paul, informed city leaders that the railroad would build its depot downtown and had a plan to purchase property and acquire the right to run its trains along the river.103 Just days later, aldermen replied that they would set the conditions upon which the railroad could extend its track in town and also handle any negotiations between the company and Mississippi riverfront property owners.104 Tensions increased in August, when council members, after meeting with private owners, issued resolutions ordering that the railroad would not be allowed to build along the riverfront and decreeing that it could lay track only through the city.105 In response, the company built a depot north of La Crosse. This contentious battle with the city was not the culmination of a brief political struggle. Instead, it was a sign of troubles to come in town. Events came to a head when the Milwaukee and St. Paul began planning to bridge the Mississippi River. During the 1860s, boats and ferries had provided the only physical link between La Crosse merchants and southern Minnesota farmers.106 Boosters realized that a permanent bridge would ease transportation and make it more affordable, but they disagreed about where

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to bridge the river. In 1868, Congress, which maintained ultimate authority over interstate transportation and navigable waterways such as the Mississippi under the commerce clause of the U.S. Constitution, attempted to clear up the issue when it granted the Southern Minnesota Railroad power to construct a bridge in La Crosse.107 When the company failed to begin work on the span, federal officials issued a new bridge charter to the Milwaukee and St. Paul.108 Yet this effort did not solve the festering problem. Instead, tensions ratcheted up when Milwaukee and St. Paul officials announced their intention to bridge the river at a site two miles outside the city limits. This decision angered many people in La Crosse who believed that the railroad had violated the city’s trust and was making choices that would eventually cripple local business. Indignation reached a fever pitch when the company rejected outright the city’s offer to pay them to relocate the bridge in town. In response, residents revisited Thomas B. Stoddard’s lesson from the decade before: they tried to mobilize government power to control the railroad. First, they petitioned the federal government for aid. In 1872, local officials requested that William W. Belknap, the U.S. secretary of war, send engineers to assess the bridge location. After this visit, the federal government supported the city’s position. In response, the Milwaukee and St. Paul turned to state-level officials in Minnesota and Wisconsin for permission to begin construction at their original site north of the city.109 The company ultimately convinced Minnesota lawmakers to give them right of way, but the reality was different in Wisconsin. On March 18, 1873, Governor Cadwallader C. Washburn, as noted earlier himself a former resident of La Crosse, vetoed a proposed law that would have granted the railroad power to build a bridge on the grounds that doing so would nullify Congress’s power to control navigable waterways.110 On March 30, many residents welcomed Washburn to town as a conquering hero who had single-handedly outmaneuvered a domineering railroad corporation and preserved the true spirit of American democracy in the Badger State.111 Soon after, lawmakers upheld the veto.112 In response, buoyant city inhabitants tried to strike while the iron was hot. Aldermen scheduled an April vote to determine whether to invest $150,000 in the La Crosse Transit Railway, a company organized in 1872 and charged with building a bridge in the heart of town.113 When city officials computed the final tally, 1,665 of 2,315 voters had supported the bonding.114 By the middle of 1873, La Crosse boosters and politicians had apparently mobilized three levels of government and won a dazzling victory over a powerful railroad corporation. Yet in the face of these setbacks, the Milwaukee and

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St. Paul eventually prevailed in the fight. In March 1874, Wisconsin lawmakers (after much lobbying by the railroad) switched course and authorized the company to bridge the Mississippi wherever it saw fit.115 In 1876, the Milwaukee and St. Paul spanned the river and allowed Southern Minnesota trains to use its bridge. At the end of the day, La Crosse’s citizens had lost the battle. The heated Milwaukee and St. Paul bridge war demonstrates that La Crosse boosters, like those in many midwestern communities in the nineteenth century, were not always able to mobilize government to influence railroads. City residents ran up against a formidable corporate foe with deep pockets, well-established political ties, and a long history of winning government support and expanding its commercial influence. In this case, La Crosse was a creature of the state, but did not always benefit from state policy. Yet the efforts of local politicians and business leaders to deploy state power made an impact on the Milwaukee and St. Paul. The road had to hire lobbyists, employ a team of lawyers, and litigate its case for five years before ultimately winning the fight. Even in defeat, the city’s boosters could make their presence felt in the chambers of the railroad’s Board of Directors.

Small Cities and Iron Rails By the time that Frederick Jackson Turner made his way to La Crosse in 1895 to share inspirational tales of independent heroes conquering the frontier and building a nation, Thomas Stoddard’s efforts to build the Southern Minnesota Railroad and link La Crosse to a wider world seemed to contradict the professor’s moving narrative of a stateless people on the make. Stoddard’s story, in fact, offers a much different origin tale, one rooted in state and municipal officials providing Stoddard and others with tools necessary to build railroads and boost communities. Stoddard was far from alone in his faith in government. His early vision of residents using municipal power to influence the decisions of railroad corporations survived his passing in 1876. It did so because it was both straightforward and liberating: it promised that residents could craft their own future. After 1850, city inhabitants carried through on Stoddard’s vision. They lobbied aldermen to invest public money in private railroad projects they believed would anchor their city in the emerging railway system of the Middle West. From the point of view of many in La Crosse, public money had been critical in turning their small river city into “the gateway to and from all of the great west lying north of the 42nd parallel of latitude” (Figure 12).116

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Figure 12. As this image demonstrates, La Crosse’s inhabitants owed much of their economic success to their city’s location at the confluence of three rivers, the Mississippi, the Black, and the La Crosse, and railroads that steamed into town and linked residents to a larger commercial world in the nineteenth century. Courtesy of Murphy Library, University of Wisconsin– La Crosse.

As residents began to recognize that the arrival of trains often came with steep economic and social costs, they also turned to municipal leaders to control railroads in town. In the end, aldermen could not lower shipping rates and ticket prices or influence the frequency of service in town. Yet they did manage to regulate trains in more nuanced ways. They made it clear to company executives, for example, that the city would have final say over where railroads ran in town. They chastised railroad managers and forced them to yield the right of way on city streets, account for property damage, and ensure

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passenger and pedestrian safety. As the epic Mississippi River bridge fight demonstrates, La Crosse’s citizens were not always successful in their efforts to command midwestern rails. Yet even this failed struggle suggests that La Crosse, and perhaps other hinterland cities, had real potential to influence nineteenth-century railroads. Put simply, as the railroad remade La Crosse, city dwellers and their leaders took advantage of government power to transform the iron horse. Much like the stories of settlement and lumbering, the tale of railroads in La Crosse demonstrates how lawmakers and judges gave local residents a chance to control private corporations and cement their city’s commercial wealth. In this case, however, the people of La Crosse did not rely on federal and state initiatives to remake their economic world. Instead, they increasingly embraced municipal power as their city became an ever more effective player in the midwestern game of economic competition. Railroads, moreover, were not the only corporations that aldermen tried to master as they built their merchant community. La Crosse’s leaders understood that at a time when urban boosters across the Midwest were competing for economic power they needed more than trusty railroad connections to achieve lasting prosperity. They also needed a state-of-the-art public works system to attract settlers and businesses to town. To this end, aldermen again deployed stategranted power to secure their city’s economic future. They forged a tight relationship with corporations to provide clean water, dependable streetlights, affordable mass transit, and better communications in the second half of the nineteenth century. And beginning in the 1860s, this concerted effort to foster and regulate private energies to build public works helped define La Crosse as a modern commercial city by the end of the century.

Chapter Five

“The Most Necessary Reformes”

Dr. John A. Renggly had an important task in the summer of 1882. As the newly elected La Crosse city physician, Renggly was charged with monitoring the general state of health in town and then reporting his medical conclusions to the city’s board of health. He was most intrigued by how the busy community’s surrounding environment affected the wellness of its residents. In his opinion, the region’s specific climate and landscape were ideally suited to ensure a hearty local population. Most important, the “possibility of getting the best of drinking water by means of wells and pumps and of larger depths by means of artesian wells, is offered in unparalleled opportunities.” Renggly further held that the bustling city’s “surrounding bluffs, more or less covered with forest-trees, the woods of the bottom lands, and forests situate along the water courses, and especially the innumerable trees in the City itself, and finally the flowing waters, have a tendency to contribute materially to the state of health in a very favorable direction.”1 La Crosse, in Renggly’s professional opinion, was well situated to be a healthy American city in the 1880s. The city physician, however, was not in a particularly celebratory mood when it came to his town’s sanitary conditions. Renggly’s great fear was the uncontrolled spread of dreaded diseases like typhus, scarlet fever, diphtheria, and measles among the city’s growing population.2 Although he never mentioned it, Renggly and other civic leaders might also have believed that a sick city like La Crosse would never be able to attract new settlers and businesses. The wellspring of this biological threat, from his point of view, was clear: La Crosse was a fetid and ghastly mess in 1882. He refused to pull punches in his report to the council. He impeached the “swamps, located within the City limits” and “the many streets particular the street-crossings, which, after every heavy rainstorm are dirty and stinking water pools.” Moreover, he lamented “the condition of many of the yards of slaughter houses; and the filth, col-

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lected in most of our alleys, the pigstys adjoining the alleys, whose stench is very offensive, the many places in the City where stinking manure is deposited and finally the carcasses of small and large animals left on the surface to decay, within the immidiate vicinity of the city.” According to the doctor, such nuisances invited deadly epidemics and, as a result, required thoughtful civic solutions. He hoped that his report would “lay a foundation broad enough to build upon it sufficient structures” and “show the most necessary reformes in the sanitary condition of the City.”3 In the years to come, in fact, aldermen would invest heavily in updating La Crosse’s antiquated sewage system and eventually help to ensure a fresh water supply for their growing community. Scholars have long noted that aldermen in the nation’s largest cities, from New York to San Francisco, addressed many of the same issues that consumed Renggly during the late nineteenth century.4 The local physician’s story, however, is intriguing because it demonstrates that major American metropolises were not the only urban places in which municipal leaders were often willing to consider costly and controversial ways to provide basic public services.5 Renggly was not alone in his staunch belief that his city’s leaders had an obligation to diagnose urban problems and provide innovative solutions that would benefit the public. Most residents would have agreed: they expected officials to ensure a clean water supply, light city highways, run streetcars, and bring telephones to town. The challenge for municipal leaders was how to transform such ambitious dreams into urban realities. The answer that La Crosse came up with was a dynamic political economy in which municipal leaders relied on private corporations to build and manage critical public services. In actions allowed under the terms of La Crosse’s charter, the Common Council went into debt and made binding contracts with independently owned companies to build and operate a waterworks, lighting system, streetcar lines, and telephone network. Council members hired private corporations to dig sewers and install water pipes, raise electrical poles, lay streetcar track, string telephone wires, and complete any number of tasks necessary to build and operate urban utilities. Municipal leaders thus forged a critical partnership with companies in an effort to provide crucial services that benefited many business leaders in town. In so doing, they defined the local marketplace and shaped industrial development in La Crosse after 1850. Yet aldermen such as George Heath, who battled with power companies over the placement of lights, and J. W. Losey, who urged his fellow council members to regulate streetcars, also understood that new utilities often

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created a host of new problems, such as blocked streets and high utility rates, that required aggressive solutions. To this end, they also took advantage of evolving state law and jurisprudence that vested them with power to regulate these private utilities. With this authority, council members dictated where companies would build and expand their works, how much they charged customers, and how they protected public safety. La Crosse officials did not always concur about where to install water mains or train lines. They were not always on the same page about which companies to hire. Many disagreed about when and how to regulate power rates. What they shared, however, was a conviction that the best way to provide needed services was by deploying public power to focus and direct private energies. In this way, La Crosse’s Common Council was not the passive plaything of hard-nosed utility owners eager to force concessions from hapless and fumbling politicians. Instead it acted as a dynamic public engine that both boosted and regulated privately owned and operated utilities and reshaped La Crosse after 1850.

Watering a River Town One of the most pressing problems that municipal officials in La Crosse and other growing Wisconsin cities faced at midcentury and after was how best to guarantee fresh water. As Renggly’s report suggests, pollution imperiled La Crosse’s water supply in the 1880s. The city was not unusual in this respect. By midcentury, American urban places were veritable landfills of garbage, human waste, and animal dung. Even worse, most of them lacked adequate sewage systems and urban residents regularly treated nearby rivers, lakes, and waterways as expedient disposal sites.6 Moreover, water contamination went hand in hand with outbreaks of typhus and other virulent epidemics that increased along with the size of cities. Water pollution was thus a common civic problem that demanded a comprehensive solution by the middle of the century. Americans wrestled with another dilemma as well that encouraged them to rethink the role of water in urban life: the threat of fire. As carpenters built wooden houses to serve growing populations, the threat of urban fire increased and forced aldermen to ensure an adequate water supply to quench the flame.7 By the time Renggly issued his 1882 report he had joined a chorus of urban leaders from across the nation who were just as interested in providing potable water for their growing cities. City officials, however, were never entirely sure which pathway to fol-

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low as they built water systems in the nineteenth century. In antebellum Boston, for example, a city with a long tradition of public activism, officials eagerly moved away from a makeshift patchwork of private wells and privy vaults when state lawmakers granted them power to forge a municipal waterworks in the 1820s. The story was different in a western city like Oakland, California, where long-standing faith in private initiative and the wherewithal of immensely powerful utility companies undermined efforts to build a wholly public water system until the twentieth century.8 Still, although mayors and council members often disagreed about means, they shared a core belief: they had to provide a water supply that would help make their cities clean, healthy, comfortable, and economically competitive in a modern age. La Crossers shared much in common with other urban dwellers when it came to water issues. Like Bostonians and Oaklanders, Nathan Myrick and other of La Crosse’s early inhabitants relied on rivers and wells for fresh water. Yet neither afforded enough to nourish an emerging city. As more and more settlers flocked to La Crosse in the 1860s and 1870s and strained natural water sources, municipal leaders were eager to secure the city’s water supply. In the same way that aldermen both boosted and reined in large railroad companies, they also led this charge because of their state-granted legal power. One of the truest arrows in the council’s legal quiver was its authority to sell bonds and make contracts with private companies to build public works. Contracting authority did not emerge out of thin air. When Wisconsin’s founders drafted the state constitution in 1848, they did not vest cities with explicit power to borrow money for municipal projects. Instead, they insisted that cities needed the express consent of state lawmakers before they could raise and spend money in any way.9 The vehicle for this legal approval, as it had been in Boston and other nineteenth-century American cities, was the municipal charter. La Crosse’s Common Council first acquired the bonding and contracting powers needed to build a waterworks in 1856 when Wisconsin lawmakers, who exercised explicit authority to organize municipalities under the state’s constitution, incorporated the city.10 In a few cases, the new city’s compact outlined very clear contracting authority limited only by constitutional checks on municipal indebtedness. The 1856 charter, for example, decreed that aldermen “shall annually provide that all printing authorized and required by them, to be done for their use or for the city, shall be let by contract to the lowest bidder” and “have power to order and contract for the

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making, grading, repairing and cleansing of streets, alleys, public grounds, reservoirs, gutters and sewers.” Yet state lawmakers also recognized a fundamental reality: they could never anticipate every possible instance in which aldermen might want or need to sell bonds and invest in projects. For this reason, the charter included a general stipulation: “All work for the city or either wards thereof, shall be let by contract to the lowest responsible bidder, and due notice shall be given of the time and place of letting such contract.”11 State courts, moreover, consistently found that a charter requirement to provide public services was permission enough for a town or city to go into debt to carry out those services.12 La Crosse’s 1856 municipal charter, like charters for many other American cities, thus gave aldermen authority to sell bonds, raise capital, hire engineers and workers, purchase machinery and tools, and forge a tight public and private partnership to water their city.13 By the 1870s, aldermen recognized their city’s need for water and became more committed to using their bonding and contracting power to address the problem.14 In 1875, municipal indebtedness became an issue when they began to consider tapping the La Crosse River as a possible source of fresh water and power. In the summer of 1875, Henry I. Bliss, the city engineer, conducted a comprehensive river survey to look into this knotty issue. Later that fall, a specially appointed council committee that included Bliss as well as Democratic Alderman Charles Michel and the lumberman and council member John Paul visited nearby cities to assess the quality of their public waterworks, then urged the council to introduce a bond resolution to raise $60,000, or roughly $1.2 million in 2008, to build a water system and filtering plant that would, in theory, solve the city’s problems.15 Many residents, however, were less than impressed by the plan. The editor of the Republican and Leader, for example, accused Michel and Paul of being shameless shills for a local lumber business unwilling to spend money to safeguard its flammable property and eager to have municipal taxpayers foot the bill for fire protection.16 In the end, when La Crosse’s aldermen called a special municipal election in November 1875 to consider issuing bonds and raising money to invest in a waterworks, voters rejected the project.17 The battle for public water, however, was not over in the river city. In 1877, La Crosse’s business leaders threw their weight behind the proposed waterworks. In June, members of the La Crosse Board of Trade, a private organization of entrepreneurs that often lobbied the city in the interest of the local business community, submitted a petition to the council demanding that

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aldermen revisit the water question.18 The board urged municipal officials to follow the lead of Winona, Minnesota, a neighboring community that had laid pipes, but had also tried to limit total costs by contracting with a private sawmill to actually pump the water.19 This argument was apparently persuasive. Soon after the board made its case, the aldermen, led by Democrat J. W. Losey, who was chairman of the council’s waterworks committee and one of the most assertive urban boosters in La Crosse at the time, backed the project. In September 1877, council members passed a new ordinance that mapped out a more comprehensive plan for constructing a waterworks that would pump fresh water from the Mississippi River through a series of mains in town.20 Liberated from the need for a huge bonding investment, they contracted with the Colman and Paul sawmills, laid pipes on city streets, and opened the way for the very first public water system.21 On December 27, 1877, the city demonstrated the new system before an eager crowd.22 And on April 8, 1878, La Crosse proudly reported a fifty-day water profit of almost $70.23 It appeared that aldermen had found an affordable way to water their growing city in the 1870s. As La Crosse industrialized and grew, however, the public and private partnership that had so shaped water management in town was not able to keep pace with mounting demand. As a result, beginning in the late 1870s, the city began to define the waterworks as a public entity funded by municipal money and controlled by elected officials.24 In 1880 and again in 1884, for example, the city erected and operated its own water pump houses in town and relied less on private suppliers such as the Colman mill.25 Moreover, municipal officials began to assert greater power over the emerging system. In 1878, the council, once again led by the ambitious and apparently tireless Losey, approved a series of ordinances that requested a $40,000 loan from Wisconsin’s legislature to expand the waterworks, hired a private contractor to lay four and a half miles of new water pipes, established the city’s first sewerage district, and defined how and where builders would lay their pipes.26 Apparently, many local business leaders approved of the council’s actions. In 1881, for example, work on the waterworks had progressed to the point that the Board of Trade sang its praises to any potential entrepreneurs who might be considering the river city for a new business: La Crosse “possesses an excellent system of water works and an efficient fire department, thus both lessening the risk of loss by fire and keeping down the rates of insurance.”27 Much like Bostonians, La Crosse citizens wielded municipal power to water their hometown.

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Aldermen had just begun their concerted effort to help La Crosse bloom. During the summer of 1884, a special council committee urged the full body to revisit the water question and make a serious investment in a new public sewer system. Aldermen on the committee feared that their fellows might be inclined to support cheap improvements that “would prove inadequate and of but little value.” Instead, they proposed a $10,000 project that would create a unified web of waterworks and meet the growing wants of the city.28 In August, the council took up this charge and passed a new ordinance expanding the system.29 This new law was a sign of things to come. Over the next two decades city officials issued more than $200,000 in municipal bonds to extend water services far and wide, hired engineers to plot its course through town, and paid private contractors to dig trenches and lay pipes.30 This decades-long effort was largely successful. The distance of water mains in the city had grown from just over seven miles in 1879 to more than thirtyfive miles in 1897.31 The number of gallons of fresh water pumped every year also increased from 810 million in 1888 to more than 2 billion in 1899.32 By the end of the century, according to the La Crosse Board of Trade, the efforts of Losey and his supporters on the Common Council to build a modern water system had been an important element in the effort to help transform their thriving city into “the Gateway to and From all of the Great West.”33 La Crosse aldermen thus tended to share a basic conviction in the second half of the century: a publicly owned and operated waterworks, rather than privately controlled wells or sewers, was best suited to ensure a steady water supply. Council members, however, did not always see eye to eye on the best way to provide this service. In some instances, angry disagreements fractured the council and riveted local journalists and their readers. In 1894 and 1895, for example, a seemingly simple question related to the city’s waterworks— whom could the Common Council purchase a new water pump from to ensure a fresh supply of drinking water in town—fueled a contentious and revealing debate among its members over deeper political issues such as public corruption and exactly who was in charge of the municipal government. Late in 1894, the Common Council determined that the time was right for the river city to update its pumping system. To this end, its members voted to accept sealed bids from pump companies.34 The final outcome of the bidding process, however, was not exactly what many city politicians had hoped for. In January 1895, a special committee organized to explore the costs involved in the plan suggested that the city should contract with the Henry R. Worthington Company, which had submitted the lowest bid for the pump.

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Almost immediately, however, twelve of the eighteen aldermen in attendance voted to discharge the committee and reject its proposal. Instead, they held that it would be more cost effective for the city to buy a more efficient, if more expensive, engine from the E. P. Allis Company.35 One of the leaders of this push was William Lohmiller, a council member whose professional background likely shaped his stance on the question. Lohmiller was a former Chicago and Northwestern Railroad agent who had moved to the city in 1885 and founded the La Crosse Fuel Company.36 As an entrepreneur who made his living in a technological industry, he was certainly aware of how more efficient machines could increase production, lower costs, and benefit bond holders in the long term. Whatever the motivation, Lohmiller and his council allies were eager for a fight in 1895. The restive aldermen, however, had a formidable enemy in La Crosse’s eccentric major, D. Frank Powell. In response to their resistance, Powell acted. That he did so was no surprise. The mayor, in fact, had a long history as an outspoken political reformer and public gadfly about town. In the 1880s, he had served two consecutive terms as mayor, first as an independent candidate and then as leader of La Crosse’s Workingmen’s Party. In the middle of the 1890s he recalibrated his political identity as a champion of common people and joined ranks with the Populist Party. By this time, the Populists appealed to the sensibilities of farmers and other Americans who felt like they existed on the fringes of industrializing America. They often blamed powerful railroads and bankers for their problems and embraced a bold vision of government ownership of private business and economic regulation that was far ahead of its time in the 1890s.37 Powell may have been something of a political chameleon, but he, like other Populists, was more than willing to step in and attack council decisions that he believed favored private interests (and certain aldermen) at the expense of the public welfare. For Powell, the pump bid was just such a case; he vetoed the city resolution on the grounds that Allis had submitted only the third lowest bid of the bunch.38 The next week, aldermen overrode Powell’s veto and continued to support Allis.39 This political melee continued when the city’s Board of Public Works defied the council and made an agreement with Worthington to carry out the order.40 This choice infuriated Lohmiller and other aldermen who believed they alone had legal power to make contracts and invest in public projects.41 Yet Lohmiller and his allies faced a stark political reality: if they boosted Allis, their foes would continue to raise awkward questions about whether they were more interested in providing fresh and ample water or aiding corporate

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friends at the expense of their constituents. In the end, these aldermen gave up their quixotic struggle. In March, they ordered the Board of Public Works to make an agreement with a third company, Holley Manufacturing, which had underbid Allis, to provide the engine.42 After months of fighting, the council and mayor had solved the pump problem and taken steps to ensure potable drinking water for their city. This battle, however, illustrates just how contentious the implementation of major public works projects could be in a city like La Crosse. The history of La Crosse’s water system demonstrates one way in which aldermen used state-granted authority to channel private energy to provide a critical public service during the second half of the century. As early as the 1870s, La Crosse citizens and their elected officials, like people in many other urban places from Boston to San Francisco, recognized that modern industrial cities required a fresh and ample water supply for fire protection, drinking, and bathing. To this end, municipal officials took ready advantage of state laws and court cases to construct and operate a water system in town. Their early efforts to do so were based on a fundamental belief that it made fiscal sense for the city to forge agreements with the Colman mill and other entities to hydrate the community. By the late 1870s, however, it became clear to many La Crosse aldermen that this close public and private arrangement could not meet the demand for water. In response, they remade their water system into a more public creature, owned, operated, and regulated by municipal officials. As the pump fight of 1895 demonstrates, aldermen and mayors did not always concur about the best way to quench their city’s thirst. What they shared, however, was a dynamic vision of political economy that fostered and organized private power for public ends in an effort to make their city an alluring destination for would-be residents, investors, and business leaders.

Illuminating the Night Watering the city was just one public works concern that La Crosse aldermen dealt with as they competed with other urban boosters in similar midwestern cities during the second half of the nineteenth century. In the 1850s, they also began to debate how best to illuminate city streets after dark. Solving the problem of the night was not unique to La Crosse. For centuries before the city’s founding, humans had perceived of darkness as a perilous veil that concealed a realm of danger, intrigue, crime, and fear, particularly in the world’s

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growing industrial meccas.43 By the early nineteenth century, city leaders in Europe and the United States believed that gas offered them an ideal way to conquer the darkness and make their communities even more attractive to potential residents and investors. Baltimore was the first American city to install gas streetlights in 1816 and other eastern cities, including New York and Boston, soon followed suit and contracted with private companies to build gaslight networks. Urban gas systems also took root to the West as the century rolled on. In the 1850s and 1860s, Kansas City and Denver, for example, franchised gas companies that powered both communities.44 By the 1870s, gas service had become an increasingly common amenity in the nation’s growing cities. Gas, however, was not always a magical cure-all in American cities. Smoke and fumes from gas jets could damage fabric and were often a nuisance to clothiers and urban merchants, while undetected leaks sometimes caused thunderous explosions that echoed through town.45 In the face of these dangers, urbanites and their elected leaders turned to a second source of light and power: electricity. Electrification had clear advantages over gas. Electrical plants did not need expensive, underground pipes to deliver their product; instead, electricity could flow to local businesses and homes through elevated wires. City dwellers also hoped that they could purchase electricity more cheaply than gas.46 One of the first entrepreneurs to recognize these benefits and figure out how to profit from them was Thomas Edison. In 1880, Edison, who had perfected an efficient incandescent light bulb one year before, founded the Edison Electric Illuminating Company, which in 1882 brought electric light to New York City.47 Leaders in American cities soon followed in Edison’s footsteps and erected their own electrical systems. When La Crosse aldermen debated how best to light streets and drive demons from the night, they participated in a larger, ongoing conversation that had seized urban Americans by the second half of the nineteenth century. As La Crosse’s leaders relied on private companies, at least early on, to build a waterworks, they did the same thing to illuminate the city. Beginning in 1861, aldermen took advantage of their municipal contracting power to forge a striking public and private partnership that allowed them to erect a lighting infrastructure. That year, the city signed an agreement with the privately owned and operated La Crosse Gas Works to install the first streetlights in town.48 This pact was just the beginning. As aldermen realized that there would be a growing demand for lighting as the city grew, they began to negotiate with other private corporations to erect lights and build new works

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in town. In 1876, for example, the council contracted with Herman Bender to provide oil and wicks for city streetlights.49 The next year, council members finalized an agreement with Northwestern Globe Gas Light, a Minneapolisbased corporation, to install lampposts and gas fixtures in town.50 This beneficial public and private relationship became stronger when aldermen began to contract with two lighting corporations formed in 1881, the Brush Electric Light and Power Company and the La Crosse Illuminating Company, to provide streetlights for the city. Some local journalists celebrated these new agreements as revolutionary. The Daily Republican and Leader maintained that Brush would help bring “La Crosse nearer to the consummation of this great illuminating project, and a realization of the scientific triumph of the nineteenth century.”51 The paper saw another benefit: lower power costs. It declared that the deal with each of the companies had already forced the La Crosse Gas Company to reassess rates, which “would save the city on a hundred lights, in five years, $75000 [about $1.6 million in 2008], on the basis of reduction from 40 to 25 dollars for each light.”52 Furthermore, in 1887, a cohort of business leaders incorporated a branch of the Edison Light and Power Company in town.53 In coming years, these independent corporations, especially Brush and Edison, would provide the technology and expertise necessary to illuminate the river city. Brush and Edison, however, could not have done so without municipal money or consent. Time and again, each company profited from public largesse in the 1880s and after. Brush, in particular, benefited from city contracts. Between 1881 and 1901, when Brush merged with La Crosse Gas and Edison to form the La Crosse Gas and Electric Company, the council awarded the company more than thirty streetlighting contracts that allowed it to weave a luminescent web in town. In a busy year, such as 1897, aldermen signed seven lighting contracts.54 These agreements often provided a steady source of income. In 1882, for example, the council agreed to pay Brush $5,000 a year for five years to raise and keep in repair streetlights south of the La Crosse River.55 In 1890, the city promised to pay the company $12,500 (a figure equivalent to just over $305,000 in 2008) annually to operate more than a hundred lights in the city for a period of six years.56 Edison also enjoyed unswerving public aid. On at least eight occasions during the decade before the Brush merger, aldermen granted or renewed contracts with Edison to install lights in city buildings.57 In 1890, for instance, aldermen agreed to remit Edison $24 a year to illuminate City Building and Post Office entrances.58 By 1897, the council was paying Edison $1,400, or roughly $37,000 in 2008 money, each year for

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incandescent lights in all municipal buildings.59 Aldermen also continued to draw up contracts with La Crosse Gas and Light. Four times between 1875 and 1897 the council contracted with the company to provide gas for lighting city buildings.60 In 1897, moreover, aldermen requested a company estimate for continued service.61 La Crosse lighting was very much a public and private venture during the late nineteenth century. Brush and Edison clearly profited from this cozy arrangement. It would be naïve to assume, however, that they succeeded solely because of their business savvy and the backbreaking dedication of enlightened managers. Instead, it is likely that both benefited from a key advantage: their owners were economic and political players in La Crosse. Among the applicants who filed state incorporation papers to found Brush in 1881, for example, was Charles Michel, the grocer and former alderman who had so championed public investment in the city’s water system in the previous decade, and G. R. Montague, the company president who had served on the council in 1878.62 Edison’s chief executive was Frederick A. Copeland, a La Crosse Lumber Company manager who would eventually serve one term as the city’s mayor in the 1890s.63 These people may not have been in office at the time they organized their new companies or on the city payroll. But they almost certainly understood the ins and outs of municipal politics and grasped the critical importance of building close connections with politicians who might decide whether to steer municipal lighting contracts your way. At a time when the management of power companies included both aldermen and future mayors, it is not surprising that Brush and Edison enjoyed such a profitable relationship with municipal government. The story of public lighting in La Crosse, however, was not just a saga of the city funneling money to privileged businesses. It was also a tale of city aldermen exercising their state-granted legal powers to regulate these businesses. By 1889, Wisconsin law decreed that city boards of public works had “power to determine the time and manner of using the streets for laying or changing . . . gas pipes, or placing and maintaining electric light . . . poles.”64 The law also stipulated that electric companies had a duty “to provide by suitable insulation, return wires or other means against injury to persons or property by leakage, escape or induction of any and every current of electricity.”65 Under these auspices, La Crosse aldermen passed a robust ordinance that regulated placement and size of electric lighting poles, decreed that the city could attach fire alarm wires to the top of each pole, ordered private companies to insulate lines, and threatened to remove any poles that failed to

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meet the terms of the law.66 The council was not shy about applying this police power. On at least four separate occasions between 1895 and 1897 members required Brush to either install or take down lighting works around town.67 La Crosse aldermen, by controlling light placement, helped shape the geography of illumination in the city. Not everyone benefited equally from this geography. As in many larger American cities, such as Kansas City and Denver, the earliest efforts to illuminate La Crosse often focused on lighting its business district, the pulsing heart of the city’s commercial world, rather than homes and other buildings on the outskirts of town.68 The first kerosene lights raised in 1861, for example, lit up the riverfront and just a few blocks in the business district east of the Mississippi. In 1869, moreover, the La Crosse Gas Works erected streetlights that extended light after dark only one block north and four blocks south of the original kerosene lights. And although Brush expanded this halo of light farther north, south, and east when it installed four 150-foot light towers in 1882, the company did not place such a tower north of the La Crosse River.69 When it came to lighting city streets, commercial interests took precedence. As the city’s Board of Trade noted in 1882, Brush’s dynamo was “capable of supplying 40 lights of 2,000 candle power, a large proportion of which have already been engaged for stores and other buildings.”70 At least early on, then, La Crosse’s emerging geography of illumination benefited certain city inhabitants, particularly those who owned businesses downtown and along the riverfront, more than the residents who lived on the edges of the city.71 Sometimes the political debate over lighting in a hinterland city like La Crosse was heated. Aldermen learned this fact in 1903 when they argued over whether to force power companies to take down overhead electrical lines and lay wires underground.72 The chief advocate of this plan was Alderman George Heath, secretary and manager of the Listman flour mill company, who was convinced that removing electrical poles from La Crosse’s brick district would tidy up the city and make it even more attractive to visitors and potential residents.73 When Heath proposed this plan, however, he aroused powerful opponents. First, local power companies were not at all thrilled at the thought of investing money to dig tunnels and plant wires. Central Electric, a newly organized, direct current company with dreams of making a grand entrance in town, led the charge.74 On June 24, company president R. B. Gelatt argued that the proposed ordinance would hurt Central because the corporation had already made a profound commitment to the city and simply could not relocate its works elsewhere. He further posited that construction costs

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would drive up customer rates and that the project would damage city streets and inconvenience local residents. His argument was apparently persuasive. After the council members heard his case, they tabled Heath’s ordinance until their next meeting.75 Gelatt was not alone among local business leaders in his objections. Two weeks after he met with the council, George McMillan, head of the La Crosse Gas and Electric Company, followed suit and reaffirmed Gelatt’s earlier arguments about the potential costs and destructiveness to the city.76 Together, Gelatt and McMillan offered formidable resistance to Alderman Heath and his plans. The Heath ordinance also provoked another daunting enemy: Aaron M. Brayton. In 1903, Brayton was editor of the La Crosse Morning Chronicle, a daily newspaper with both a large readership and political clout in town.77 When he found out about the wire debate, he launched a full-frontal editorial assault on the proposed law and any aldermen who might support it. On July 1, he accused council members who favored the bill of making a “grave mistake,” suggested that some of them may have been in cahoots with a gas company, and urged Mayor William Torrance to veto the ordinance if it passed.78 The next day, he pilloried the council as a secretive tool of private interests that boosted underground wires without opening the question to public debate.79 Brayton’s campaign continued. On July 3, he reminded readers that their city’s clean and orderly streets often attracted the attention of visitors and maintained that “enforcement of this ordinance will permanently injure and disfigure the pavement” and that compliments “will cease once it is ripped up and patched.”80 He later evoked the name of muckraker Lincoln Steffens to warn La Crosse residents that political corruption was a constant threat in cities as they grew in size and as their inhabitants felt less and less investment in municipal politics.81 In the end, Brayton’s argument helped win the day. On July 10, aldermen rejected the ordinance and, in the process, learned a valuable lesson: their ability to regulate the built environment of lighting at the turn-of-the-century required the widespread approval of La Crosse voters, or at least the tacit support of outspoken players such as R. B. Gelatt and Aaron Brayton.82 Underground wiring was a real issue in the city. Even more significant, however, was the ongoing political debate over electricity rates. In response to rising power costs, aldermen in La Crosse, much like municipal leaders in Denver and other cities in the late 1890s and early 1900s, explored the possibility of taking advantage of an 1889 state law that gave cities authority to either buy private lighting plants or build their own municipal works to com-

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pete with owners who refused to sell.83 In 1893, the council appointed a committee of five aldermen to carry on with the investigation.84 In the summer of 1894, this committee released an intriguing study of municipally owned plants in other cities that concluded “the cost of lighting the same has been invariably less under the municipal system than under the contract system where such system was theretofore being used.” Although the authors of the report worried that the costs of building such a public plant might outweigh the benefits, they urged the council to glean “what can be accomplished under present local conditions in reference to municipal lighting.” They also recognized another potential quandary: a municipal lighting plant could cripple Brush Electric. Still, the aldermen involved in the study held that the full council needed to make a speedy choice because “the control of this particular function of municipal government may pass beyond our grasp and the city may surrender forever a most important and valuable franchise.”85 The Common Council did not make a final decision in 1894. But it did continue to weigh the matter for the next decade. One year later, the city commissioned an electrical engineer to estimate the construction and maintenance costs of a municipal plant.86 Still, for reasons that are sketchy, the council remained hesitant to advance beyond this preliminary stage. By 1900, however, it seemed ready to move on the issue. That year, Robert Schultze, a Democratic alderman from the Fifth Ward, introduced a resolution that required the mayor to appoint a special committee to calculate the expense of public electricity.87 This committee corresponded with the leaders of twelve midwestern cities to map out exactly how much each community invested in electrical illumination. Using this information, the committee calculated that a city-owned lighting works would cost between $40,000 and $50,000. Yet even armed with this estimate, the council remained unable to resolve whether such an investment would ultimately pay off for the city and its residents.88 The issue did not die in 1900. Aldermen revisited it four years later. But the city, perhaps under pressure from private utilities and their supporters, again decided to postpone a final vote.89 By 1904, municipal ownership of lighting was an idea whose day had passed in La Crosse. After efforts to build a municipal lighting plant fell apart in La Crosse, aldermen who favored lower power rates explored two different avenues in 1905. On the one hand, they attempted to legislate gas and electricity rates from city hall. This kind of assertive regulation, however, was never popular in town, and the council, led perhaps somewhat surprisingly by Alderman Heath, voted unanimously to kill the effort on February 28.90 On the other

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hand, they attempted to foster economic competition to reduce customer costs. To this end, in 1905 city officials debated whether to issue a franchise to another corporation, Wisconsin Light and Power, to build its own gas and electrical works to compete with firms already holding franchises. Given the stakes involved for the city, many council members, as well as many residents, raised questions about the franchise. Perhaps the greatest fear was that the new corporation would not compete with La Crosse Gas and Electric and do little to actually lower costs. This concern took on greater urgency when Henry A. Salzer, president of Wisconsin Light and Power and the wellrespected manager of a La Crosse seed business, asserted that the company does “not intend to bring in an electric light war. We do not mean to cut and slash prices with the old electric light company. We shall sell our light at the same rates that the old company has given.”91 Even in the face of this unambiguous statement, aldermen issued a franchise to Wisconsin Light and Power. As construction on the plant neared completion in 1905, many city residents held out hope that they would feel the company’s positive impact on their pocketbooks. One of the most vociferous cheerleaders of the new plant was the La Crosse Tribune. Just days before Wisconsin Light and Power began operations in La Crosse, a Tribune headline declared that the “New Lighting System Is Perfection.”92 The paper was particularly excited because the new company would inevitably help lower rates in town through restored competition. In the absence of rivalries among private utilities, “prices of light and electricity went skyward.” According to the paper, however, just the promise of a new plant was enough to lower local power rates: “already the trust has announced a cut of twenty-five percent in prices. Remember that this is a red letter day for La Crosse.”93 The paper directed its bile at Alderman Heath, “the floor leader for the old public utility ring,” who had criticized the plant for not serving the people’s interest.94 It appeared that competition had won the day in the river city. As it turned out, however, the city’s effort to foster economic competition among power companies in the interest of lower rates was never as effective as its supporters had hoped. Just two years after the arrival of Wisconsin Light and Power, La Crosse Gas and Electric bought out its competitor and established firm control of electrical power in the city.95 Still, this tale of lighting demonstrates that state lawmakers provided officials in La Crosse and other similar cities with a variety of tools to concentrate and direct private initiative to build a public lighting system. In the 1870s and 1880s, the city’s officials, like their counterparts in other American cities large and small, were eager to

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illuminate streets after dark and contracted with private companies to erect lights, provide fuel, and build a municipal lighting network that benefited shop owners and storekeepers in the city’s thriving business district. After 1889, city leaders regulated these corporations and determined where they would raise poles and how they would do business. Most striking, they tried to limit electricity rates by threatening to either build a public plant or attract competitors to drive down consumer costs. In the end, this plan failed to make lighting less costly. But it did demonstrate how this mixed public and private political economy defined street lighting, and La Crosse, as municipal leaders turned to cutting-edge technology to transform their promising city into an attractive commercial mecca at the turn of the century.

Moving the Masses While La Crosse’s municipal leaders struggled with mixed results to compel private companies to provide what they deemed reasonably priced and efficient light and power, they also grappled with another issue important in the game of urban boosterism: public transportation. They were not alone. By the time La Crosse officials took up the issue in the 1870s, municipal leaders across the United States had long wrestled with how best to build streetcar systems to bind neighborhoods together. As cities grew in size and population, mass transit became an ever more crucial part of American urban life. During the first half of the nineteenth century, municipal leaders were willing to experiment with a host of innovative urban transportation technologies. As early as the 1820s, privately owned and operated horse-drawn omnibuses served the transportation needs of growing urban populations near and far. By the middle of the century, however, New York, Boston, Chicago, and many of the country’s largest metropolitan areas had switched gears and contracted with independent horse-driven street railways to lay tracks and run trains.96 Not surprisingly, horsepower came with its own set of problems that encouraged many city residents and their leaders to investigate other power sources near the century’s end. Like other domesticated beasts of burden, horses needed adequate food, water, shelter, and rest to perform their jobs. Horse excrement, and the occasional animal left to die on a city thoroughfare, also added to urban pollution and disease.97 City officials throughout the country were thus keenly interested in new streetcar technologies that promised to eliminate these problems. One solution, the steam-driven cable car, was far from ideal. It was often expensive to install, relied on bulky stationary

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engines to drive its cars, need ready supplies of coal, and was often difficult to operate in traffic. As a result, cities turned to a new kind of motive energy they believed would revolutionize urban transit: electricity. Electricity moved cars faster. Its works were cheaper to build and run.98 For these reasons, electrified transit entranced officials in big American cities such as New York and Chicago. But it also captivated aldermen in smaller places such as La Crosse. As La Crosse’s municipal leaders took advantage of state-granted power to both fund and regulate water and lighting companies, they also relied on state lawmakers and judges for fresh authority to harness private energies and build a street railway. In 1860, Wisconsin legislators, likely influenced by state lawmakers around the country who had already embraced the idea that municipalities needed legal authority to build and regulate their public spaces, passed a new law that granted common councils authority to dictate terms to private streetcar companies.99 Under the act, for example, state lawmakers gave aldermen ultimate power to decide whether a street railway company could begin local operations and where it could lay its track and run animal-powered passenger cars in town. Aldermen’s authority did not end when they agreed to open their city’s streets to private horse-drawn cars. Instead, the act stated that city railroads “shall be subject to such reasonable rules and regulations . . . as the common council of the city . . . may, from time to time, by ordinance, prescribe, and to the payment of such license fee to the city in which such road may be constructed, for each and every car run thereon.”100 Such legal language was imprecise, but its underlying message was crystal clear in 1860: municipal government would have a determining say in the affairs of privately controlled streetcar companies.101 This legal framework empowered La Crosse aldermen to fashion a horsedrawn streetcar network in the 1870s. As they had done with streetlights, city officials turned to private companies to lay rails and run trains in town.102 In 1878 the council took concrete steps when it voted unanimously to offer a franchise to the La Crosse Street Railway, a company founded by David Law, Gideon Hixon, and P. S. Davidson, three of the most influential businessmen and political players in the city.103 In the summer of 1879, the franchise began running streetcars and ushered La Crosse residents into a new age of urban mobility.104 In the same way that public lighting catered to riverfront businesses first and foremost, the La Crosse Street Railway accommodated the city’s lumber industry. In particular, it forged a link between sawmills on the city’s north side and mill employees who lived in the working-class neighborhoods of

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south La Crosse.105 Law, Hixon, and Davidson did not hold their streetcar monopoly for long. In 1881, in fact, the council received a petition from a cadre of local capitalists, including beer magnate George F. Gund and well-heeled merchant Mons Anderson, and decided to grant their request to found a second streetcar company.106 The two companies coexisted until 1885 when they merged to become the La Crosse City Railway.107 In years to come, City Railway branched out to the north and south and connected more businesses and their employees. By the 1890s, for the price of a nickel, passengers could board one of the company’s nineteen streetcars and complete a round trip in just an hour. This traction web helped define La Crosse as a modern city.108 The council was thus anxious to grant private companies power to lay track and run trains in town. Yet its members, including such notable names as J. W. Losey, the alderman who had championed expansion of the municipal waterworks just one year before, made it evident to these striving companies that the city was ultimately in charge of how this transit system would function in the decades to come.109 The 1878 La Crosse Street Railway ordinance, for example, laid out an exhaustive set of rules and instructions that the company had to obey if it wanted to continue running local streetcars. First, the ordinance asserted the council’s authority to dictate when and where the company would lay track and expand its works. Second, it clarified how the railway would construct new lines and ruled that the company would be responsible for any damages incurred during building projects. Third, Losey and his fellow aldermen wove a web of safety regulations to protect passengers and people on the street. They ordered all cars to “carry signal lights after dark” and stop at street crossings, set speed limits for trains in the city, and follow a host of other safety regulations. Finally, the council asserted its “right to make all necessary and usual police regulations concerning the operation and running of cars on said street railroads during the continuance of the rights and privileges hereby granted.”110 The 1878 ordinance and others that followed demonstrated a truism in La Crosse. Although aldermen were eager to encourage private companies to construct and operate a modern public transportation system in their burgeoning city, they were just as determined to police these same companies during the late nineteenth and early twentieth centuries. La Crosse aldermen were particularly assertive when streetcar companies asked them for permission to lay new track and expand their works in town. Councilmen and their constituents understood that new street line

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construction was a sign of a healthy city on the make. They also recognized that such projects often came with troubling consequences. Most important, expansion often closed down public highways and hurt city shopkeepers who relied on walking traffic for business. Some local inhabitants sensed how controversial track building could be from the beginning. In 1881, the Street Railway Company proposed to build a line on Main Street that would link the Cameron House hotel to the Green Bay Railroad Depot. Many observers endorsed the plan. Yet many did so with nagging reservations about its impact on the city’s built environment. The Republican and Leader, for example, predicted that the “company . . . will be heartily encouraged by our people,” but feared that there “are streets which the public have a right to object to being used for Street railway purposes. Main street is one of them and merchants and property holders interested in keeping it in condition for travel and trade will probably not consent to have it torn up by a Street railway track.”111 In this case, the company did not follow through on the streetcar plan. But fears that it might eventually do so, and with catastrophic results, foreshadowed a debate that would remain at the heart of local politics. Track laying in town became a particularly prickly subject after City Railway electrified in the 1890s.112 On at least three occasions between 1895 and 1899, the council ordered the company to move its lines.113 Furthermore, on November 8, 1895, aldermen promised the railway that if it did not remove its tracks and works on a five-block section of State Street the city would finish the project itself and forward the bill.114 In May 1896, councilors ordered the railway to dismantle one of two lines that tied La Crosse Street to the La Crosse River bridge and repave the road.115 In 1899, aldermen reminded the railway that it needed to obey a year-old municipal resolution to relocate its tracks to the west side of North Third Street.116 This battle over traction continued in 1900, when City Railway requested council permission to extend its lines in town. According to the Morning Chronicle, aldermen were not in a particularly generous mood when it came to the street railway: “The committee is of the opinion that the city should not be slashed and cut up by irregular and haphazard street car lines and furthermore the people can be best accommodated by running cars out on the streets upon which the track now is and not zig-zagging all over the residence portions of the town.” Furthermore, they suggested “that the street car company be required to lay out and then stick to a plan of its system and future extensions in order that citizens will know what street cars will run

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on in years to come.”117 This heated response demonstrates how contentious track projects could be in town.118 As La Crosse aldermen and City Railway fought over where the company would place its track, they also waged war over the extent to which the city could exercise its state-granted authority to regulate company business practices. During the 1890s, for example, council members tried to compel the company to reduce passenger fares. In 1896 the body, led by Alderman James B. Murray, who enjoyed the political support of both local Democrats and Populists and was preparing a run for mayor in 1897, pushed unsuccessfully for the railway to lower ticket prices for laborers traveling to and from work.119 A second matter that also captured council attention was public safety. In 1901 a political storm nearly broke in La Crosse when the Common Council fined City Railway $600 (a figure worth more than $15,000 in 2008) for failure to comply with the state requirement to provide its workers with adequate protection from the icy winter. Rather than challenge the city, the railway agreed to upgrade the vestibule on four of its cars and both sides avoided what could have been a long and politically bloody conflict.120 In 1905, moreover, aldermen decreed that streetcar motormen needed to come to a complete stop at least twenty feet before any city railway crossing or suffer the consequences of either a fine or imprisonment in county jail.121 Although the council was not always able to enforce its will on City Railway, its efforts to do so indicates how uneasy this public and private relationship often was at the turn of the century. The history of urban transportation in La Crosse was a case of assertive municipal leaders boosting and regulating private companies to serve public ends in the nineteenth century. Rather than build a municipally owned and operated streetcar system, aldermen followed a model similar to the one they, and municipal officials in New York, Boston, and other urban places, had used to water and light their city: they took advantage of state law and contracted with franchised companies to lay track and run trains in town. At the same time, Losey and other La Crosse aldermen worked within a legal framework etched out by Madison lawmakers to regulate company practices. They dictated track placement around town. They crafted and enforced safety regulations. And although they failed to regulate fares, they did guarantee that their neighbors would continue to debate the issue after 1900. The political economy of mass transit in La Crosse, then, was very much defined by municipal officials who tried to channel private economic energies to tie their

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growing city together and make it even more appealing to potential settlers and investors in the late nineteenth century.

Telephonic Connections Finally, as La Crosse leaders relied on private interests to build a waterworks, forge a lighting system, and plot streetcar lines, they also confronted a new municipal franchise corporation with a device that was transforming the United States and the world at the century’s end: the telephone. The possibility of long-distance communication had long bewitched the American public. At midcentury, Samuel Morse tantalized the country with the telegraph, an invention he thought would allow Americans to transcend their growing regional differences, heal their troubled nation, and help his fellow citizens avoid a potentially catastrophic civil war.122 Others heard fantastic tales of Guglielmo Marconi’s wireless, a new technology that had forged an ethereal communication network among Atlantic cargo and passenger ships in the 1890s.123 It was Alexander Graham Bell’s telephone, however, that showed the most promise for revolutionizing how city residents communicated with one another. The first American city that built a phone exchange was New Haven, Connecticut, in 1878. New Haven was just the beginning. Politicians and business owners in La Crosse and other cities soon embraced the telephone as a marvelous tool that could help them run their municipal governments, shops, and factories more efficiently in an increasingly complex modern world. In the words of journalist Leslie Cauley, “The excitement of using a telephone to communicate with the outside world, even if it was just a neighbor down the street, was hard to beat.”124 La Crosse’s first telephone system took root even before state and municipal officials got involved in telecommunications. Local entrepreneurs were the first people to take advantage of the new technology. In 1878, a private phone line connected two local businessmen.125 By 1880, forty such lines crisscrossed the city and linked City Hall and other businesses in town. In 1881, however, the nature of local communication in the city changed when Wisconsin Telephone, a privately owned and operated Milwaukee company, established the first telephone exchange in town.126 Finally liberated from the need for direct, phone-to-phone links, private businesses enjoyed greater flexibility when it came to making and receiving calls. As La Crosse’s telephone system emerged, city officials took steps to nurture its development.127 Most important, aldermen, perhaps following the

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basic model they had established with streetlights and City Railway, used their state-sanctioned contracting power to join in a mutually beneficial financial relationship with Wisconsin Telephone. In 1889 the council granted the company permission to raise poles, string wires, and operate a phone exchange in La Crosse, provided that it maintained an office in town, did not block city traffic, and kept its works in good repair.128 In 1891, aldermen agreed to pay an annual fee of $782 (or more than $19,000 in 2008 dollars) to operate twenty-two company phones in city buildings.129 One year later, they voted to pay the company to place a phone in City Hall.130 In 1897, moreover, they spent $1.25 a month for service in the police station and fire department.131 By investing in Wisconsin Telephone, city leaders helped nurture the company and create a telephone network that would facilitate communication among municipal officials and, in so doing, perhaps even improve local government at the turn of the century. Many La Crosse aldermen, however, were not satisfied with having one telephone company in town during the 1890s. Time and again, in fact, they used their contracting power to boost a second, locally owned company, La Crosse Telephone, they likely hoped could challenge Wisconsin Telephone. In 1893, eight of the city’s leading businessmen came together and organized the new company.132 By 1895, it was on its way to finding a foothold in town. In the spring of that year, the Common Council, after a heated debate led by the Populist-leaning Murray, who was unhappy that the new company wanted customers to sign a three-year service contract rather than the oneyear agreement offered by Wisconsin Telephone, ratified an ordinance that granted the new company power to raise poles, string wires, and build a fullfledged phone system.133 Furthermore, even before La Crosse Telephone went into operation, city officials signed agreements with the company to provide service in municipal buildings.134 On August 16, 1895, the company agreed to outfit city offices with phones at a rate no higher than $24 per annum “for each set of instruments placed.”135 In the years to come, the city contracted with the company to put phones in the offices of the city attorney, police justice, fire department, veterinary surgeon, and city treasurer and in the north side scale house.136 Municipal contracts were not the only source of company profits. By 1900, it had 663 telephones in operation in the city, many of which served local businesses.137 By allowing La Crosse Telephone to open shop in town and by contracting to use its phones in public buildings the city helped legitimize the company in ways that voters would have noticed. While the rise of La Crosse Telephone in the 1890s had an immediate

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impact on the city, it also offered an alternative service model to the dominant regional and national systems that emerged in the twentieth century. By the 1910s, La Crosse Telephone had enjoyed so much success that it took legal steps to cement its local influence. In 1911, Wisconsin’s legislature passed a law that required all telephone companies in the state to “permit a physical connection or connections to be made, and telephone service to be furnished, between any telephone system operated by it . . . and the telephone system of another such public utility . . . whenever public convenience and necessity require.”138 The purpose of the law was to eliminate monopoly control and prevent cities from duplicating services. In 1913, La Crosse Telephone filed suit under this law to force Wisconsin Telephone, now controlled by American Telephone and Telegraph, to open its local and long-distance lines in town.139 After a protracted legal battle, the case eventually wound through the state legal system and made its way to the Wisconsin Supreme Court. In 1916, the court upheld the statute and forced Wisconsin Telephone to cede access to its lines to its competitor.140 The writing was clearly on the wall for Wisconsin Telephone. In the aftermath of the decision, La Crosse Telephone asserted its local influence, bought out Wisconsin Telephone in 1919, and assured that local business leaders rather than AT&T would control telephony in town. Control did not last for long. In 1928, Middle Western Telephone, a company controlled by outsiders, took over La Crosse Telephone.141 For at least a time, however, the company seemed to offer an alternative path, a road not taken, to the creation of an American telephone system dominated by national and transnational corporations. By boosting the company, city leaders played a key role in this telephonic adventure. In the end, the story of La Crosse’s telephone system, much like the stories of the city’s waterworks, street lighting, and mass transit, was a tale of municipal government both empowering and regulating private businesses to forge a public utility. Beginning in the 1880s, the city vested both the Wisconsin and La Crosse Telephone Companies with legal authority to build works, raise poles, string wires, and establish a communications network. Municipal officials contracted with both companies and helped them establish a toehold in town. Even more striking, when Wisconsin Telephone fell out of favor with city residents, aldermen supported homegrown La Crosse Telephone to boost economic competition and bolster the fortunes of local business leaders, who eventually took control of the industry. The history of La Crosse telephones, much like that of other municipal utilities, is a narrative of city officials defin-

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ing a marketplace and creating an industry they believed would provide the modern services that potential residents and business owners craved.

The Political Economy of Public Works As La Crosse’s city physician, Dr. John A. Renggly had a unique responsibility to diagnose the causes of a civic problem, poor sanitation, in 1882. Renggly, however, was not alone in his fundamental conviction that the municipal government had an obligation to address the city’s most essential problems throughout the second half of the nineteenth century. Even before the 1880s, most La Crossers embraced the notion that city officials had a clear-cut responsibility to provide clean drinking water, illuminate streets and shop windows, speed up transportation, and improve telecommunications in ways that would make La Crosse an attractive destination for potential residents and new businesses. The problems of urban life were clear after 1850. Finding practical solutions was a different story. Faced with this challenge, La Crosse’s leaders, much like their civic counterparts in New York, Boston, Oakland, Denver, and other larger American metropolises, took eager advantage of state laws and court decisions that allowed them to mobilize private power and build up public works in town between 1850 and 1900. First, they relied on their state-granted power to sell bonds and contract with private companies to establish a waterworks, light streets after dark, run trolleys in town, and raise telephone poles. In doing so, they forged a vibrant public and private relationship that provided constituents with important municipal services and, at the same time, boosted local businesses. Second, La Crosse aldermen deployed their state-vested police power to regulate how these companies behaved. They dictated the placement of light and telephone polls and wires, decreed where City Railway would run trains, and fostered private competition to try and lower electricity rates. Not every resident benefited equally from public works and aldermen sometimes fought over how best to provide residents with potable water or reliable streetcars. Yet one reality was clear: municipal leaders did not simply sit quietly by as other hinterland cities erected modern public works. Instead, local aldermen, much like their fellows in Boston and many large metropolises, embraced a political economy of public works based on assertive municipal power bridling private economic energy in the civic interest and remaking La Crosse into a thriving modern community at century’s end. Public projects. Railroads. Lumber mills. By the second half of the nine-

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teenth century federal and state lawmakers and judges had provided La Crosse residents with a palette of creative tools to shape each of these economic ingredients, and, in the process, construct a bustling middle western entrepôt. Legislators and jurists, in other words, transformed the city into an engine of distributive and regulatory power that allowed its residents to craft its commercial development from within after 1850. Not surprisingly, the residents who benefited the most from this dynamic political economy were the city’s businessmen. As we have discovered, lawmakers and judges enabled settlers like Nathan Myrick, railroad mavens such as Thomas Benton Stoddard, and lumbermen like Charles Colman to enrich themselves as they founded a midwestern community. The political economy of nineteenthcentury La Crosse was very much geared to boost the economic fortunes of enterprising men. Ironically, the state provided La Crosse’s residents with a pantheon of early male heroes who seemed to embody the traits University of Wisconsin professor Frederick Jackson Turner lauded when he visited the city and lectured about the nation’s past in 1895. Yet even as the overlapping and enmeshing levels of the American polity helped reinforce the commercial power of well-to-do businessmen, they also created brand-new opportunities for other La Crosse citizens to challenge this power and shape the city’s economic history in striking ways. When lawmakers and judges passed legislation and issued court decisions that empowered the city council and enabled aldermen to invest in railroads and public works, they sent a message to other residents: municipal government could be an effective tool to remake the economy and the world. Some of their neighbors were particularly interested in applying this lesson to their own experiences. In the 1880s, in fact, many disgruntled working men in La Crosse heard this message, rallied behind local candidates, won city elections, and tried to wield municipal power in an effort to reorient their city’s economic destiny. And as the story of D. Frank Powell suggests, they did so in ways that left a lasting commercial impact on the river city and its residents by the end of the century.

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Chapter Six

From White Beaver to Working Man

David Frank Powell seemed an odd choice to represent the interests of La Crosse workers when he ran for mayor in 1885 (Figure 13). Powell had never choked on sawdust in a lumber mill, never lost his job in a wave of factory layoffs, and never struggled to live on a common laborer’s wage. Instead, he made a comfortable living as a doctor and was better known for his colorful (and largely invented) past than for his grasp of the plight of working people (Figure 14). By the time he arrived in La Crosse in 1882, he had come of age in western New York, trained to be a pharmacist in Chicago, found his way to the Nebraska frontier, graduated from the Louisville Medical College, and worked as an army surgeon in the West. Yet he was best recognized as an energetic self-promoter who embraced his Indian heritage and played up his close friendship with William “Buffalo Bill” Cody, the famous frontier showman who helped craft American perceptions of the West during the late nineteenth and early twentieth centuries (Figure 15). As the mayoral election of 1885 approached, Powell had successfully cemented his reputation among La Crosse’s citizens as a flamboyant eccentric. But the city’s major party politicians refused to take the good doctor seriously.1 They really should have. Powell, in fact, turned out to be a far more formidable candidate than his critics had imagined. Against all odds, he inspired local workers to vote and captured the mayor’s office in 1885 and again in 1886. Not surprisingly, like many other labor and radical party candidates in cities across the nation, he met ferocious resistance from the city’s major party politicians when he advocated using municipal power to make taxation progressive and limit the workday of city employees to eight hours.2 Both Democrats and Republicans in town viewed the mayor as an unqualified dandy masquerading as labor’s hero, and he was unable to convince the Common Council to regulate working hours or wages. By 1887, he was out of

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Figure 13. In the middle of the 1880s, D. Frank Powell was one of the bestknown residents of La Crosse. Powell demonstrated this popularity, and revealed the growing political power of organized workers in La Crosse, when he ran for mayor as a labor candidate and was elected in 1885 and again in 1886. Courtesy of the La Crosse Public Library and La Crosse County Historical Society.

office and his dream of using municipal power in the interest of city workers appeared to founder in the swift and icy currents of local party politics. Yet although Powell and his supporters on the Common Council failed to legislate improvements in the lives of workers, their effort to do so reveals a great deal about how legislators and jurists helped frame economic development in town. First, it demonstrates how federal and state animosity shaped the choices of local workers. By 1885, federal and state officials were often suspicious of organized labor activism in the United States and more sym-

Figure 14. D. Frank Powell worked hard to sustain an image as a mixed-ethnicity child of the Wild West. In this photograph, the doctor sits in his office surrounded by antlers, snowshoes, buckskin clothing, and other items that La Crosse residents, like most Americans, associated with frontier adventure in the 1880s. Courtesy of Murphy Library. University of Wisconsin–La Crosse.

Figure 15. Powell’s long friendship with the famous western showman William “Buffalo Bill” Cody (left) helped the mayor secure his western cachet in the 1880s. The anonymous boy in this photograph taken in La Crosse may not have realized that he stood perilously close to the meeting point between “savagery” and “civilization.” Courtesy of La Crosse Public Library and La Crosse County Historical Society.

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pathetic to protecting the property rights of American business leaders. At both the federal and state levels, lawmakers had done little to regulate factory conditions, judges had often issued injunctions to halt worker protests, and executives had sometimes deployed troops to shatter strikes. For workers in La Crosse and elsewhere, the message was clear: federal and state government officials had little interest in using their authority to boost organized labor. The American state, however, was not entirely closed off to La Crosse workers in search of legal remedies. Powell’s campaigns, in fact, demonstrate how the struggle for control of one level of government—the municipal— offered local laborers a fresh chance to reconfigure political and economic debate in town. As late as the early 1880s, most of the city’s Democrats and Republicans had little to say about either working conditions or wages in their city’s industrial economy. Powell’s largely unexpected electoral victories, however, forced both parties to recalibrate their basic political messages to appeal to local workers. In the aftermath, the two parties spoke openly about using municipal power to protect working people. Although Powell did not succeed in his efforts to mobilize city government in the interest of labor, his attempts to do so, along with his ability to galvanize workers behind his candidacy, encouraged many La Crosse citizens to reconsider some core assumptions about the role of municipal government in their city’s commercial life. At the same time, Powell’s seemingly failed effort had a powerful impact on the city’s economic development beyond the voting booth: it bolstered the organized labor movement in town. Labor organizing was nothing new in La Crosse or other American cities in the Middle West and across the nation by 1885.3 For the most part, however, union building and other worker activism had not left a particularly lasting mark on the city or its economy. Yet, shortly after Powell’s victorious campaigns, the worm seemed to turn. New labor newspapers took root in town, the Knights of Labor and other craft unions established a strong local presence, and workers joined rallies and strikes. This vibrant working-class consciousness did not always lead to better wages or shorter workdays. It did not always open local politics to labor party candidates. But in some instances this new agitation forced business leaders to improve working conditions and pay greater mind to the concerns of their employees. Moreover, worker protests in La Crosse offered a compelling critique of municipal government and celebrated a more activist vision of city officials intervening in the economy to protect working people. In the end, Powell and his supporters struggled to bring about lasting change in the middle of the 1880s. Their legacy, however, helped retune local perceptions of

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municipal power in the river city. In this sense, the good doctor remained an ironic victor even in electoral defeat.

The Plight of Organized Labor La Crosse’s major party politicians and well-to-do entrepreneurs should not have been shocked that organized workers tried to capture municipal power for their own ends in 1885. By this time, the seeds had already been sown for the rise of an energetic labor movement in town. Most important, like many other industrializing cities in the Middle West and the nation, a growing number of the city’s residents worked in manufacturing jobs that seemed less and less secure by the middle of the decade.4 Between 1881 and 1885, the total number of manufacturing hands in the city had exploded from fewer than nineteen hundred to over seven thousand. The lumber industry was the engine driving job creation. More than three thousand La Crossers, 44 percent of the city’s total manufacturing workforce in 1885, worked in either the logging or sawmilling industries. Other residents, moreover, earned their living in industries directly dependent on the health of lumbering. Almost sixteen hundred men, for example, worked in carpentry, contracting, and building, businesses that all depended on a fresh supply of freshly cut boards, shingles, and other wood products generated by the city’s saw mills. Lumber was far from the only game in town. A host of new industries, in fact, had taken root by 1885 and provided fresh job opportunities for the city’s growing population. For the most part, however, timber remained the lifeblood of La Crosse’s workforce.5 In many ways, lumber workers were primed and ready to lead an electoral revolt in the river city. One of the biggest worker complaints was the troubling uncertainty that so many hired hands faced on the job. As in other industrializing cities across the nation during the second half of the century, personal safety was hardly a given in La Crosse factories.6 By the mid-1880s, many workers labored in dangerous, unregulated mills where death, dismemberment, and painful injuries were a daily part of life. Sawmills, in particular, were hazardous places to work in the 1870s and 1880s. In 1876, for example, a boiler explosion at a local mill claimed the lives of two men and left three others badly injured.7 While many La Crosse workers took their lives into their own hands whenever they answered the shop whistle, many of these same people also faced growing economic insecurity. As people flocked to the city in the 1880s, earnings declined. Between 1884 and 1885, hundreds of arrivals

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helped lower the average wage in town from almost $400 to less than $290 a year. And although logging and saw-milling wages did not collapse, they did remain stagnant.8 This economic insecurity combined with potentially lethal job conditions to encourage many local workers to organize and defend their shared interests in the 1880s. These workers, however, often had few extralegal outlets through which to protest effectively in 1885. On the one hand, many of the city’s factory workers struggled with a new reality that had increased class tensions in industrial cities such as Rochester, New York, more than half a century before. Most had little contact with their bosses and, as a result, little opportunity to convince employers to improve factory conditions and wages.9 This growing social distance was evident in the career of lumberman Charles L. Colman. In the 1850s, Colman worked side by side with his hired hands moving logs in the icy waters of the Mississippi River, cutting shingles, and repairing machinery in the company shop.10 He had been familiar with the struggles that employees faced on the job. By the mid-1880s, however, he owned a great number of lumberyards throughout the La Crosse river system.11 Instead of working intimately with a few hired hands, he controlled a huge empire and supervised hundreds of employees from afar. By 1884, he shared little in common with his workers and, as a result, was less familiar with the challenges they faced and less willing to change his practices to please his hands. At the same time, local unions often failed to secure meaningful concessions from employers.12 In 1883, newspaper compositors at the La Crosse Chronicle walked off the job, but could not win higher wages.13 Extralegal protest seemed a fruitless way for workers to rally for rights in the 1880s. La Crosse workers also understood that federal and state-level officials were often openly hostile to any potential threaten to the industrial business world that had taken root by 1885. Federal agents showed little interest in protecting the rights of organized labor.14 During the Great Railroad Strike that swept the nation in the summer of 1877 and sent shock waves through the American economy, President Rutherford B. Hayes had ordered troops into Baltimore, Pittsburgh, and St. Louis to crack down on rioting workers.15 The federal justice system was often just as unyielding. Federal judges in many states, including Wisconsin, often issued injunctions to end strikes. Furthermore, most congressmen were unwilling to intervene in what they considered a private dispute between the nation’s entrepreneurs and their workforce. In 1882, for example, Congress formed a committee to investigate the causes of labor unrest in the United States. Committee members trekked

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across the country, interviewed dozens of workers and their employers, and documented a growing problem. But they ultimately declined to enact vigorous laws regulating labor relations.16 By the middle of the 1880s, the federal government offered few solutions to the challenges that many La Crosse workers faced on the job. State-level officials in Wisconsin, much like their counterparts in West Virginia, Maryland, and Pennsylvania, who had mustered state militias to crush worker opposition during the Great Railroad Strike, were also not especially sympathetic to laborers.17 For the most part, the state’s executive branch had little compassion for organized workers. During the summer of 1881, for example, Governor William E. Smith had used the state militia to crack down on striking workers in Eau Claire, a city north of La Crosse. On the morning of July 18, 1881, hundreds of disenchanted sawmill workers had walked off the job to protest long workdays and payment of wages in company scrip. Although they never resorted to violence, they did block scabs from replacing them in the sawmills and, in the process, threatened the city’s lumber industry during the strike’s first week. With no end to the labor uprising in sight, Eau Claire’s mayor called on Governor Smith to do something to get the city’s sawmills up and running. On July 29, the governor responded by ordering eight armed companies of the state militia to the city. The arrival of state troops ended the strike; the sheriff arrested five union leaders, others fled the city, and the mills soon reopened with replacement workers under the protection of armed militiamen. Although many newspapers in Wisconsin criticized Smith’s decision to send the militia to Eau Claire, he delivered the chilling and unmistakable message that workers in cities like La Crosse should think twice before organizing and confronting directly the authority of their employers.18 Wisconsin legislators were also resistant to labor demands by 1885. Lawmakers did pass the state’s first industrial safety law in 1878, but did not hire a factory inspector to enforce the act until the mid-1880s or ratify legislation requiring guards on machinery until 1887. Moreover, an 1867 law regulating children and women’s labor was difficult to enforce until 1899, and lawmakers did not propose statutory limits on working hours until the 1920s. Ultimately, the state legislature’s most impressive work-related reforms, such as workmen’s compensation, the minimum wage, regulation of private employment offices, and unemployment protection, did not become the law of the land until the 1890s and after.19 Workers’ inability to build a statewide political organization that could

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challenge Wisconsin’s two-party system made it even more difficult for them to mobilize the state’s lawmakers behind labor legislation before 1885. As early as the mid-1860s, Milwaukee workers had founded the Eight Hour League for Wisconsin and lobbied unsuccessfully to shorten the workday. In 1869, workers met in Black River Falls to establish a branch of the National Labor Union, but failed to field any candidates for state office the following year.20 Although the Socialist Labor Party offered a statewide ticket as early as 1876, its support was confined largely to Milwaukee, and Socialists did not play an important role in state-level politics until the 1890s. Finally, Robert M. La Follette and his progressive followers would not champion state regulation of corporations or labor practices until the turn of the century.21 As Powell prepared his campaign in 1885 disgruntled workers in cities such as La Crosse had little influence over a state government that seemed to be, at best, indifferent to their concerns. They had not, however, exhausted all of their political options.

The Battle for Municipal Power Within this context of growing unrest, many La Crosse workers, much like workers in larger industrial cities such as New York and Chicago, began to envision municipal power as a potentially effective tool to advance their cause.22 Winning control of city hall in 1885, however, was easier said than done. Since midcentury, businessmen and professionals had controlled both the mayor’s office and Common Council. Between 1856 and 1884 local voters had elected as their mayor six merchants, three real estate agents, three attorneys, two bankers, and an engineer.23 Not surprisingly, lumbermen maintained an active presence in the affairs of this midwestern logging city. During this time, four lumber barons and mill owners served as mayor and several held seats on the council.24 These politicians used their power to set favorable tax rates for business interests, invest public money in railroads, and boost the fortunes of city capitalists. They were backed by partisan newspaper editors, most notably W. R. Finch of the Republican and Leader and Ellis B. Usher of the Democratic Morning Chronicle, who actively supported their political and economic positions on the pages of daily and weekly newspapers in the river city. By 1885, local capitalists appeared firmly in charge of municipal government in La Crosse. To topple the two-party political establishment, La Crosse workers needed to find appealing political candidates who could represent their inter-

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ests without alienating other voters in the city. Perhaps they took inspiration from Terrence V. Powderly. In 1878, Powderly, who eventually made a name for himself as leader of the Knights of Labor, a national union that would eventually rally hundreds of thousands of employees behind such issues as the eight-hour workday in the 1880s, won the hearts of local workers and also assuaged the simmering fears of business leaders to become mayor of Scranton, Pennsylvania.25 Whether or not Powderly was a model, Powell was an ideal candidate to excite workers and remake city politics in 1885. First, he was an energetic self-promoter. For years, he had penned a series of autobiographical newspaper articles that celebrated his medical skills.26 He had also long played up his Iroquois ancestry to cultivate an image as a rough-and-ready child of the Wild West. Powell not only counted Buffalo Bill Cody as a close friend but he himself had been the subject of several pulp westerns that had sold reasonably well.27 To add to the effect, he strolled the streets of La Crosse in a large cowboy hat and encouraged fellow city residents to call him by his adopted Indian name, “White Beaver.” Second, Powell was a strong candidate because he understood a new political reality; the two major parties in the city had little to offer disgruntled workers. Powell’s recognition of workers’ potential electoral power in La Crosse, as much as his vibrant persona, made him a formidable independent candidate for the mayor’s office in 1885. Although Powell recognized the growing electoral power of La Crosse workers, he never claimed to be a worker and was reluctant to ally with either organized unions or established labor parties like the Socialists. Instead, Powell and his supporters appealed to workers by claiming that he was their enlightened champion. The La Crosse News, a city paper that professed to represent workers, challenged readers to “Point to a man, if you can, who has performed more deeds of charity during the past three years in this city than D. F. Powell. Hundreds of dollars has he distributed among the destitute of this city, beside using his utmost skill in their behalf when sick, without money and without price.”28 Two weeks later, the paper argued that in Powell “the laboring classes have a zealous advocate.”29 According to the News, even though the doctor was not a factory worker or artisan, he understood their troubles and would fight to defend their rights and interests as mayor. City Democrats and Republicans, for their part, were either unable or unwilling to believe that an untested political outsider like Powell could threaten their long-standing dominance of municipal government. Instead, each party behaved as if the 1885 mayoral election was politics as usual:

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they nominated traditional candidates with strong ties to the local political establishment. The Democrats selected Donald A. McDonald, a well-known steamboat builder who had served in both houses of the state legislature and had long played an influential role in La Crosse commerce.30 The Republicans chose Robert A. Scott, a party stalwart, to run for the office.31 In previous elections, either man could have captured a majority of the vote and become mayor of La Crosse. Powell’s presence in the field, however, made it unexpectedly difficult for either to energize their familiar electoral base. When election officials tallied the final vote, in fact, Powell had won a surprising victory that suggests how La Crosse workers were reframing the city’s political agenda. Powell did not receive a majority of the almost 3,700 votes cast in 1885. Yet he did win almost 1,600 votes to eclipse his Democratic challenger, McDonald, by more than 250 votes, and he nearly doubled the total votes cast for Scott, his Republican rival. The source of Powell’s support was even more striking than his victory. In the First, Second, Third, Fourth, and Sixth wards, McDonald actually received more votes than did Powell. In the overwhelmingly working-class Fifth Ward, however, Powell won 562 votes to McDonald’s 268, a margin that gave Powell the win.32 One thing was clear: Powell was victorious because he had understood that workers in the city were prepared to vote along class lines. Early in his first one-year term in office, Powell seemed willing to mobilize the machinery of city government to address worker concerns. In the first Common Council meeting after his election, he promised to fight for “the benefit of all alike, whether rich or poor” and for “fairness and equality in taxation.”33 From the beginning, however, his administration faced obstacles that made it extraordinarily difficult for him to use his office to improve the lives of workers. First, his personal eccentricities and his voracious appetite for publicity undermined his authority. Time and again, newspaper writers mocked his frontier affectations, questioned his motives, and challenged his capacity to govern.34 Second, he faced thorny political problems. Most important was his failure to win a majority of the popular vote in 1885.35 Although he could profess to speak for the interests of local workers, he could not claim a mandate to change city government in the ways necessary to involve municipal officials in the labor practices of local business. He was also not a skilled politician able to persuade most Democrats and Republicans on the Common Council to support his positions. As a result, Powell accomplished very little for labor during his first term.36 Still, Powell was determined to hold the mayor’s office in the upcoming

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election of 1886, and he recognized that working people were his core of support. For this reason, he made a bold choice: he decided to run for mayor as a candidate of the Workingmen, a labor party first organized in La Crosse a year before. By this time, the Workingmen had taken root in cities across the United States.37 Much like the Knights of Labor, the party offered a message of hope that appealed to disgruntled workers in La Crosse and other industrial centers. Workingmen contended that wealthy capitalists dominated the major political parties, which had become hopelessly corrupt and entirely incapable of helping organized labor. As a result, supporters urged laborers to rise up, build their own political institutions, win local elections, and use municipal power to advance their shared interests. La Crosse Workingmen made this point perfectly clear when they published a bold address during Powell’s reelection campaign of 1886: “As workingmen, we should remember that in no other country but this does the vote of the laborer offset the vote of the money king, and yet in the face of that fact we as a class are becoming poorer. . . . This state of affairs can be totally changed if you will break away from the old parties and unite with us in the effort to reform politics and demand the repeal of such laws as oppress the masses for the benefit of the few, and the enactment of such laws as will secure for us proper remuneration for the labor that produces wealth.”38 As the city’s 1886 municipal election approached, city Workingmen put this belief into practice; they held a political convention and nominated Powell and a slate of candidates for municipal office.39 Neither the Democrats nor the Republicans were yet willing to admit that Powell had helped forge local workers into a political coalition and, in so doing, altered electoral politics in the city. Instead, both tried to retake the mayor’s office by following the time-tested strategy of nominating candidates who had broad-based appeal to their traditional business and political constituencies. This time around, the Democrats selected George Scharpf, a merchant tailor and a La Crosse Board of Trade member.40 The Republicans rallied behind John Lienlokken, a well-respected local banker who had long served as the La Crosse County treasurer.41 La Crosse’s partisan newspapers also attacked the mayor with gusto. Just days before the city election, the Republican and Leader declared that Powell was a self-indulgent fop masquerading as a champion of the city’s working poor. In particular, it criticized the mayor’s participation in the “‘straw hat and parasol brigade’ of the last Fourth of July” and questioned “how many genuine laboring men sat down to the Doctor’s special ‘Press Banquet’ in honor of W. F. Cody (Buffalo Bill), at a cost of $600.”42

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Although the two major parties put forth solid candidates and savaged Powell in the press, they were unable to fracture the mayor’s new labor-based coalition at the polls. On April 6, La Crosse voters cast nearly 2,500 out of a total of 4,179 votes for Dr. Powell and reelected him to a second, one-year term by a margin that was greater than the one he had enjoyed the year before. When the final votes were tallied, Powell had defeated the Democrat Scharpf by more than 800 votes. He had also overwhelmed Lienlokken, his Republican opponent, by nearly 1,900 votes. Most significant, half of Powell’s support came from the city’s First and Fifth wards, both of which also elected Workingmen’s Party candidates to the Common Council. In 1886, laborers had once again rallied behind Powell and upset the city’s old-school political establishment. Displaying unusual candor for a party newspaper, the Morning Chronicle described the results of the election as “a calamity.”43 In the wake of their victory, Powell and the Workingmen were determined to use municipal power to regulate local business and industry in the interest of working people. From the outset, however, they, like other third-party candidates in the United States at the time, faced imposing obstacles that ultimately undermined their vision of municipal labor regulation. First, the city’s Democratic and Republican aldermen, who outnumbered Workingmen on the Common Council sixteen to two, resisted any efforts to dictate labor relations from city hall. One particular example shows how difficult it was for Workingmen to break through the barriers set up by major party politicians in the city. On April 23, J. H. Stombs, the newly elected Workingmen’s alderman from the city’s Fifth Ward, proposed an ordinance that limited the work day of municipal employees to eight hours.44 According to the News, such a law would have far-ranging benefits for workers: “Eight hours, instead of ten, means a gain of two hours each day—more than one day each week—78 days a year!—a time sufficient to enable every unlettered person to learn to read and write; time in which every foreigner can learn to speak the English language and familiarize himself with his political duty as an American citizen.”45 In the eyes of many labor advocates, Stombs’s ordinance seemed an inspired and important first step toward the use of municipal regulatory power to create a better world for workers in La Crosse. Yet, from the outset, Democratic and Republican aldermen resisted Stombs’s eight-hour proposal and voted to table the law without debate. This incident revealed a painful truth to workers in La Crosse: in 1886 Democrats and Republicans on the council were not likely to enact municipal ordinances that seemed to favor workers at the expense of business.

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Second, while Democrats and Republicans resisted Workingmen attempts to pass labor legislation, Powell damaged his ability to use municipal power to help workers when he campaigned openly to become governor of Wisconsin. By the summer of 1886, Powell was convinced that his resounding mayoral victory demonstrated the weakness of the two major parties and made him a viable third-party challenger for state office. Powell urged the La Crosse Workingmen’s Central Committee to organize a city convention to choose a thirdparty labor ticket for the upcoming state election. An event that Powell believed would end in his triumphant political coronation quickly descended into disaster. Even before convention members gathered in La Crosse, the mayor alienated key supporters in the city’s labor movement when he reached out to major-party politicians for support.46 He also suffered during the proceedings of the convention itself. Divisions between Powell and delegates from Milwaukee prevented the convention from selecting a labor slate and forced members to postpone any decisions until they could meet again in the fall.47 When the State Labor Convention met again in September in Neenah, Wisconsin, to select candidates for state office, attendees rejected Powell’s nomination by an overwhelming margin.48 Even after this crushing defeat in Neenah, Powell was not yet willing to give up his dream of state office. In October, he secured the nomination of the La Crosse County Labor Party to run for state senate.49 Although he bested his Democratic foe, his Republican opponent outpaced him by nearly seven hundred votes.50 Following this result, Powell’s reputation as an effective spokesperson for organized workers seemed damaged beyond repair. As a result of major party resistance and Powell’s failed attempts to capture state office, the mayor and his local supporters were reeling on the eve of the 1887 municipal election. Two events combined to cost Powell and the Workingmen city office. First, growing tension between Powell and his brother, George, splintered labor politics in the city. George Powell had first risen to local political prominence as the architect of his brother’s triumphant victories in 1885 and 1886.51 He gained personal notoriety in 1887 when he helped organize a new branch of the Union Labor Party (ULP) in La Crosse. The ULP proposed a range of radical reforms to protect farmers and workers and lessen the entrenched political power of wealthy Americans, including a graduated income tax, government ownership of communication and transportation systems, adoption of paper currency, federal laws to increase safety on the shop floor, direct election of senators, a ban on Chinese immigration, and suffrage for women. By the time of La Crosse’s 1887 mayoral election, the

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ULP had founded committees in at least thirty states and territories and had a national presence.52 George Powell believed that associating with an organization like the ULP would allow him to build on his brother’s efforts to give workers an even more effective voice in city affairs. After two frustrating years as mayor, however, D. Frank Powell had had enough of labor politics. He no longer believed that a party devoted to the concerns of workers could make any difference and he opposed his brother’s campaign for mayor on the ULP ticket. When a local reporter suggested that the mayor was not only hurting local workers but damaging his own political prospects, Powell snapped back that “he cared nothing for the consequences, for as he was already, politically dead himself, . . . he could not be injured in any event more than would his brother George, in the event of defeat, which in his opinion was quite certain.”53 D. Frank Powell’s unwillingness to support his brother’s campaign split the worker vote in La Crosse and weakened the labor ticket in 1887. Furthermore, as the Powell brothers quarreled, Republicans and Democrats in the city finally did what would have been unthinkable just a few years before: they set aside their ideological differences and joined forces to challenge the ULP. In 1886, as noted earlier, Powell had defeated his closest opponent by more than eight hundred votes, but had won election by just a bare majority. Although Republicans and Democrats had flirted briefly with the notion of supporting a fusion candidate to eradicate Powell and smash the Workingmen’s ticket, neither had been willing to accept the other’s nominee for mayor.54 Yet by 1887, the parties, with the embittered mayor’s help, lined up support behind Democrat David Austin, a lumberman intimately involved in municipal government and commerce, for mayor.55 Labor supporters complained that the fusion ticket was engaged in “bribery” and “high-handed vandalism.”56 But it was clear that the alliance between the two major parties threatened George Powell’s campaign to reinvigorate labor’s voice in municipal government. With Democrats and Republicans rallying in full force, Austin defeated George Powell by more than a thousand votes. Furthermore, fusion candidates trounced their ULP rivals in every other municipal contest, including elections for treasurer, clerk, attorney, comptroller, and commissioner of public works.57 George Powell’s loss was almost complete; he carried just one city ward in his quest for the mayor’s office.58 When the final results were in the partisan press crowed about their victory and their defeat of the ULP: the Chronicle congratulated voters for a job “well done,” while the Republi-

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can and Leader proclaimed Austin’s election “a grand victory over the labor agitators and malcontents.”59 Many city politicians, and undoubtedly many workers who lost faith in the Powell brothers to bring about meaningful change, believed that the effort to capture municipal government and bolster the interests of organized labor had come to an end in La Crosse. By the end of the 1880s, the dream had apparently died on the eastern banks of the Mississippi.

Transforming Local Politics On the surface, the story of D. Frank Powell and labor’s effort to seize control of municipal power in La Crosse appears as little more than a colorful failure, a third-party pipe dream. It certainly demonstrates the resistance that labor politicians faced when it came to using municipal power to boost the fortunes of workers in small communities. Yet although the immediate efforts of local politicians to deploy municipal power in the interest of workers failed, these efforts began to redefine the city’s political economy in years to come. The electoral success of Powell and his supporters in the mid-1880s remade La Crosse politics and economics in two significant ways. First, it provided a critical boost to local politicians who were willing to champion the cause of working people in the city in the 1880s and 1890s. In 1889, for example, George Powell again ran for mayor as a candidate for the ULP. Although his campaign sputtered and he was beaten badly by his Republican and Democratic opponents, he and his supporters had built a vibrant political organization that kept the flame of organized labor’s hopes alive in the city at the end of the century.60 This flame grew into a blaze in 1893, when the Populist Party took center stage in La Crosse and promised to use municipal authority to regulate business in the interest of local workers. By the 1890s, Populists, particularly in the West and South, had become a force to be reckoned with in American politics. Much like the Workingmen, the ULP, and other labor parties in the previous decade, Populists embraced an ambitious program of reform to crack down on corporate power and purify government in the interest of the “plain people.” Party members championed such radical notions as coinage of silver to help indebted farmers climb out of insolvency; public ownership of railroads, telegraphs, and telephones to eliminate corporate domination of critical utilities; and secret ballots in elections. In 1892, Populists had waged

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a national campaign for the presidency and they continued to craft the contours of American political debate by the time of La Crosse’s 1893 election.61 Populists found firm footing in the river city because of the political rebirth of a well-known and well-connected candidate who had long experience navigating the tricky ins and outs of municipal politics: D. Frank Powell.62 In 1893, Powell reemerged as a force in local politics when he ran for mayor as a Populist candidate.63 That year, and again in 1895, voters chose Powell to serve a two-year term as mayor and sent several Populists to the Common Council.64 When Powell and his supporters gained seats in city government, they focused fresh attention on labor issues that previous municipal leaders had rarely discussed before. Following the national economic panic that swept the nation beginning in 1893, for example, many La Crosse workers shifted their attention away from bread-and-butter workplace reforms to more consumerist concerns and demanded city leaders cut spending and lower taxes to help them weather tough economic times. In response, Powell launched a campaign to cut municipal spending, which, in turn, reduced the tax bill from $373,000 in 1893 to $276,000 in 1895 (or a decline from $9.2 million to $7.3 million in 2008 dollars).65 Along with slashing municipal spending to lower the tax burden, Powell and his supporters also defended a host of new municipal ordinances devoted to the interests of labor in town. In 1893, the Common Council, for the first time since 1886, considered an ordinance that stipulated an eight-hour day for workers employed by the city.66 In 1895, the council began a controversial debate over an ordinance that would allow La Crosse City Railway, the local streetcar company, to extend its tracks throughout the city on condition that it would charge lower fares for workers traveling to and from jobs during rush hour.67 Moreover, in 1895, on the eve of Powell’s reelection campaign, aldermen debated a new ordinance that required owners of factories, workshops, stores, hotels, and other buildings in the city to provide fire escapes for their employees.68 Although these labor-friendly issues often dominated the agenda of the Common Council, their proponents were unable to muster support to win passage. That aldermen discussed such issues at all, however, suggests that organized labor’s struggle for municipal power had shifted the ground rules of political debate in La Crosse by the middle of the 1890s. For the first time in the city’s history, politicians of all stripes debated a comprehensive program of municipal labor regulation. Second, while Powell’s campaign bolstered labor and Populist voices, the

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conspicuous electoral success of third-party candidates in La Crosse highlighted the undeniable political power of workers and forced Democrats and Republicans to reassess their party rhetoric and positions in the 1880s and 1890s. Before Powell’s 1885 election, the city’s major party newspapers had never considered whether municipal government should play any meaningful role addressing workers’ concerns. In 1881, for example, the Morning Chronicle argued that individual workers, and not unions or the government, had the right to decide what wages they were willing to work for.69 Even when a partisan newspaper courted working-class voters, it stressed that business development, not municipal regulation, was key to improving the lives of laboring people. On the eve of the 1884 municipal election, for example, the Republican and Leader encouraged local workers to vote for Republicans because they would bring businesses home: “the establishment of industries, the expenditures in improvements, the guarantee of a plenty of employment in the vicinity of their little homes, is of paramount interest to the man who toils for the sustenance of himself and family.”70 Before 1885, La Crosse politicians, much like many others around the nation, embraced a pro-business mind-set that colored how they viewed labor issues.71 The success of Powell, the Workingmen, and the Populists, however, transformed how local Republicans and Democrats understood the place of working people in the city’s politics and the role that municipal government should play in improving their lives. For one thing, labor’s political candidates demonstrated that major parties could not ignore the concerns of workers and ever hope to win citywide elections after the mid-1880s. The Republican and Leader acknowledged this new political reality in 1886: “The strength displayed by the Labor Party at the recent election, coming as it did so soon after great labor strikes, has set a good many people to thinking. . . . While the public attention was fixed upon the injustice which railroad and other corporations were doing to the community at large, it overlooked the claims of the people who are employed by these corporations. . . . But these wage workers have at length taken an interest in themselves. They have joined together for the purpose of helping themselves. . . . They have . . . made their loud protest, and the great political parties must listen to them. The community must see that they are justly treated.”72 Furthermore, during the 1887 municipal election, the Republican and Leader argued that “the working people of La Crosse are, as a class, intelligent, thrifty, and substantial. The occasion is made this spring for them to show their intelligence and loyalty . . . we have too much faith in the good

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sense, the intelligence and the patriotism of the workingmen of La Crosse to believe they will allow themselves to be further imposed upon and used by the Powell combination.”73 Soon after the election, the Chronicle contended that “if there were time to analyze the vote, it could be shown that the workingmen have contributed their full share towards the victory of good government.” Republicans and Democrats portrayed the outcome of the 1887 election as a triumph of deliberative, two-party democracy and a rejection of “the feverish spasm of a year ago.”74 Yet both also conceded that something had changed: La Crosse workers had determined the election’s result and would remain a critical political constituency for the foreseeable future. Following the realization that organized workers actually mattered in the outcome of municipal elections, La Crosse’s major party leaders began to discuss labor issues and readjust their political priorities to appeal to working-class voters. Local Republicans, in particular, were quick to argue that municipal officials had at least some responsibility to regulate the economy in the interest of local workers in the middle of the 1880s. Shortly after voters elected Powell mayor in 1885, the Republican and Leader published an extraordinary series of editorials that embraced the notion—one that would not have been unfamiliar to Franklin Delano Roosevelt half a century later— that the city council should raise taxes and invest in public projects to put unemployed residents back to work: “the benefits to the workingmen, in steady and profitable employment . . . will far outweigh the trifling increase in taxation that would perhaps be necessary.”75 On June 16, the paper applauded the council for increasing the city’s bonded debt in a new water and sewer system project that would provide jobs to idle workers. According to the Republican and Leader, it was the clear responsibility of the council “to look out for the laborer.”76 As early as 1885, Republican politicians and their supporters had responded to the growing electoral power of organized labor and recalibrated their message to appeal to workers in La Crosse. Given the enhanced political importance of workers in the 1880s, their concerns continued to shape municipal politics in La Crosse during the 1890s. The labor issue that captured the attention of local Republicans and Democrats, as well as Populists, was the question of setting streetcar fares in town. By 1895, the La Crosse Street Railway Company had established a successful municipal transportation system that made it much easier for local inhabitants to traverse their growing city to get to work, buy groceries, or visit friends and family. To build on its prosperity, the company’s management

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decided the time was right to expand company lines within the city. To do so, it needed to win the permission of the Common Council, which had final say over the use of local streets in La Crosse. Early in 1895, street railway officials approached the council for its consent to lay new track through town.77 When the company’s request reached the council floor, organized labor and Populists in La Crosse seized upon it as an excellent opportunity to win concessions from the company. They urged city aldermen to grant the request only on condition that the company would cut its nickel fares in half between 6:00 and 7:00 in the morning and 6:00 and 7:00 in the evening, to help local workers who rode to and from work during these times.78 This question of lower streetcar fares would dominate municipal politics for the next year. In the end, the city attorney ruled that the council simply did not have the power to set railway rates in La Crosse.79 The issue of lower rates, however, was not one that the city’s major party politicians could discount. Throughout 1895 and 1896, in fact, both Republicans and Democrats, who had never considered the idea that the municipal government had a responsibility to help local workers just a decade before, now rallied behind government regulation of streetcar fares. On September 17, 1895, for example, the Morning Chronicle held that lowering fares “is a sincere demand that must be heeded or men who hold office will be branded as unprincipled demagogues. It is a just demand, and will be no hardship upon the Street Car Co., for it will double their traffic at those [morning and evening] hours.”80 Not to be outdone, the Republican and Leader joined the chorus of support for lower streetcar fares on September 21: “early in the discussion of this subject [we] advocated half fares between the hours of six and eight o’clock a.m. twelve and two p.m., and five and six p.m. . . . It is right and just that the working people should have a half fare rate, not as an experiment for a given period, but permanently.”81 Neither paper was being entirely altruistic with these statements. One core belief that both shared was that Powell and the Populists were not delivering on the promises they had made to La Crosse workers during the municipal election of 1895. Yet the fact that both issued strong declarations in favor of lower fares was a sign that local Republicans and Democrats had shifted their political message to appeal to working people and, in doing so, tentatively embraced a new vision of municipal business regulation. In this way, worker efforts to capture city government redefined the major parties and made both more sympathetic to the demands of La Crosse’s organized workers in the late nineteenth century.

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This labor-driven political evolution helps to partly explain the local popularity of one of Wisconsin’s favorite sons: Robert M. La Follette. In key ways, the remaking of the major parties in La Crosse mirrored the political evolution of La Follette, who would become Wisconsin’s governor in 1900, represent the state in the U.S. Senate starting in 1906, and become one of the nation’s best-known Progressives, who advocated such goals as railroad regulation and worker’s compensation. When La Follette was first elected to Congress in 1884, he was essentially a conservative Republican who walked the party line of tariff reduction and civil service reform and showed little interest in more radical politics. As growing disillusionment swept across Wisconsin and reform-minded groups accused the major parties of ignoring the interests of common people in favor of wealthy elites, however, he reassessed his political ideas and became a vocal advocate of progressive government. By the mid-1890s, he called for strict state regulation of corporations, assailed political corruption, and had become a champion of the direct primary. La Follette failed to win the governor’s office in 1896 and 1898, but the appeal of his ideas helped him to victory in 1900.82 Like major party politicians in La Crosse, he had listened to the shifting complaints of his constituents, divined the political realities of the day, and undergone an ideological transformation that helped catapult him to new levels of government power. Not surprisingly, many residents of La Crosse, a city long shaped by thirdparty politics, found appealing his message of state regulation in the interests of wage earners. In the gubernatorial race of 1900, La Follette captured thirteen of twenty La Crosse wards and 55 percent of the total vote in the city.83 By articulating and defending new ideas and compelling local Democrats and Republicans to reframe their own message, Powell and the Workingmen helped pave the way for Robert La Follette in town. Just as lawmakers and judges had framed the settlement of La Crosse, conditioned the growth of its lumber industry, granted aldermen new powers to finance and regulate big railroads, and erect a system of public works, these officials opened new opportunities for workers in the city.

Invigorating the Labor Movement The timing of Powell’s electoral success in the middle of the 1880s also suggests that the political mobilization of La Crosse workers had an impact well beyond the voting booth. His victories in 1885 and again in 1886, for example,

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corresponded with the rise of the city’s labor press. By this time, labor newspapers played an important role forging a robust worker consciousness in many cities across the Midwest and the United States. In nearby Minneapolis, for example, twelve hundred people subscribed to the Northwestern Labor Union, a labor paper that shared news and published columns in support of working-class issues.84 La Crosse was thus part of a national trend. Following the election of 1885, the News, founded by George M. Read in 1884, became a champion of organized labor in the river city.85 In issue after issue, Read chastised other local papers for ignoring workers, reported on labor activity in the city, and passed along news of strikes and boycotts from around the nation.86 Just as Powell rose to power, the News emerged as a potent voice in defense of workers. Furthermore, on August 20, 1886, just months after voters reelected Powell and sent Workingmen to the council, George Edwin Taylor published the first issue of the Wisconsin Labor Advocate in the city.87 Taylor, an African American journalist who had moved to the city from Arkansas after the Civil War, was a tireless activist who used his paper to promote his vision of a world in which organized labor enjoyed greater political and economic power. In his eyes, La Crosse workers suffered because the nation’s major parties were corrupt and controlled by wealthy capitalists. He made this position clear in the first issue of the Advocate: “the old political parties, the Democratic and Republican, have become the tools of designing men and combinations of men.” His solution was the creation of a new party, much like the Workingmen, devoted to winning elections and using state power to liberate workers from the harsh domination of capital. In his words, “The only hope for improvement in the condition of the working class is in the success of a reform party, whose principles and motives shall be to destroy the old corrupt parties and defeat dishonest politicians, who have so long and absolutely controlled those parties.”88 Neither the News nor the Advocate remained active for long in La Crosse. Read closed the News in 1888, while Taylor shut down his press and moved to Iowa that same year.89 But Powell’s reemergence as a Populist mayor reinvigorated the alternative press in the 1890s. Once in office, Powell relied on The Voice of the People, a newspaper that advocated Populist solutions to worker problems, as his mouthpiece.90 At the same time, the La Crosse Daily Press took root as an independent paper sensitive to organized labor. While both the Republican and Leader and Morning Chronicle sat on the sidelines, for example, the Daily Press ran a series of articles that helped keep alive the

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proposed eight-hour ordinance for city workers in 1893.91 Furthermore, the Daily Press’s journalists were so sympathetic to Powell in the ongoing debate over lower streetcar fares that the Morning Chronicle accused the paper of being “A Crooked Organ of a Crooked Mayor” in the fall of 1895.92 Together, the Voice of the People and the Daily Press championed the political cause of labor in La Crosse until the end of the decade. By bolstering La Crosse’s labor press, Powell, the Workingmen, and the Populists provided local workers a forum for public debate and encouraged them to see themselves as active participants in local politics. Furthermore, Powell’s elections coincided with a wave of unionization in La Crosse in the mid-1880s. The Knights of Labor began organizing workers in the city in the winter following Powell’s election in 1885.93 By 1886, the Knights had established three assemblies in town and maintained a local chapter there until at least 1895.94 These locals encouraged workers to flex their political muscle on the streets of the city. On July 4, 1886, they sponsored a parade and rally that attracted almost five hundred workers and their families.95 The Knights also helped set the tone for other labor organizers in La Crosse during the 1890s. In 1892, for example, union leaders hosted a parade, picnic, and ball to celebrate Labor Day. Many workers who marched in the procession carried banners with slogans in favor of La Crosse labor unions and collective bargaining and critical of big business. Many others wore badges and emblems to demonstrate their public support for the ULP.96 This growing union activism occasionally led to even more confrontational labor protests. Beginning in 1892, for example, organized workers joined a national chorus of disgruntled union members when they launched a series of strikes that challenged the power of capital. Trouble began in the city’s breweries in March and soon spread to the carpentry and woodworking industry.97 On April 22, sawmill workers walked off the job to protest their wages and work conditions. For two weeks, the city’s lumber strike expanded to include workers in every sawmill in La Crosse, dominated the headlines and editorial pages of the local press, and highlighted the profound differences that divided local sawmill workers and mill owners in 1892.98 Although striking workers did not achieve all of their demands, they did win some concessions from their employers over wages and the length of their working days.99 Powell and the Workingmen may not have been able to pass laborfriendly ordinances that lowered streetcar fares or raised city wages. They may not have inspired every local worker to take up a picket and march for the eight-hour day. But by winning municipal elections in the mid-1880s they

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preceded a burst of union activity and laid the groundwork for future labor protests in La Crosse.100 In other words, although Powell failed in his efforts to improve the lives of working people, his political campaigns helped grant organized labor a place at the political and economic table.

Labor and the State in La Crosse In 1887, D. Frank Powell declared that he and the cause of labor were “politically dead” in La Crosse. In one sense, Powell was correct; neither he nor other Workingmen were able to use municipal power to make sawmills safer, shorten the workday, or lower the cost of living for artisans and factory hands during the 1880s. Yet in some important ways, his political self-evaluation was entirely wrong. For one thing, his struggle for the mayor’s office transformed city politics in ways that relocated labor issues at the heart of civic debate. Powell’s advocacy of labor affairs enthralled workers in town, encouraged many to go to the polls, and forced local Republicans and Democrats to retool their basic economic rhetoric and positions to win elections. By the end of the century, major party leaders were openly discussing ways to use municipal power to regulate shop floors and protect workers in ways that would have been unthinkable a generation before. In just a few years, Powell and his allies had injected worker issues into local politics and forced residents to rethink the role that municipal government should play in the city’s industrial life. Powell’s efforts to use one level of the state—the municipal—to boost workers in La Crosse was critical for a second reason: it almost certainly helped energize a working-class consciousness that encouraged local laborers to contest the economic power of their employers. In the wake of his 1885 victory, labor newspapers took root in town, the Knights of Labor and other unions found eager recruits, and workers walked off the job for better wages and working hours. Labor activism was not always successful. Yet in some cases, such as the lumber strike of 1892, workers won key concessions from their bosses. In years to come, moreover, this new class consciousness encouraged workers to challenge the underlying idea that businessmen were best able to govern their city’s economy. Many also followed Powell’s lead and rejected the notion that municipal government existed to foster private business interests in La Crosse above all others, and took the provocative position that municipal officials had an obligation to protect laborers in town. His 1880s battle to control one level of the American state—the municipal—thus

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inspired workers and offered new visions for the community’s commercial future. Powell may not have fit comfortably in the pantheon of western heroes that Frederick Jackson Turner celebrated when he lectured in the river city in the winter of 1895. Yet White Beaver’s effort to use municipal power to transform La Crosse made him a pioneer nonetheless. Lawmakers and judges, then, framed the political and economic choices available to many workers in La Crosse and, in some cases, opened new avenues for them to shape the city’s history in the years to come. At the same time, they passed legislation and issued court decisions that helped shape the options open to another group in town that participated in building the city’s economy: ambitious women. As federal and state officials undercut organized labor and drove many workers to fight for control of city hall, they raised an imposing legal scaffolding that made it extremely difficult for La Crosse women to take equal part in politics and commerce. Much like the city’s working men, women in town struggled to navigate a legal labyrinth that so often defined them as second-class citizens. What was most striking, however, was that women often did so in innovative ways that allowed them to remake local politics, commerce, and ultimately La Crosse itself before 1900.

Chapter Seven

Fredericka’s World

In 1845, a few years after Nathan Myrick had arrived in southwestern Wisconsin, Fredericka Levy entered the scene (Figure 16). That year, Levy, her ambitious husband, John, and their young son migrated to La Crosse in search of their fortune. Soon after they arrived, John Levy set in motion a grand plan he believed would ensure his family’s prosperity. He opened one of the first stores and one of the earliest hotels in the frontier settlement. In the 1850s, moreover, he built the burgeoning community’s first boat dock and invested in warehousing, banking, and the grocery trade. His efforts were not always triumphant. The Levy bank, for example, failed in 1858. Yet John Levy was successful enough in the coming decades that many in La Crosse continued to laud his achievements after his death in 1910.1 John Levy’s pioneering commercial endeavors, however, might not have been possible without the help of Fredericka. Like most married women at the time, she was in charge of daily meals, care of farm animals, and domestic chores. Yet she also accompanied her striving husband on almost every step of his business adventures, and occasionally led the way. From the beginning, for example, she helped run the family’s store and negotiated with Indians and other traders who visited to exchange goods. At the same time, she catered to tired boarders in search of a warm hearth and comfortable bed.2 Her commercial impact was most apparent when John was away on business trips that sometimes lasted weeks at a time. In these instances, Fredericka stayed at home to run multiple family businesses largely on her own. In her words, while “my husband was gone down to buy the spring goods, I was obliged to occupy my time, and do something to keep me out of mischief. The boats had commenced running and were all crowded with new settlers for La Crosse. I kept hotel, store, sold off stock, and attended to the lumber yard.” At times, her role as steward of the family businesses involved rather large

Figure 16. John Levy was one of La Crosse’s most successful settlers. In the 1840s and 1850s, Levy opened a store and hotel in the growing town and invested in local warehousing, banking, and the grocery trade. Levy was hardworking but he also owed much of his success to his wife, Fredericka, who helped run the family businesses. Although Fredericka demonstrated a crafty business sense, state limitations on her ability to own property, make contracts, and work for wages stunted her economic opportunities in La Crosse at midcentury. Courtesy of La Crosse Public Library and La Crosse County Historical Society.

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sums of money. In the spring of 1851, she negotiated a complicated transaction to purchase a raft load of lumber, timber, and shingles. She also looked after $1,500 when her husband trekked through the region.3 Fredericka thus helped John lay the sturdy foundation for his growing commercial prosperity, notoriety, and influence in the river city. Moreover, she was no shrinking violet when it came to her family’s pecuniary success. She refused to see herself as simply the naïve spouse of a savvy entrepreneur. Instead, she claimed an equal partnership with John in his various business affairs. Rather than ceding ownership to her husband, for example, she often referred to “our shop,” “our partner,” or “our furs.”4 John may have owned the family store, hotel, and other ventures. Yet Fredericka often behaved as if his business interests were also hers. Fredericka Levy, like countless other La Crosse women, played an indelible role in her husband’s economic success. She could not, however, escape a simple fact. In the middle of the nineteenth century, she did not share John’s legal access to full participation in La Crosse’s burgeoning commercial world. As a married woman in Wisconsin, she could not draw up legal contracts, control her own wages, set up her own shop, or vote for politicians who might lower her property taxes. Fredericka was clearly a critical component in her husband’s success. But she faced the cold reality that her commercial success remained legally dependent on John. During the middle of the nineteenth century, limited economic possibilities defined Fredericka’s world. Yet over time, Wisconsin legislators and judges passed laws and issued court decisions that made it increasingly possible for women like Fredericka Levy to seize the day and participate in La Crosse’s bustling commercial life. First, lawmakers and jurists gave married women greater control over their property and wages. Local wives may not have been equal to their husbands under the common law, but they gained fresh authority to negotiate contracts, purchase shops, hire employees, start new businesses, and work in factories. By expanding wives’ property rights before 1900, the state provided them with new economic options. Much like they did for men, state lawmakers and judges framed the commercial realms within which ambitious married women could shape La Crosse’s history. Second, Wisconsin lawmakers and courts encouraged La Crosse women to participate in business in another, rather ironic, way: by limiting women’s access to formal politics, they provoked many in La Crosse to build a thriving movement culture that allowed them to challenge traditional gendered notions of women’s place in society. Local women, much like their sisters

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across the Midwest and nation at the time, knew that they could not vote and were second-class citizens.5 Yet such limitations sometimes pushed them to engage in politics in unexpected but meaningful ways. During the second half of the century, women were vocal champions of suffrage and temperance in the city. They learned how to mobilize, raise money, pressure politicians, and influence the course of their community’s history from beyond the ballot box. In doing so, they offered their mothers, sisters, and daughters a tantalizing message: your place is not necessarily in the home. At a time when Wisconsin lawmakers and judges were granting married women expanded property rights and more control over wages, ambitious women in La Crosse likely interpreted this message as a call to build new businesses and find jobs. The state, in other words, conditioned the economic opportunities available to women in the river city before 1900.

A Gendered Economy Fredericka Levy’s tale about helping her husband in the middle of the century was not unusual. In the 1850s and 1860s, many other local women, like many across the country at the time, also contributed to La Crosse’s early commercial history.6 Both wives and single women managed household economies or earned money doing the same for others.7 Some worked outside the home as laundresses, ran boardinghouses, taught in schools, found jobs as store clerks, and took up wage work to bolster their personal and family incomes.8 These women played an essential, if often undervalued and unnoticed, role keeping La Crosse’s commercial machinery well oiled and running smoothly at midcentury. Such vital participation in La Crosse’s commercial life, however, did not often translate into formal business leadership for women in town. Local women, as did women across the Midwest and nation at midcentury and afterward, had little opportunity to manage factories, own shops in town, or sit on corporate boards.9 Instead, they watched as their fathers, brothers, husbands, and sons enjoyed inordinate influence in the city’s economic life because of their gender. Men, for example, founded, owned, and managed almost all of La Crosse’s businesses. The city’s first lumberers were men such as George Farnam, Timothy Burns, and Charles L. Colman who built the industry from the ground up and continued to control the trade until the end of the century.10 Men also dominated wholesale and retail businesses and enjoyed a near stranglehold on the professions in town.11 Furthermore, the

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city’s financial institutions were distinctly male enclaves. In the late 1880s, men like Gysbert Van Steenwyk, Gideon C. Hixon, David D. McMillan, and Angus Cameron invested in, and sometimes ran, all of the city’s banks.12 Moreover, male shareholders owned and operated all of the city’s major utility companies, including La Crosse City Railway, La Crosse Brush Electric Light and Power, and Edison Light and Power.13 Finally, enterprising men ruled the city’s Board of Trade, a private organization dedicated to advancing local business interests. Between 1879 and 1900, for instance, every one of the board’s elected directors and committee members was male. Although women such as Fredericka Levy helped build La Crosse’s economy and keep it running, men like her husband, John, were the ones who worked the levers of commercial power in town.

Entering the Commercial World Over time, however, some La Crosse women, particularly local wives, began to transcend traditional gender limitations and enter the commercial world in new ways. As the nineteenth century wore on, for example, a handful of married women, much like other wives around the nation, began to found and run their own businesses in town.14 As early as the 1860s, local wives established a foothold in a number of traditionally female trades. An 1866 La Crosse city directory listed married women as proprietors of three of six boarding houses, five of six dressmaking shops, and at least five of seven millinery houses.15 Wives continued to dominate these industries at century’s end. A 1900 business directory listed married women as proprietors of nine of the city’s eleven boarding houses. Furthermore, although single women had cornered the dressmaking trade by the end of the century, married women operated at least twenty-one of the 104 shops in town. Local wives also ran four of the ten local millinery establishments.16 Some of these women operated successful businesses for years. Directories, for example, indicate that Mrs. P. H. Jacobs ran her own dressmaking shop between at least 1870 and 1885, while one Mrs. A. R. Osborne owned a millinery shop from 1866 to 1880.17 When it came to such gendered enterprises as boarding and dressmaking, La Crosse was no different than many other American cities during the second half of the century: local wives reigned supreme. Ambitious La Crosse wives also made inroads into trades, such as retailing, long dominated by their male kin and neighbors.18 In the most notable example, local wives established a foothold in the confection business. By the

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1880s, the city’s candy sellers were almost all male. Men, in fact, owned and managed all but one of its twenty-eight confectionaries at the beginning of the decade.19 Yet just two decades later, life had become increasingly sweet for women in the candy business. By 1900, four wives and one single woman each ran one of the city’s twenty-two sweet shops.20 By century’s end, moreover, wives competed openly with men in business ventures largely unavailable to women just a few decades before. In 1890, for example, wives operated one of nineteen barbershops in town, one of La Crosse’s twenty-eight meat markets, and at least one of the city’s eleven restaurants.21 In 1900, moreover, married women managed one of the city’s six book and stationery stores, three of its ten carpet-weaving establishments, and one of nine cigar and tobacco shops.22 As these numbers suggest, local men continued to rule in retailing. Moreover, married women were not always triumphant in their efforts to participate more broadly in this world. In 1890, for example, wives ran a barbershop, dye works, employment bureau, and retail sewing supply store, all of which were out of business just five years later.23 Nevertheless, even in the face of such failures, married La Crosse women, like wives in other American cities both large and small, were willing to join the local economic fray and operate their own businesses by the turn of the twentieth century. Furthermore, these women enjoyed far more opportunity to find paid work after 1850. At midcentury, the city’s economy was largely agricultural and artisanal, and very few local women actually labored for money. In 1854, the Reverend Spencer Carr’s survey of the city noted that women made up only 10 percent of the total paid workforce, with one employed as a dressmaker, one as a seamstress, one as a tailor, two as milliners, three as teachers, and seventeen as kitchen maids.24 By the century’s end, however, La Crosse had become a thriving industrial city that, like many other Gilded Age American communities at the time, presented women with new occasions to earn a living outside the home.25 The total number of women employed in local manufacturing increased from just four in 1860 to at least several hundred by 1905.26 For the most part, men continued to hold the most prestigious, high-paying factory jobs in the city. Nevertheless, by 1900 local women were an increasingly prominent segment of La Crosse’s thriving industrial workforce. At the same time, women came to dominate new trades in town by the end of the century. For the first time in 1900, for example, the city directory listed the names of six married women who earned money working as midwives. Single women also sought out and found new opportunities. In

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the 1890s, directories began to list the names of female nurses in La Crosse. In 1890, nursing was apparently a profession best reserved for local wives; just three women, all married, nursed the sick. Only a decade later, however, single women had entered the field. Seven of the twelve nurses included in the city directory of 1900 were unmarried.27 Still, married women continued to maintain a strong presence in nursing. By the end of the 1800s, the world of business and work had changed for La Crosse women, wives in particular. At midcentury, women like Fredericka Levy helped ensure their husbands’s commercial success, but did not own their own stores or shops in town. Many certainly labored caring for families and running domestic economies, but rarely earned wages for work outside their homes. By 1900, however, La Crosse wives increasingly ran their own businesses, took up professions like nursing, found work in factories, and made fresh contributions to their city’s burgeoning economy. What had changed?

Boosting Commercial Power One critical element that drove this transformation was the overarching impact of state lawmakers and judges on the economic choices of commercially minded La Crosse women.28 First, legislators and judges provided local women with more power to start businesses and find jobs when they took steps to protect married women’s property rights and wages after 1850. This effort evolved gradually. At midcentury, Wisconsin jurists, much like their counterparts in other states, consistently ruled that marriage limited the legal rights of wives to participate in “manly” commerce. When Wisconsin judges issued their decisions, they embraced a deceptively simple legal concept known as coverture that rendered Fredericka Levy and other La Crosse women economically dependent on their husbands. Under the principle of coverture, when a single woman married she surrendered her individual civic identity and became her husband’s legal and political dependent. In practice, coverture infantilized Wisconsin women in the eyes of the common law. Courts, for example, could not find wives responsible for crimes or civil actions under this principle. Coverture also placed severe commercial limitations on women. Married women could not make their own contracts, hold separate property, or execute binding legal transactions without the consent of their husbands. Coverture, in other words, defined married women as second-class citizens in Wisconsin and other American states and made it

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extremely difficult for them to establish or run their own businesses before 1850.29 In states such as Wisconsin, however, coverture was not immutable. By the mid-nineteenth century, in fact, state-level lawmakers increasingly recognized that married women were never truly isolated from the economic turbulence that often accompanied national expansion. Legislators from New York to Mississippi understood that coverture made it difficult for wives to survive such catastrophic economic events as the Panic of 1837. With this recognition in mind, legislators began to introduce laws that protected women’s separate property to provide them a measure of financial security during uneasy times.30 Wisconsin’s legislature followed suit at midcentury. In 1850, state lawmakers ratified a statute with three core elements. First, the new law declared that Wisconsin wives were entitled to separate estates: “the real estate, and the rents, issues, and profits thereof, of any female now married, shall not be subject to the disposal of her husband, but shall be her sole and separate property, as if she were a single female.” Second, it stated that a husband’s creditors could not legally pursue a wife’s separate property in repayment of his debts. Finally, the law decreed that when a married women received any property as either an inheritance, gift, or bequest, it would belong to her and her alone.31 Together, these three sections of the 1850 statute provided married women in Wisconsin with essential individual property rights under the common law that made it at least possible for them to imagine themselves establishing and running their own stores and businesses. Early on, however, judges interpreted the statute in a limited way that did little to eliminate the often intimidating commercial hurdles, such as a lack of disposable capital or the ability to sign contracts, that blocked wives from starting and running businesses in places like La Crosse. In the 1850s, for example, state judges held that married women with separate estates were not entitled to the same property rights as their husbands. In 1856, the state supreme court maintained that although the 1850 statute gave wives the right to sue for damages related to their own property, the earlier legislature did “not appear to have intended that she [a married woman] should have the power to engage in trade, except so far as may be necessary to manage the property which she may own.” Doing so, according to the court, might endanger families: “An unlimited power to sue and be sued and to engage in trade and business on her own account possessed by the wife, would, if exercised, be destructive of domestic ties and entirely inconsistent with conjugal

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obligations.” Rather than make women liable to lawsuits that might impinge on their traditional domestic role, the justices asserted that “We must therefore hold that a personal action cannot be maintained under our statute against a married woman.”32 One year later, the court further affirmed that “although the legislature has secured to married women their own property, and allowed them to sue in respect to it, either alone or jointly with their husbands, it has not attempted to weaken the marriage tie, nor release the parties from their conjugal obligations. The husband and wife are still one person in legal contemplation.”33 Wives like Fredericka Levy, in short, could own and manage separate estates at midcentury, but remained economically dependent on their husbands under the common law. Yet in the years to come, state judges, perhaps mindful that women who lacked wealth or wages faced daunting economic hurdles in an industrializing economy, began to interpret the 1850 statute in ways that expanded wives’ property rights and seemed to promise married women greater latitude to engage in trade and commerce. The most important principle that the state’s highest court reinforced was that a married woman could make contracts related to her property. In 1860, for example, the majority held that the law gave “married women, as necessarily incidental to the power of holding property to their own use, the power of making all contracts necessary or convenient to its beneficial enjoyment.”34 In 1866, they further ruled that property-holding wives “should have power to contract with an attorney for his services in order to reduce the same or any part of it to her possession, whenever it is wrongfully withheld by another.”35 They also declared that this general right to contract vested married women with power to engage in other legal transactions linked to their estates. In 1859 and 1860, for example, the judges held that wives could mortgage their property.36 In 1862 and 1863, the court declared that creditors could pursue wives who had borrowed against their separate holdings.37 Moreover, the court declared in 1877 that married women had the “power to purchase with the proceeds other property which shall also be her separate estate.”38 In case after case, the court based its interpretation of the 1850 law around a simple premise: the “theory of the statute is not so much a creation of power which” a wife “never possessed, as a partial restoration of the power which she is supposed to have lost.”39 In so doing, it provided wives in cities such as La Crosse with potent legal tools to build businesses and carve out a commercial niche for themselves in Wisconsin’s developing political economy. The court also undergirded married women’s property rights when it clar-

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ified the distinction between a wife’s separate estate and that either controlled by her husband or shared jointly. In 1868, Wisconsin’s highest court held that a married woman did not lose “possession of her land merely because she allowed her husband to reside with her upon it, or to assist her in cultivating it. To work a change of her possession, something more must be shown— such as a lease or contract by which her intention to part with her possession and control of the premises is clearly made to appear.”40 The justices further bolstered a wife’s hold on her separate property when they ruled that assessors could not tax a husband who lived on his wife’s estate based on the value of this estate.41 In 1892, the court asserted that a married woman did not have authority to form a partnership with her spouse that granted him control and management of her separate estate.42 Finally, in 1893, the judges argued that the simple fact that a husband worked for his wife did not necessarily prove he was trying to avoid his creditors by transferring his property to her estate.43 With each of these verdicts, the state supreme court made it clear that wives in Wisconsin had a fundamental right to separate property that deserved legal protection after 1850. It also provided married women with greater security to engage in their own commercial pursuits and continued to redefine Wisconsin’s political economy to include women. Finally, while Wisconsin legislators and judges tried to grant married women greater liberty to use their separate property, the state took steps to make sure that wives would control their wages. As late as the 1850s, coverture meant that wives’ earnings were not their own unless they proved their husbands suffered from drunkenness or profligacy. The state supreme court reasserted this position in the 1850s and 1860s.44 By the 1870s, however, many lawmakers recognized that preventing women from reaping the benefits of wage work was demoralizing and counterproductive in an industrializing state. As a result, in 1872 they issued a new law ruling that the “individual earnings of every married woman . . . shall be her separate property, and shall not be subject to her husband’s control, or liable for his debts.”45 In doing so, the state’s legislature expanded married women’s property rights even further and gave many women a chance to contribute to the economy in new ways. These court opinions never directly involved La Crosse women or their husbands. They did, however, help create a statewide legal framework that provided local wives with greater economic security and new commercial opportunities in town. Wisconsin lawmakers and judges who eased coverture strictures, for example, freed up married women’s personal capital and made it a good deal easier for wives in the river city to take out loans, pur-

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chase machinery, hire and pay hands, or rent storefronts on their own terms. Moreover, when the legislature protected married women’s right to control their wages in 1872, it opened new avenues for local wives to find work in factories or as midwives and nurses. State-level lawmakers and jurists, by elucidating and enhancing wives’ property and wage rights, helped boost their commercial power in La Crosse in the second half of the century. As a result, Fredericka Levy’s story might have been different had she and John moved to town in 1900.

Challenging Gender Norms As Wisconsin’s legislators and judges liberated married women’s property and wages, they also encouraged La Crosse women to participate in the world of commerce in a second, more ironic, way: by channeling local women’s creative energies in exciting directions that undermined the broader notion that women were best suited for domestic life.46 In the middle of the nineteenth century, La Crossers shared much in common with many other Americans who embraced fairly rigid conceptions of gender. They largely embraced the idea that the biological differences of men and women prepared each for distinct roles in society. Men, as the thinking went, were public creatures well equipped to navigate the uneasy tides of commerce and politics. Nature, on the other hand, had crafted women to be domestic angels, heavenly spirits who raised righteous children, ran households, and provided husbands with a warm refuge from the chilly economic winds of mid-nineteenth-century America. Resourceful women often played on their identity as moral caretakers to get involved in social reform movements like temperance.47 Still, for middle-class women in places like La Crosse, the message was clear: they should accept their natural limitations and embrace their domestic place. They should surrender the political battlefield to men. They should not run businesses or work for wages. If they remembered who they were supposed to be, then social harmony would follow. This gendered world did not always mesh with reality in La Crosse. Fredericka Levy’s story, for example, demonstrates that local women did run businesses, make money, and work beyond the home and hearth. The ideology, however, was potent and helped condition how Americans viewed themselves in a dynamic nation at midcentury. Such gendered ideas, for example, shaped the assumptions of Wisconsin’s earliest male leaders and help explain why they had little interest in extending the franchise to female residents.48

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Even before Wisconsin joined the union in 1848 (the same year a convention of men and women gathered in Seneca Falls, New York, to demand the vote for women), most politicians in the territory, like most across the nation at the time, saw women’s suffrage as a bizarre proposition.49 During the first failed constitutional convention of 1846, attendees spent days debating who should have the franchise in the future state. At one point, Sheboygan delegate David Giddings urged his colleagues to embrace suffrage for all males over the age of twenty-one, including African American men. This proposal was evidently too absurd for James Magone. In response, Magone, a representative from Milwaukee, suggested the convention strike the word “male” from the constitution and enfranchise women. He was far from an advocate of women’s political rights. Instead, in the words of one historian, his effort “was an attempt to ridicule and embarrass the supporters” of African American suffrage and “show how preposterous it was.”50 Apparently, for Magone and others in 1846, granting Wisconsin’s women the vote was even more outrageous than enfranchising the sons and grandsons of slaves. In the years to come, Wisconsin lawmakers did little to veer off course and made clear their belief that women from across the state were unsuited for the world of politics and belonged in the home. The outcome of the state’s prohibition against women’s suffrage was predictable in La Crosse: men dominated local government before 1900. Beginning with Thomas B. Stoddard in 1856 and ending with Wendell A. Anderson in 1901, every La Crosse mayor had been male. Moreover, every state senator and representative who called the river city home in the nineteenth century was male. Federal agents in town were also members of a masculine scene. Each one of the fourteen postmasters who served La Crosse was a man.51 Many disenfranchised women in town, however, were unwilling to stay on the sidelines of civic debate even though they lacked the vote. The legal restriction on women’s suffrage, in fact, had an ironic impact on La Crosse: it encouraged many local women to become more engaged in politics and challenge traditional gender assumptions about their place in society. Perhaps the most energizing example of women claiming a voice beyond the domestic world involved the ongoing debate over suffrage itself. In the 1880s, as suffragists like Susan B. Anthony and Lucy Stone went on paid speaking tours that drew large crowds and attracted national headlines, the issue of women’s voting rights captured fresh attention in La Crosse.52 By this time, most Wisconsinites, and certainly many La Crosse residents, were still not willing to accept the idea that women were well suited to participate in the grim

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and contentious world of electoral politics. At the same time, however, many increasingly believed that women, as devoted mothers and loving domestic caretakers, were far better equipped than men to grasp the importance of public education in Wisconsin. In 1885, lawmakers motivated by this belief submitted a referendum to state voters asking whether they supported giving women the vote in “any election pertaining to school matters.”53 Although more people who voted in the general election cast ballots for governor, those who did voice an opinion on the measure favored it by a small majority.54 Yet the referendum presented a fundamental dilemma: few Wisconsinites, even many who had supported the measure, understood exactly what powers it gave to women. Some, such as the state attorney general, believed it allowed women to vote, but only in school district meetings. Others maintained that the referendum was a legal watershed that expanded women’s political power. One of these people was Olympia Brown, an ordained Universalist minister and committed suffragist from Racine, Wisconsin.55 In 1886, Brown was a significant catalyst for women’s voting rights because she embraced an expansive interpretation of the referendum. Rather than accept the attorney general’s limited vision for women’s suffrage, she and her allies raised the valid point that school district meetings were not the only moments in which state residents could weigh in on educational affairs. Instead, eligible voters also chose school officials in municipal and state elections. As a result, Wisconsin’s women should be able to vote in these contests. For Olympia Brown and her supporters, the referendum thus granted women in La Crosse and elsewhere a chance to claim political power and, in the process, challenge traditional gender expectations.56 Yet Brown also grasped a political truth. Not every Wisconsinite accepted her broad and bold interpretation of the referendum. She and her allies recognized that they needed a strategy to publicize their position and rally support for it across the state. To this end, Brown and her supporters organized a series of speeches in several Wisconsin cities, including La Crosse.57 In November and December 1886, some of the nation’s leading suffragists traveled to the river city to defend their voting rights. On November 25, for example, Clara Bewick Colby, an English-born activist who had graduated from the University of Wisconsin and founded and edited a suffragist newspaper in Nebraska in 1883, assured a large audience at Norden Hall that women’s suffrage was not a threat to American civilization, but was really “in harmony with the progress of the race . . . of our government” and of “the evolution of woman.”58 One week later, Brown herself appeared in town and argued that

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women needed the vote to solve the country’s biggest problems: “the question of labor and temperance will not be settled till women have their say.”59 No suffragist attracted more attention in town than Susan B. Anthony. By 1886, Anthony was one of the best known suffragists in the nation. She had first taken up the mantle of women’s rights in 1849 when, as a young schoolteacher in New York, she had addressed a meeting of the Daughters of Temperance. One year later, Anthony left her teaching job and joined the lecture circuit where she championed a wide range of causes, from women’s rights to abolition. In years to come, Anthony would continue to mobilize Americans. In 1869, she garnered even greater national attention when she and Elizabeth Cady Stanton, another powerful spokesperson for women’s rights, founded the National Woman Suffrage Association (NWSA), an organization devoted to winning the vote for women. By the evening of November 25, 1886, as Anthony took the stage before a crowd of more than two hundred listeners in La Crosse, she was one of the best known women in the United States.60 According to one journalist in attendance, Anthony made a stirring argument she had undoubtedly articulated countless times before. She asserted that the franchise would help transform American women into influential citizens who could bind the nation’s wounds: “women were told that the reason their petitions were allowed to die unnoticed, that their efforts in affairs failed to command success, that their pay for like work was less than man’s was that they lacked a ballot with which to help make or unmake politicians and political parties.” The reporter judged the speech a success. In his words, “all but two” people “sat through the evening with apparent entertainment, or interest, or both.”61 Some people in La Crosse, apparently, were ready to imagine a new public identity for local women. Yet the message of Colby, Brown, and Anthony did not enthrall everyone. While some residents seemed genuinely excited by the idea of women’s suffrage, others were far less sympathetic to the cause.62 In April 1877, a journalist at the Chronicle mocked the very notion of women participating in elections: “Quite an amusing incident occurred at” a polling place in Mauston, Wisconsin, when the city clerk informed several women trying to vote that “they were ‘not rejected on account of any specified inequality, but for general disability.’ ”63 Another pointed to the outcome of municipal elections in Kansas, a state in which women could vote, and disputed Brown’s brave assertion that benevolent, enfranchised women could ever really change the world: “Dispatches since [the] election indicate that the women made little perceptible impression on the general result, except in rural localities . . . out

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of the 543 women who registered” in Emporia, Kansas, “only 396 voted.”64 Such reactions demonstrate that not every La Crosse citizen was ready for women’s suffrage. This kind of lingering resistance in La Crosse was symbolic of the larger hurdles Brown and her allies faced when it came to rallying popular support behind their cause. With public opinion wavering, Brown turned to the Wisconsin legal system in an effort to settle this contentious issue and assert the right of women to vote.65 In April 1887, Brown tested the limits of state law when she tried to cast a vote in Racine’s city election. The polling inspectors on duty, however, refused to accept her claim that the referendum granted her legal authority to participate in the contest. In response, Brown turned to the justice system and filed suit against the inspectors who had blocked her at the polls. In so doing, she offered La Crosse women a striking example of female agency outside the home. At first, her efforts seemed a smashing and historic success. The first judge to hear the case, Racine Circuit Court Judge John B. Winslow, held that the referendum had granted women the right to vote in municipal elections. Yet other Wisconsin jurists were unwilling to accept Winslow’s broad decision and Brown’s victory proved short lived. In 1888, Wisconsin’s highest court heard the case on appeal from the Racine inspectors and overturned Winslow’s ruling. In the words of Justice John B. Cassoday, author of the opinion, it “is the character of the election itself which determines the right of women to participate in it. The mere fact that a city, county, or state officer may, as incident to his office, be required to do some act which may more or less remotely affect schools, does not make the election of such officer one pertaining to school matters.”66 The justices did declare that women could vote, but only in school elections and only if they used separate ballot boxes. Since most polling places lacked such designated boxes, the decision essentially nullified women’s ability to participate in city elections. Although women continued to cast ballots in school district meetings, Olympia Brown’s efforts to win broader suffrage rights were fruitless in La Crosse and elsewhere until the twentieth century.67 This official rejection of women’s suffrage, however, did not prevent La Crosse women from continuing to demand the vote in town and, in so doing, keep the issue of women’s place in society on the public stage. In 1886, a number of women inspired by Anthony’s visit to La Crosse established a local branch of the NWSA. By 1895, fifty La Crosse women belonged to the organization and attended weekly meetings in town to discuss “subjects relevant to

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the suffrage question” and contribute papers “in which they present their well chosen facts clothed in graceful and euphonic language.”68 By 1900, married and single women held the offices of president, vice president, secretary, and treasurer.69 Women, in other words, behaved much as their husbands, fathers, and sons in town. The NWSA also gave women a chance to ponder the most important political issues of the day. In 1897, for example, local suffragists debated knotty legal questions, the finer points of parliamentary procedure, and a range of other issues, including “taxes, registration and voting, women in the old world . . . the Sunday question, intemperance, the abatement of the loafing at the street corners,” and the “duty of sending children regularly to school.” In 1897, furthermore, members petitioned their representative in Congress to support national women’s suffrage.70 By the middle of the 1890s, the NWSA provided many La Crosse women a chance to articulate their shared interests and to take crucial political positions. In this instance, the state’s unwillingness to provide women equal access to the ballot box ironically inspired many in town to participate in politics in new and liberating ways and to reassess their social place in the thriving river city at century’s end.71 Suffrage was not the only issue that provided reform-minded women in La Crosse with an inviting opportunity to join their city’s political conversation and, in the process, challenge traditional gender expectations. While many La Crosse women agitated for the right to vote, many also embraced prohibition of alcohol in assertive ways before 1900.72 That La Crosse women would accept the temperance charge is not surprising. Beginning in the 1820s, literally hundreds of thousands of women around the country took up arms against liquor to reform the world.73 Temperance remained a burning issue in places like Wisconsin at midcentury and after. Prohibition, in fact, colored the state from its earliest days. Temperance advocates made their presence felt in the state as early as 1848 when their legislative allies tried to repeal an act that granted municipal boards power to award liquor licenses to taverns and groceries. Support for temperance wavered in Wisconsin in the 1860s and 1870s.74 Yet the game was still on. In the 1880s, the issue of alcoholic consumption reentered the public square when thousands of residents across the state joined temperance organizations and irked Protestant ministers railed against intoxicating spirits.75 Wet and dry legions did not fight over alcohol simply in Wisconsin’s capital city of Madison. Instead, they often waged ongoing political and legal warfare in towns and cities across the state.76 It should not surprise us that

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La Crosse was one of the chief battlegrounds in this cultural war. La Crosse residents were no strangers to alcoholic beverages in the second half of the century. The city, for example, did not hurt for saloons, taverns, and grocery stores that sold liquor to thirsty patrons. In 1891 and 1892, the city clerk issued 158 liquor licenses for such establishments.77 The city was also home to a healthy brewing industry. In 1884, local brewers produced more beer than any other Wisconsin city. By 1900, moreover, eight breweries operated in town.78 All told, city brewers produced more than a million dollars of beer that year, which ranked the industry the fifth most valuable in town. Residents were also more than happy to share their inebriating fermentations with others. In 1900, railroad cars forwarded almost twenty-seven thousand tons of beer, wine, and liquor from the city to parts unknown.79 Put simply, La Crosse was swimming in alcohol at the end of the century and would have been an inviting target for determined temperance advocates. In the same way that suffrage energized many La Crosse women, the temperance question encouraged many to take political action beyond the voting booth and articulate a new vision of their place in town. By the 1870s at least three temperance societies, the Independent Order of Good Templars, the Mendotas, and the Sons of Temperance, had established local chapters and welcomed both married and single women into their ranks. Women, however, did not just attend meetings and canvass the city as foot soldiers to the cause. Instead, many held leadership positions that provided them an opportunity to hone their organizational skills, forge connections with other reform-minded men and women, and build an important, transgendered political movement in the city. As early as 1876, for example, women led the Mendotas. Even an organization with a patently gendered name like the Sons of Temperance listed several women as officeholders in 1876.80 By the 1870s, many local women had already accepted the daunting challenge to sober up a drunken city. It was 1880, however, when women teetotalers seized the moment in La Crosse.81 That year, local women founded a branch of the Women’s Christian Temperance Union (WCTU) in town. First established in Ohio in 1874, the WCTU had emerged as one the nation’s best-known and most influential temperance organizations by the decade’s end. Under the energetic direction of Frances Willard, a woman who had grown up on a farm outside of Janesville, Wisconsin, and become president of the group in 1879, the WCTU sent a passel of orators to rally listeners around the nation, coordinated extensive petition drives, and convinced politicians to pass legislation related to tem-

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perance and women’s rights.82 By 1880, the WCTU was one of the most influential women’s organizations in the world. Few local groups could match the executive acumen of the WCTU in the 1870s and after. By the mid-1890s, close to one hundred women had, at one time or another, joined the union and three separate branches had taken root in town. Some members even tried to carry their message of sobriety beyond the city limits. Several women involved went on religious missions to the rowdy lumber camps of northern Wisconsin to try and convince male sawyers and loggers to find God and forego Demon Rum near the end of the century.83 Just as the NWSA provided many well-to-do women in La Crosse with a new political voice, the WCTU offered them an intriguing way to influence politics and gave them fresh opportunities to challenge gendered assumptions that often favored men at their expense. If the leadership of La Crosse temperance societies is any indication, then well-to-do women found prohibition particularly attractive in the 1870s and after. Of the local women who led the Mendotas in 1876 and who appear in the federal census, for example, only schoolteacher Nellie Dudley worked outside of her home by 1880. Many of the other women involved were married to husbands who enjoyed good careers and at least a modicum of local status. Adelaide Dudley’s husband, Edwin, for example, labored as a marble cutter, employment that likely involved years of devoted artisanal training. Other Mendota husbands at the time included a mill builder, retired merchant, sewing machine agent, hotelier, and an unspecified manufacturer, professions that marked practitioners as relatively well-to-do.84 The privileged character of local women involved in temperance was even more apparent in the WCTU. At least eight of the women who held leadership positions in the union in 1880 were housewives. Of these eight, seven were wedded to clergymen and one was married to a lumber and grain dealer.85 By the 1890s, the WCTU leadership included one woman married to a lawyer, one wedded to a probate judge, and the wife of a physician.86 For many well-to-do women, temperance was a critical moral issue linked to the nation’s fate. It also offered them an excellent chance to weigh in on critical public issues and transform their city at a time when they lacked formal political power and to challenge the basic idea that they were, by definition, best suited to the home and hearth. Together issues like suffrage and temperance emboldened La Crosse women by the end of the century. This new spirit was particularly evident in 1895 when the La Crosse Press chose a group of fifty women to produce a

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special women’s edition of the paper. Over the course of three weeks, the women involved contributed original essays and artwork, solicited advertisements, edited the final product, and distributed thousands of copies throughout La Crosse.87 In article after article, the issue spotlighted the role that women played in a wide range of civic debates, from educational reform to temperance.88 It also included cartoons that made clear women’s growing feelings of independence from men and their emerging political and cultural confidence. One drawing featured a woman armed with a large pen, ink bottle, can of paste, and scissors who forces the newspaper’s male journalists out the exit. She holds copies of Charles Darwin’s Descent of Man and George Du Maurier’s best-selling novel Trilby, the story of a young French woman hypnotized and ultimately destroyed by an evil, scheming man (Figure 17). She decorates her office with posters of two famously contentious women: Victoria C. Woodhull, who ran for president in 1872, and “Dr. Mary,” probably Mary Edwards Walker, one of the nation’s first female physicians, who had served as a Union army surgeon and abandoned traditional women’s dress in favor of men’s clothing.89 The paper also included cartoons that portrayed women in positions of political authority. In one, an assertive female journalist in search of a good story questions a policeman (Figure 18) while another depicts a woman reporter forcing a corrupt alderman to his knees (Figure 19). Another locates the Press, rather than a man, at the center of a woman’s romantic attention (Figure 20). The message was clear. In 1895, La Crosse women were players in their city’s public life and did not need men to enjoy personal happiness. When the special edition appeared, the women involved were cautiously optimistic about its reception in town: “All the work of this issue . . . except the mechanical part, has been done by the ladies”; we “present it now to an indulgent public, knowing its imperfections will be overlooked, and its good qualities, if it have any, commended.”90 W. W. Luce, editor of the Press, was duly impressed. According to Luce, the “work was done in a thoroughly systematic manner proving the ladies possessed of executive ability, which would be a fortune for any business man.”91 Outsiders agreed with Luce. The Milwaukee Journal reported that the edition “was an excellent paper and shows that the ladies of that city have talent enough to accomplish anything they undertake.”92 By 1895, La Crosse women did not only participate in civic affairs; they offered a business model for male editors, reporters, artists, and advertising agents to follow. The edition seemed to suggest that

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Figure 17. The women who published the special women’s edition of the La Crosse Press in 1895 were confident in their ability to succeed as journalists and editors. This image, for example, demonstrates that women were feeling increasingly liberated in a gendered world long dominated by men.

women’s involvement in a dynamic movement culture opened up a world of possibilities. Not every woman in La Crosse would have taken part in this emerging movement culture in the 1890s. As the background of local temperance society leaders suggests, for example, such organizations were not always inviting or welcoming to women who lacked the time and resources to attend meetings or join petition drives. Moreover, many women in town likely rejected suffrage or temperance for cultural or ideological reasons. Some almost certainly would have followed the lead of Ellen Ewing Sherman (the wife of Civil War general William T. Sherman), educational

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Figure 18. Many of the women who helped edit the women’s edition of the La Crosse Press in 1895 clearly reveled in their ability to pursue stories and report the news. This cartoon portrays an eager woman reporter interrogating a local policeman in search of a good story.

reformer Catharine Beecher, and other well-heeled members of such national organizations as the Woman’s Anti-Suffrage Association, who argued that they had little interest in voting because it would upset their serene lives.93 Many Catholic women almost certainly abhorred temperance on religious grounds. Put simply, not all La Crosse women embraced the same political opinions or viewed voting rights, prohibition, or educational reform as causes worthy of their time or energy. Still, for local women such as Louise Osborne, who devoted more than a decade of her life to the WCTU in the 1880s and 1890s, involvement in reform offered a grand opportunity to demonstrate their influence and challenge accepted gender norms just as Wisconsin lawmakers and

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Figure 19. La Crosse women may not have been able to vote in municipal, state, and federal elections in 1895. Yet they were not willing to abandon politics. As this cartoon from the 1895 women’s edition of the La Crosse Press shows, at least some local women felt like they had the power to bring corrupt aldermen to their knees.

judges were protecting their property and wages.94 The cold, hard reality for Osborne and women like her (in both La Crosse and the United States at the time) was that they could not vote and, as a result, had little direct influence over the machinery of formal political power. Yet in an ironic way, state limitations on women’s political rights actually invigorated female activism in La Crosse and encouraged many well-to-do women to reimagine their place in town. The state did so by routing nascent female political energy in fresh directions beyond the ballot box. The battle for the vote, for example, inspired many local women to cheer on dynamic suffragists like Olympia Brown and Susan B. Anthony, found their own suffrage organizations, and lobby male politicians for the franchise at century’s end. Osborne and others joined

Figure 20. By the 1890s, La Crosse men were accustomed to political and cultural power in La Crosse. Many also embraced the idea that their mothers, sisters, wives, and daughters should be domestic caretakers who situated them at the center of their universe. Not every La Crosse woman, however, accepted this expectation. This cartoon published in the special women’s edition of the La Crosse Press in 1895, for example, locates the newspaper at the center of a woman’s romantic attention.

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temperance societies that kept the issue of alcoholism in the public eye and prohibition on the civic stage. In the end, this burst of political activism demonstrated to many La Crosse women that life’s possibilities were not always confined to a separate sphere of boudoirs and pantries.

The Gendered Entrepôt When Frederick Jackson Turner appeared in La Crosse and shared his vision of American history in 1895, he had very little to say about the impact of lawmakers and judges on American women. Fredericka Levy’s story from half a century before, however, raises intriguing questions about how Wisconsin lawmakers and courts defined the economic choices available to local women after 1850. At midcentury, Wisconsin’s lawmakers and judges, much like their counterparts across the Midwest and nation at the time, made it difficult for wives to take part in the lively world of commerce. Most important, they limited the ability of married women to manage property separate from their husbands and did little to afford working women control of their hard-earned wages. At the same time, they refused to grant women the right to vote in elections that would have given them a greater chance to influence their city’s commercial future. Together, these legal hurdles helped underpin a gendered mercantile world in which ambitious men worked the levers of economic power in La Crosse. Beginning in the 1850s, however, Wisconsin legislators and judges made choices that helped determine the economic opportunities available to La Crosse women. On the one hand, they passed new laws and courts issued rulings that loosened commercial bonds on married women. They gradually chipped away at the stultifying legal edifice of coverture, granted wives greater control over their property and wages, and made it easier for them to start businesses and find jobs outside the home. On the other hand, legislators’ and jurists’ unwillingness to grant women the vote drove many to challenge prevailing gender notions that defined them as domestic beings. Ironically, state-level limits on female suffrage actually channeled women’s political energies in extrapolitical directions. Local women organized and joined suffrage groups. They founded temperance societies. In so doing, they contested the idea that their place was in the home. In La Crosse, these legislative and judicial choices coincided with more women running businesses and entering the workforce as the century wore on. In the end, the state remade women’s commercial opportunities in ways that, in turn, allowed them to help shape their city’s economic world.

Conclusion

“A City of Bustling Trade”

By 1905, Ellis B. Usher had made quite a mark on La Crosse (Figure 21). Although he had been born in Bixton, Maine, in 1852 and now called Milwaukee home, Usher had spent much of life in the Mississippi River city. His family had arrived in La Crosse in 1855. As a young man, he had worked as a local clerk and eventually kept the books for lumber baron Gideon C. Hixon. Usher, however, was searching for something more. Journalism, apparently, was his true calling. At sixteen, a precocious Usher had already begun working as a local reporter for the La Crosse Republican and Leader. In 1875, he took an important step to cement his place on the local stage when he purchased a half interest in a competing newspaper, the Liberal Democrat.1 In 1878, Usher and his partner rechristened the paper the Morning Chronicle and, one year later, he assumed full control of its press.2 As owner and editor, Usher published articles that kept his name in the public eye and made him one of the city’s best-known inhabitants.3 By the 1880s, moreover, he had become a player in local and state-wide Democratic politics and served three terms as head of Wisconsin’s Democratic state central committee.4 Usher also had a keen sense of local history. He likely acquired his love of the past from his father, Issac, who, in 1881, had joined La Crosse’s Old Settlers Association, a group devoted to remembering the city’s first pioneers and preserving “records of the early days.” In 1898, Ellis had helped organize the La Crosse County Historical Society and served as its first president. He also shared his historical passion in public lectures. As a scholar, he was certainly a product of his times. In 1898, for example, he presented a paper

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Figure 21. Ellis Usher was one of La Crosse’s best-known public figures in the second half of the nineteenth century. In 1875, he had purchased a newspaper in town and become an influential journalist. He was also one of the river city’s greatest boosters. Even after Usher relocated to Milwaukee in 1901, he continued to sing the praises of La Crosse and celebrate the city’s founders who he believed had made local prosperity possible. Wisconsin Historical Society Image ID #56430.

before the Historical Society on immigration and the origins of La Crosse that echoed the Anglo-Saxon ethnic chauvinism of the future president Theodore Roosevelt and the Protestant minister Josiah Strong when it celebrated the “restless energy of these Yankee pioneers as compared with the more contented, easy-going and frugal methods of their immigrant neighbors” from

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Germany and Norway.5 Usher’s work won him acclaim across Wisconsin. By the turn of the twentieth century, many Wisconsinites lauded him as an expert on their vanished, frontier origins who reminded them of “a more simple American life—a truer life, closer to nature, such as our sturdy, wholesouled forefathers lived.”6 Even though Usher left La Crosse in 1901, he never lost his love for the city or its history. On November 5, 1905, this passion was clear in an article he published in the Milwaukee Sentinel that boosted La Crosse’s economic success. Usher drew a portrait of a commercial hub feeling its oats, “A City of Bustling Trade.” He evoked its physical beauty, its flour company that was primed to “invade Milwaukee for trade,” its fireproof hotel “that would be a credit to any of the largest cities.” Usher went on. He celebrated La Crosse’s public streets and schools, its breweries, its tidy parks. He seemed almost giddy. His hometown was clearly a gem on the Mississippi River: “La Crosse has rare attractions in the natural beauties of its site and surroundings, its attention to the beauties and conveniences of modern civilization and what is quite as important, in the excellence of its financial condition, low taxation, enterprise and promise.” 7 Really, who could ask for more? But the future did promise more. Much more. Usher was bold in his response to critics who argued that the city’s day in the sun had passed: “La Crosse is doing things and projecting enterprises. She has not ceased to grow. . . . Public improvements continue, and all existing manufacturing and commercial enterprises are growing and branching out.” Usher, in fact, saw even brighter days ahead with La Crosse taking its rightful place among the nation’s greatest cities as Americans headed west to the Pacific. Milwaukee, Chicago, and New York “lead only because they are older. But in the new inspiration that all the west must get from the Pacific ocean, an inspiration that is a presage of most wonderful progress in the next twenty-five years, La Crosse will be on the railways highways to Puget sound, the future seaport mart of the Pacific, and 1,000 miles nearer that development than her New England competitors in trade and manufactures. There lies her opportunity.”8 Usher thus painted a glowing portrait of a commercial city in ascension. Much like Professor Frederick Jackson Turner, who had weaved intriguing tales of the nation’s past when he lectured in La Crosse in 1895, Usher also had a clear idea about who La Crossers had to thank for their city’s smashing success and future promise: pioneers who had arrived at midcentury and transformed the untamed wilderness of southwestern Wisconsin into merchant prosperity. Nathan Myrick’s appearance on the Prairie in 1842 had helped set

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the narrative in motion: in “the intervening sixty-three years, the history of La Crosse is a part of that wonderful story of development in the Mississippi valley, the like of which was never before told in a given time in the world’s history.” Usher also had warm compliments for Thomas Benton Stoddard, the city’s first mayor and father of the Southern Minnesota Railroad, a “gentleman of the old school, whose courtly manner, ruffled shirt front and silk hat, always made him a striking figure in the little city that was on the western periphery of settlement when he was its chief official.” Men like Myrick and Stoddard had blazed a trail. They and many other city founders were “of large ability and strong character. The sons and daughters of these men, who are today leaders in good enterprises . . . are more numerously named in the financial Red Book, than those of any other city in the state outside of Milwaukee.”9 La Crosse’s success, it seemed, was part of a grand American origin story set in motion by hardy, independent pioneers who saw their opportunities in southwestern Wisconsin in the middle of the nineteenth century and took them. According to Ellis Usher, La Crosse residents owed such men a tip of the hat in 1905.

The Political City Usher, like Turner, was certainly right about one thing. Myrick and other La Crosse settlers had been crafty and determined enough to overcome the financial and physical risks of heading west, establishing sawmills and other businesses, securing railroad lines, and taking other steps to build a middle western city. Yet their efforts are only part of the city’s rich origin tale. As Hinterland Dreams demonstrates, this romantic vision of hardy pioneers forging an American community through individual sweat and toil largely ignores lawmakers, judges, and government agents who shaped the political and legal context within which La Crosse blossomed. Well before La Crosse became a city, government institutions and policies had paved the way for its rise and economic progress. As Red Bird’s bloody tale of revenge reveals, early in the nineteenth century federal armies secured the Indian land that would become southwestern Wisconsin, while federally funded explorers charted this territory and crafted stories of natural resources and commercial possibilities for the taking that attracted settlers to places like Prairie La Crosse. Federal and state governments also made it possible for ambitious Anglo-American settlers such as Nathan Myrick to make the long and arduous journey from eastern places like New York to settle on the verdant Prairie and transform

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a small and rather undistinguished trading post into a dynamic commercial hub of the nineteenth-century American Middle West. Moreover, Charles Colman and other city lumbermen took advantage of federal and state land policy to secure pine, state incorporation laws to muster money and cement their influence, and a special state franchise to drive Black River competitors out of business. Federal and state agents helped blaze a trail for La Crosse’s commercial prosperity even before it became a city. The American state continued to provide La Crosse’s citizens with powerful tools to mold the local economy after the city took root. State officials, in particular, vested the city’s Common Council with fresh power to regulate private businesses in town as the century went on. As early as the 1850s, Thomas Benton Stoddard and other urban boosters took advantage of state law to finance and regulate private railroad corporations that ran trains in town. Moreover, La Crosse leaders heard the complaints of John A. Renggly and used their state-sanctioned power to finance and regulate private water, streetcar, power, and telephone companies that erected critical public works projects and ultimately remade the city’s built environment during the second half of the nineteenth century. Government institutions and polices thus provided La Crosse’s inhabitants with a host of vital legal powers and privileges that helped them transform their city into a mature industrial community before 1900. Finally, government opened the way for new economic voices to emerge and help redefine La Crosse’s political economy. David Frank Powell’s story, for example, shows us how, even in the face of federal and state-level hostility, municipal power offered local workers a chance to participate in civic affairs and promote a political economy in which city officials looked out for labor in the 1880s and 1890s. And as Fredericka Levy’s tale suggests, the American state conditioned the commercial opportunities available for local women and provided them with legal tools that helped many make a go in the river city’s competitive business world and, in the process, transform the culture and social dynamics of this world. Although lawmakers, jurists, and other government officials often favored La Crosse businessmen, they also made critical decisions that enabled many of the city’s workers and women to craft the local economy, and the city’s future more broadly, after 1850. People in La Crosse, like many other Americans across the Middle West, thus lived in a successful city shaped by political decisions and institutions. Government, of course, was not the only factor that helped the community and its inhabitants prosper. The city benefited from its location at the meeting

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point of three rivers, which linked residents to the timberlands of the north and Mississippi River markets to the south and eventually made it a railroad hub. As Usher contended, La Crosse also took root because of the determined efforts of a committed cadre of resourceful urban boosters who understood regional trade and were devoted to securing their city’s economic welfare in the emerging Midwest. These people fought to attract railroads, courted merchants, built a system of public works, and publicized La Crosse around the country. Physical geography and wily entrepreneurs, in other words, mattered. But they also provide only part of the explanation for why the city took root and flowered in the nineteenth century. Government institutions and policies were just as important to the river city’s eventual commercial success. Federal, state, and municipal officials passed laws, issued rulings, provided resources, vested aldermen with financial and regulatory authority, and created a lasting legal foundation that transformed the city and its economy. Time and time again, the American state made and remade this midwestern mecca.

The Lessons of La Crosse In the end, the story of the state and capitalism in the making of La Crosse offers some intriguing lessons. First, it suggests that we need to ask new questions and reassess some of our key assumptions about urban business in the nineteenth-century Middle West. La Crosse was a single place in time, but it shared much in common with other cities on the make across the region. The city, like many of the region’s communities, from the largest metropole to the smallest rural hamlet, was a product of its geographic location. It was also home to a corps of ambitious urban boosters who fought to secure its continued wealth.10 Finally, La Crosse residents, like many midwestern urbanites, watched their city’s economy grow and diversify as the nineteenth century wore on. La Crosse thus presents a compelling case that can help us understand exactly how federal, state, and municipal policymakers defined urbanization and business development across the region in the nineteenth century. And since government institutions and policies helped forge La Crosse in profound and lasting ways, then perhaps the city’s individual account can help us construct a powerful counternarrative that relocates politics back at the heart of western economic development. Second, this story challenges the potent rhetoric of pioneering individualism that continues to define how many Americans view themselves and their

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nation’s past. Since the late nineteenth century, popular writers, Hollywood filmmakers, country and western musicians, and many historians have celebrated the notion that a largely stateless frontier was the seedbed of American exceptionalism. This alluring, yet fundamentally flawed and incomplete, vision of the past has conditioned the political and economic worldview of American leaders and influenced their policy choices. Ideally, by demonstrating the state’s constant impact on the affairs of La Crosse residents and other middle westerners who founded businesses during the nineteenth century, this story will urge readers to reevaluate the broader impact, for both good and ill, of government on their own urban and economic lives. Finally, La Crosse’s story suggests that Americans can better glean and address the commercial challenges that small cities face today if they look to the past. La Crosse and similar communities have changed in dramatic ways since 1900. They face a host of economic problems far different from the ones their residents wrestled with more than a century ago, from managing suburban sprawl, to fighting local poverty, to providing their inhabitants with Internet access necessary to navigate a new commercial century.11 What has not changed, however, is the important role that lawmakers, judges, and many other government officials play in framing possible solutions to these urban economic issues. Hopefully, by tracing how government institutions and policies helped fashion one city’s commercial history, readers will begin to pose fresh queries about how federal, state, and municipal institutions and policymakers continue to define modern urban concerns. And perhaps such questions will lead small city planners, politicians, and reformers in novel directions as they search for ways to tackle urban economic problems at the beginning of a new century.

notes

Prologue 1. Turner visited the city as a part of the university’s ambitious extension program. First organized during the 1880s, the Wisconsin Extension Division sent lecturers around the state who spoke on a variety of subjects, from agricultural reform to women’s rights. By 1893, a number of nationally distinguished scholars and intellectuals, including Turner, social scientist Richard T. Ely, and home economist Helen Campbell, had taken part in the program. By the mid-1890s, moreover, the university had established extension centers in both urban and rural communities throughout Wisconsin and sponsored one hundred separate courses for state residents. John D. Buenker, The History of Wisconsin, vol. 4, The Progressive Era, 1893–1914 (Madison: Wisconsin Historical Society Press, 1998), 21. For his part, Turner developed three lecture series that explored North American colonization, state building in the American West, and U.S. political history during the antebellum period, the series that he delivered in La Crosse in 1895. Along with appearing in the river city, Turner also shared tales of the nation’s past in other Wisconsin communities, such Eau Claire, Wausau, Necedah, and Augusta. Ray Allen Billington, Frederick Jackson Turner: Historian, Scholar, Teacher (New York: Oxford University Press, 1973), 136. 2. For useful critical studies of Turner’s work and its impact on the historical profession, see Ernst A. Breisach, American Progressive History: An Experiment in Modernization (Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 1993), 1–28; John Mack Faragher, ed., Rereading Frederick Jackson Turner: The Significance of the Frontier in American History, and Other Essays/With Commentary by John Mack Faragher (New York: Henry Holt, 1994); and Ian Tyrrell, “Making Nations/Making States: American Historians in the Context of Empire,” Journal of American History 86 (December 1999): 1015–1044. 3. Billington, Frederick Jackson Turner, 50–51. 4. “Movement from Europe,” La Crosse Daily Republican and Leader, 28 January 1895, 4. Turner was apparently a popular speaker. Early in 1892, he penned a letter to Herbert Baxter Adams, one of his graduate mentors at Johns Hopkins University, in which he claimed to draw an audience of two hundred people to one of his lectures. Wilbur R. Jacobs, The Historical World of Frederick Jackson Turner, with Selections from His Correspondence (New Haven, Conn.: Yale University Press, 1968), 1, 69.

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5. No La Crosse newspaper published complete versions of Turner’s lectures. Instead, they paraphrased his ideas and his language. “Reign of Old Hickory,” La Crosse Daily Republican and Leader, 18 February 1895, 4. 6. “Prof. Turner’s Lecture,” (La Crosse) Sunday Press, 17 February 1895, 1. 7. On the popularity of the frontier and western mythmaking in industrial America during the nineteenth and early twentieth centuries, see Henry Nash Smith, Virgin Land: The American West as Symbol and Myth (Cambridge, Mass.: Harvard University Press, 1950); G. Edward White, The Eastern Establishment and the Western Experience: The West of Frederic Remington, Theodore Roosevelt, and Owen Wister (New Haven, Conn.: Yale University Press, 1968); Richard Slotkin, The Fatal Environment: The Myth of the Frontier in the Age of Industrialization, 1800–1890 (New York: Macmillan, 1985); Joy S. Kasson, Buffalo Bill’s Wild West: Celebrity, Memory, and Popular History (New York: Hill and Wang, 2001); and Louis S. Warren, Buffalo Bill’s America: William Cody and the Wild West (New York: Vintage, 2006). 8. “It Was Wet,” La Crosse Daily Republican and Leader, 3 September 1890, 1. 9. “Progressive La Crosse,” (La Crosse) Sunday Press, 13 May 1894, 1. 10. “Death of Mr. Abner Gile,” La Crosse Morning Chronicle, 15 September 1897, 3. 11. For an intriguing discussion of the invisibility of the state in nineteenth-century America, see Brian Balogh, A Government Out of Sight: The Mystery of National Authority in Nineteenth-Century America (New York: Cambridge University Press, 2009); Max M. Edling, “Book Forum: A Review of Brian Balogh’s A Government Out of Sight: The Mystery of National Authority in Nineteenth-Century America,” Journal of Policy History 21, no. 4 (2009): 462–468; and Brian Balogh, “Response to Max Edling,” Journal of Policy History 21, no. 4 (2009): 469–472. 12. For more on Turner’s looming presence in the history of the American West and new directions in the field, see Patricia Nelson Limerick, The Legacy of Conquest: The Unbroken Past of the American West (New York: W. W. Norton, 1987), 17–32; William G. Robbins, “Laying Siege to Western History: The Emergence of New Paradigms,” Reviews in American History 19, no. 3 (September 1991): 313–331; William Cronon, George Miles, and Jay Gitlin, “Becoming West: Toward a New Meaning for Western History,” in Under an Open Sky: Rethinking America’s Western Past, ed. William Cronon, George Miles, and Jay Gitlin (New York: W. W. Norton, 1992), 3–27; William Deverell, “Fighting Words: The Significance of the American West in the History of the United States,” Western Historical Quarterly 25, no. 2 (Summer 1994): 185–206; Michael Steiner, “From Frontier to Region: Frederick Jackson Turner and the New Western History,” Pacific Historical Review 64, no. 4 (November 1995): 479–501; Patricia Nelson Limerick, Something in the Soil: Legacies and Reckonings in the New West (New York: W. W. Norton, 2000), 13–28; and Gregory H. Nobles, “Westward Ho—But Westward How?” William and Mary Quarterly 58, no. 3 (July 2001): 712–722. 13. Richard Wade, for example, contends that Pittsburgh, St. Louis, Cincinnati, Louisville, and Lexington all became successful frontier communities because their mer-

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chants recognized the importance of location and mustered the resources necessary for all five cities to grow and prosper. Richard C. Wade, The Urban Frontier: The Rise of Western Cities, 1790–1830 (Cambridge, Mass.: Harvard University Press, 1959). Both Charles N. Glaab and A. Theodore Brown hold that Kansas City became a western metropolis because boosters understood that the city had key geographic advantages over competing towns and mobilized the community behind major railroad projects in the nineteenth century. Charles N. Glaab, Kansas City and the Railroads (Madison: State Historical Society of Wisconsin, 1962); and A. Theodore Brown, Frontier Community: Kansas City to 1870 (Columbia: University of Missouri Press, 1963). Carl Abbott argues that a midwestern city’s success depended on the ability of its civic leaders to analyze the commercial opportunities available in its hinterland. Carl Abbott, Boosters and Businessmen: Popular Economic Thought and Urban Growth in the Antebellum Middle West (Westport, Conn.: Greenwood Press, 1981). John Mack Faragher holds that an emerging core of successful farm families exploited available natural resources and helped make Sugar Creek, Illinois, a stable midwestern community in the nineteenth century. John Mack Faragher, Sugar Creek: Life on the Illinois Prairie (New Haven, Conn.: Yale University Press, 1986). Timothy R. Mahoney and Jon C. Teaford each suggest that the physical environment of the Midwest shaped local economic choices and ultimately determined the success or failure of the region’s cities in the nineteenth century. Timothy R. Mahoney, River Towns in the Great West: The Structures of Provincial Urbanization in the American Midwest, 1820–1870 (New York: Cambridge University Press, 1990); and Jon C. Teaford, Cities of the Heartland: The Rise and Fall of the Industrial Midwest (Bloomington: Indiana University Press, 1993). According to William Cronon, Chicago became the heart of the Great West in the nineteenth century because its intrepid merchants and financiers took advantage of eastern investment and eventually dominated the regional economy from their city’s advantageous location at the nexus of rich ecosystems. William Cronon, Nature’s Metropolis: Chicago and the Great West (New York: W. W. Norton, 1991). 14. The roots of this contemporary interest in the history of the American state extend back to the 1940s when a cohort of scholars began to investigate how state-level government shaped commerce during the American antebellum period. See Oscar Handlin and Mary Flug Handlin, Commonwealth: A Study of the Role of the Government in the American Economy: Massachusetts, 1774–1861 (Cambridge, Mass.: Harvard University Press, 1947); Louis Hartz, Economic Policy and Democratic Thought: Pennsylvania, 1776–1860 (Cambridge, Mass.: Harvard University Press, 1948); Milton Heath, Constructive Liberalism: The Role of the State in the Economic Development of Georgia (Cambridge, Mass.: Harvard University Press, 1954); and Carter Goodrich, Government Promotion of American Canals and Railroads, 1800–1890 (New York: Columbia University Press, 1960). In the 1960s and 1970s, however, American historians moved away from the study of government institutions and policies and paid much greater attention to such topics as elections and voting patterns. See Richard J. Jensen, The Winning of the Midwest: Social and Political Conflict, 1888–1896 (Chicago: University of Chicago Press,

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1970); Paul Kleppner, The Cross of Culture: A Social Analysis of Midwestern Politics, 1850–1900 (New York: Free Press, 1970); and Michael F. Holt, The Political Crisis of the 1850s (New York: W. W. Norton, 1978). More recent scholars reemphasize the need to bring the state back into the nation’s history. See Peter B. Evans, Dietrich Rueschemeyer, and Theda Skocpol, eds., Bringing the State Back In (New York: Cambridge University Press, 1985); and Richard R. John, “Ruling Passions: Political Economy in NineteenthCentury America,” Journal of Policy History 18, no. 1 (2006): 1–20. Some continue to examine the impact of state-level policymaking on economic development. See Arthur F. McEvoy, The Fisherman’s Problem: Ecology and Law in the California Fisheries, 1850–1980 (New York: Cambridge University Press, 1986); and Sean Patrick Adams, Old Dominion, Industrial Commonwealth: Coal, Politics, and Economy in Antebellum America (Baltimore: Johns Hopkins University Press, 2004). Others focus more on the expansion of the federal government. See Steven Skowronek, Building a New American State: The Expansion of National Administrative Capacities, 1859–1877 (New York: Cambridge University Press, 1990); Richard Bensel, Yankee Leviathan: The Origins of Central State Authority in America, 1859–1877 (New York: Cambridge University Press, 1990); Andrew R. L. Cayton and Peter S. Onuf, The Midwest and the Nation: Rethinking the History of an American Region (Bloomington: Indiana University Press, 1990); Christopher Tomlins, Law, Labor, and Ideology in the Early American Republic (New York: Cambridge University Press, 1993); Victoria C. Hattam, Labor Visions and State Power: The Origins of Business Unionism in the United States (Princeton, N.J.: Princeton University Press, 1993); William E. Forbath, Law and the Shaping of the American Labor Movement (Cambridge, Mass.: Harvard University Press, 1996); and Jack P. Greene, “Colonial History and National History: Reflections on a Continuing Problem,” William and Mary Quarterly 64, no. 2 (April 2007): 237–250. Still others remind us that municipal governments left a deep impact on the nation’s history. See William J. Novak, The People’s Welfare: Law and Regulation in Nineteenth-Century America (Chapel Hill: University of North Carolina Press, 1996); and Thomas S. Wermuth, Rip Van Winkle’s Neighbors: The Transformation of Rural Society in the Hudson River Valley, 1720–1850 (Albany: State University of New York Press, 2001). Finally, a few suggest that different levels of the American state together conditioned the nation’s commercial history. See Colleen A. Dunlavy, Politics and Industrialization: Early Railroads in the United States and Prussia (Princeton, N.J.: Princeton University Press, 1994). Together, these historians make a convincing case that we need to understand the far- and wide-ranging impact of government institutions and policies to better grasp the course of American history. For a broad and illuminating theoretical reflection on the critical centrality of the state in American experience, see William J. Novak, “The Myth of the ‘Weak’ American State,” American Historical Review 113, no. 3 (June 2008): 752–772. 15. A number of innovative scholars have called for the reintegration of politics and urban history. Historian Jeffrey S. Adler argues that the politics of sectionalism and slavery convinced nervous eastern financiers to pull their money out of St. Louis, a city that depended on the precarious economics of slavery, and invest in the free city

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of Chicago by the middle of the nineteenth century. Jeffrey S. Adler, Yankee Merchants and the Making of the Urban West: The Rise and Fall of Antebellum St. Louis (New York: Cambridge University Press, 1991), 175–177. Others, such as Arnold R. Hirsch and Kenneth T. Jackson, examine the lasting impact of federal politics on the creation of urban ghettos and the growth of American suburbs. Arnold R. Hirsch, Making the Second Ghetto: Race and Housing in Chicago, 1940–1960 (New York: Cambridge University Press, 1983); and Kenneth T. Jackson, Crabgrass Frontier: The Suburbanization of the United States (New York: Oxford University Press, 1985), 190–230. For the most part, however, scholars focus on municipal politics and do not consider the impact of either state or federal power on American cities. See, for example, Terrence J. McDonald, “Putting Politics Back into the History of the American City,” American Quarterly 34 (Summer 1982): 200–209; Terrence J. McDonald, “The Problem of the Political in Recent American Urban History: Liberal Pluralism and the Rise of Functionalism,” Social History 10 (October 1985): 323–345; and Philip J. Ethington, “Recasting Urban Political History: Gender, the Public, the Household, and Political Participation in Boston and San Francisco During the Progressive Era,” Social Science History 16 (Summer 1992): 301–333. At the same time, historians of the American West have urged scholars to pay greater attention to federal power in the region, but say little about how federal, state, and municipal power meshed to shape the region’s urban history. See, for example, Limerick, The Legacy of Conquest, 78–96; and Richard White, “It’s Your Misfortune and None of My Own”: A New History of the American West (Norman: University of Oklahoma Press, 1991), 57–59. For a perceptive, if biting, critique of historians of the American West who “have contributed substantially to the field’s evasion of the messy realm of the political,” see Robert D. Johnston, “Beyond ‘the West’: Regionalism, Liberalism and the Evasion of Politics in the New Western History,” Rethinking History 2, no. 2 (July 1998): 240. Chapter 1. Red Bird’s Tale 1. For a helpful introduction to Red Bird’s uprising, see Martin Zanger, “Red Bird,” in American Indian Leaders: Studies in Diversity, ed. R. David Edmunds (Lincoln: University of Nebraska Press, 1980), 64–87. 2. Zanger, “Red Bird,” 65; Nancy Oestrich Lurie, Wisconsin Indians (Madison: State Historical Society of Wisconsin Press, 1987), 19; Nina Parentice, “The Removal of the Winnebago: Failed Policy and Tribal Perseverance” (master’s thesis, University of Wisconsin–Milwaukee, 1995), 21–22; Patty Loew, Indian Nations of Wisconsin: Histories of Endurance and Renewal (Madison: Wisconsin Historical Society Press, 2001), 43–44. 3. For an excellent discussion of the impact of the federal government on the nation’s western borderlands in the antebellum period, see Brian Balogh, A Government out of Sight: The Mystery of National Authority in Nineteenth-Century America (New York: Cambridge University Press, 2009), 151–218. 4. The secondary literature on the often bloody Indian efforts to resist European and American expansion onto their western homelands is vast and growing. For excellent

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examples of this scholarship, see Gregory Evans Dowd, A Spirited Resistance: The North American Indian Struggle for Unity, 1745–1815 (Baltimore: Johns Hopkins University Press, 1993); Jill Lepore, The Name of War: King Philip’s War and the Origins of American Identity (New York: Vintage, 1999); Alan Taylor, The Divided Ground: Indians, Settlers, and the Northern Borderland of the American Revolution (New York: Vintage, 2007); Ned Blackhawk, Violence over the Land: Indians and Empires in the Early American West (Cambridge, Mass.: Harvard University Press, 2008); Peter Silver, Our Savage Neighbors: How Indian War Transformed Early America (New York: W. W. Norton, 2008); and Elliott West, The Last Indian War: The Nez Perce Story (New York: Oxford University Press, 2009). 5. On the colonial ambitions of Europeans, particularly the French, along the St. Lawrence River and into the Great Lakes region, see Richard White, The Middle Ground: Indians, Empires, and Republics in the Great Lakes Region, 1650–1815 (New York: Cambridge University Press, 1991); John Mack Faragher, A Great and Noble Scheme: The Tragic Story of the Expulsion of the French Acadians from the American Homeland (New York: W. W. Norton, 2005); and David Hackett Fisher, Champlain’s Dream (New York: Simon & Schuster, 2008). 6. Wisconsin Cartographers’ Guild, Wisconsin Past and Present: A Historical Atlas (Madison: University of Wisconsin Press, 1998), 38–39, 42–43. 7. Until recently, the Ho-Chunk were typically known as the Winnebago, a tribal name derived from the Mesquakie Indian word Ouinipegouek. The name Ho-Chunk comes from the word Hochungra, which we can roughly translate as “people of the big voice.” Loew, Indian Nations of Wisconsin, 40–46. 8. Louise Phelps Kellogg, The French Régime in Wisconsin and the Northwest (Madison: State Historical Society of Wisconsin, 1925), 75. 9. By this time, the Jesuits had a long history of exploration and had helped pave the way for the settlement of New France. Since 1625, when the first Jesuits arrived in Quebec, they had worked hard to find converts among Indians. To this end, they had accepted a model of native conversion that differed greatly from that practiced by Jesuits, Franciscans, and other missionaries in either New Spain or the British colonies of North America. Most important, the French Jesuits were committed to living among indigenous people, learning their cultures and languages, and finding converts within the context of preexisting indigenous tradition. Jesuit disciples, for example, did not endorse polygamy among Indians, but they often did learn to accept its existence in their larger effort to win converts. In short, as Jesuit missionaries visited the unknown interior of North America, they became aware that yawning cultural distance often estranged Indians from Catholic priests. Sydney E. Ahlstrom, A Religious History of the American People (New Haven, Conn.: Yale University Press, 1972), 61–66. For an insightful discussion of the Jesuit response to indigenous sexual practice and gender norms, see White, The Middle Ground, 66–70. 10. “Of the first Voyage made by Father Marquette toward new Mexico, and How

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the idea thereof was conceived,” in The Indians of North America, ed. Edna Kenton, vol. 2 (New York: Harcourt, Brace, 1927), 264. 11. Reuben Gold Thwaites, ed., A New Discovery of a Vast Country in America, By Father Louis Hennepin (1698; repr., Chicago: A. C. McClurg, 1903), 38, 221–222. 12. Henry Kamen, Empire: How Spain Became a World Power, 1492–1763 (New York: Perennial, 2003), 111–117. 13. For an example of Champlain’s concerted effort to negotiate the cultural traditions of Ottawa Indians in New France, see Francis Parkman and David Levin, France and England in North America, vol. 1 (New York: Library of America, 1983), 278–279. 14. Richard White, introduction to The Indian Tribes of the Upper Mississippi Valley and Region of the Great Lakes as Described by Nicolas Perrot, French Commandant in the Northwest; Bacqueville de la Potherie, French Royal Commissioner to Canada; Morrell Marston, American Army Officer; and Thomas Forsyth, United States Agent at Fort Armstrong, ed. Emma Blair (1911; repr., Lincoln: University of Nebraska Press, 1996), 2. 15. Kellogg, The French Régime, 231–232; Gardner P. Stickney, Nicholas Perrot: A Study in Wisconsin History (Milwaukee: Parkman Club, 1896), 9. 16. Kellogg, The French Régime, 301, 328–329, 333–335, 388–389. 17. White, The Middle Ground, 256–314. 18. Louise Phelps Kellogg, The British Régime in Wisconsin and the Northwest (Madison: State Historical Society of Wisconsin, 1935), 20, 30–32; John Parker, ed., The Journals of Jonathan Carver and Related Documents (Minneapolis: Minnesota Historical Society Press, 1976), 1–12. For a sharp history of Pontiac’s War, see Gregory Evans Dowd, War Under Heaven: Pontiac, the Indian Nations, and the British Empire (Baltimore: Johns Hopkins University Press, 2004). 19. White, The Middle Ground, 305–314. 20. For a comprehensive and illuminating discussion of the Seven Years’ War in North America, see Fred Anderson, The Crucible of War: The Seven Years’ War and the Fate of Empire in British North America, 1754–1766 (New York: Alfred A. Knopf, 2000). 21. Parker, The Journals of Jonathan Carver, 6, 12–21. 22. Jonathan Carver, Three Years Travels Through the Interior Parts of North-America, for More Than Five Thousand Miles (Philadelphia: Key & Simpson, 1796) , 29–31, in Eighteenth Century Collections Online, http://galenet.galegroup.com.lp.hscl.ufl.edu/ servlet/ECCO?locID=gain40375 (accessed 23 May 2007). 23. Carver, Three Years Travels, 34. 24. Parker, The Journals of Jonathan Carver, 20–38. 25. Parker, The Journals of Jonathan Carver, 40, 42, 44–47. 26. Parker, The Journals of Jonathan Carver, 44. 27. Pike mentions Carver on three occasions in his own journal of his visit to the Old Northwest. Donald Jackson, ed., The Journals of Zebulon Montgomery Pike with

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Letters and Related Documents, vol. 1 (Norman: University of Oklahoma Press, 1966), 29, 119, 200. 28. Kellogg, The British Régime, 144–145, 176, 316–325. For a general overview of the British efforts to secure commerce in the region in the aftermath of the American Revolution, see Wayne Edson Stevens, The Northwest Fur Trade, 1763–1800 (Urbana: University of Illinois Press, 1928). 29. On American justifications for Indian conquest west of the Appalachian Mountains during the late eighteenth and early nineteenth centuries, see Eric Hinderaker, Elusive Empires: Constructing Colonialism in the Ohio Valley, 1673–1800 (New York: Cambridge University Press, 1997), 226–227; and Fred Anderson and Andrew Cayton, The Dominion of War: Empire and Liberty in North America, 1500–2000 (New York: Penguin Books, 2005), 207–246. 30. Robert V. Hine and John Mack Faragher, The American West: A New Interpretive History (New Haven, Conn.: Yale University Press, 2000), 118–129. On Wayne’s military adventures in the Ohio River Valley and his ultimate victory at the Battle of Fallen Timbers, see Alan D. Gaff, Bayonets in the Wilderness: Anthony Wayne’s Legion in the Old Northwest (Norman: University of Oklahoma Press, 2004). 31. For a brief discussion of the Treaty of 1783, see Edward Countryman, The American Revolution (New York: Hill and Wang, 1985), 180–181. On the American and British treaty of 1796, see Todd Estes, The Jay Treaty Debate, Public Opinion, and the Evolution of Early American Political Culture (Amherst: University of Massachusetts Press, 2006). 32. Bruce E. Mahan, Old Fort Crawford and the Frontier (Iowa City: State Historical Society of Iowa, 1926), 36, 37, 45–54, 64. 33. For a discussion of how the American story of Indian conquest emerged during the Revolution, see Kenneth M. Morrison, “Native Americans and the American Revolution: Historic Stories and Shifting Frontier Conflict,” in, Indians in American History: An Introduction, ed. Frederick E. Hoxie and Peter Iverson (Wheeling, Ill.: Harlan Davidson, 1998), 87–104. 34. For useful histories of the War of 1812 and its lasting impact on the United States, see Walter R. Borneman, 1812: The War That Forged a Nation (New York: Harper Perennial, 2005); and A. J. Langguth, Union 1812: The Americans Who Fought the Second War of Independence (New York: Simon & Schuster, 2007). 35. On this expansionist tendency in early American political thought, see Drew R. McCoy, The Elusive Republic: Political Economy in Jeffersonian America (Chapel Hill: University of North Carolina Press, 1980), 121–132, 185–188. 36. John C. Calhoun, “Letter in Relation to the Yellow Stone Expedition,” in The Works of John C. Calhoun, ed. Richard K. Crallé, vol. 5 (New York: D. Appleton, 1851), 63. 37. For a comprehensive discussion of the U.S. Army’s early impact on the Old Northwest during the antebellum period, see Francis Paul Prucha, Broadax and Bayonet: The Role of the United States Army in the Development of the Northwest, 1815–1860 (Madison: State Historical Society of Wisconsin, 1953).

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38. Mahan, Old Fort Crawford, 184–186. 39. Francis Paul Prucha, American Indian Policy in the Formative Years: The Indian Trade and Intercourse Acts, 1790–1834 (Cambridge, Mass.: Harvard University Press, 1962), 84–93. 40. Prucha, American Indian Policy, 45–50, 87–93. 41. Prucha, American Indian Policy, 87–93. 42. Fort Crawford regulated commerce in several instances. In 1817, for example, troops blocked two of John Jacob Astor’s fur traders from exchanging goods with nearby Indians because they lacked official licenses to do so. Furthermore, in 1822 fort officials searched every boat that passed by in an effort to prevent merchants from selling alcohol to Indians. Mahan, Old Fort Crawford, 72–74, 82, 185–186. 43. Mahan, Old Fort Crawford, 72–74. 44. Congress, Senate, Documents Relative to the Indian Trade: Submitted to the Senate by the Committee on Indian Affairs (Washington, D.C.: Gales & Seaton, 1829), 18–20. 45. Congress, House, Committee on Indian Affairs, Report of the Committee on Indian Affairs upon the Subject of the Execution of the Act to Abolish the Indian Trading Establishments, 18th Cong., 1st sess., 1824, H. Rep. 129: 8. I have gauged the value of $38,000 in 2008 dollars using the Consumer Price Index, a measurement that calculates average consumer prices that should be familiar to most readers and also offers a more conservative estimate of the relative value of the American dollar. Measuring Worth, http://www.measuringworth.com/calculators/uscompare/result.php (accessed 3 October 2009). Throughout the notes, citations of Measuring Worth refer to the equivalent value of currency in 2008. 46. Mahan, Old Fort Crawford, 16–19, 66, 89–99. For a general history of U.S. Indian treaty making, see Francis Paul Prucha, American Indian Treaties: The History of a Political Anomaly (Berkeley: University of California Press, 1997). 47. “Treaty with the Sauk and Foxes,” in Indian Treaties, 1778–1883, ed. Charles J. Kappler (New York: Interland, 1975), 74–77. 48. “Treaty with the Sauk, 1815,” in Kappler, Indian Treaties, 120–121, “Treaty with the Sauk, 1816,” in Kappler, Indian Treaties, 126–128. 49. “Treaty with the Winnebago, 1816, ” in Kappler, Indian Treaties, 130–131. 50. “Treaty with the Sioux, Etc., 1825” in Kappler, Indian Treaties, 250–255. 51. “Treaty with the Chippewa, Etc., 1829, ” in Kappler, Indian Treaties, 297–300. 52. “Treaty with the Winnebago, 1829, ” in Kappler, Indian Treaties, 300–303. 53. “Treaty with the Sauk and Foxes, Etc., 1830,” in Kappler, Indian Treaties, 304– 310. 54. On the origins and outcomes of Shawnee resistance, see R. David Edmunds, The Shawnee Prophet (Lincoln: University of Nebraska Press, 1985); and John Sugden, Tecumseh: A Life (New York: Holt Paperbacks, 1999). 55. Kerry A. Trask, Black Hawk: The Battle for the Heart of America (New York: Henry Holt, 2006), 3, 141–162, 262–293.

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56. Black Hawk describes this eastern tour in his autobiography. Black Hawk, Black Hawk: An Autobiography, ed. Donald Jackson (1833, repr., Urbana: University of Illinois Press, 1990), 146–149. 57. Trask, Black Hawk, 299–308. 58. Although the nation’s generals and politicians often cited military imperatives as justification for these expeditions, scientific inquisitiveness also drove exploration. The antebellum period was a time of great intellectual ferment and curiosity in the United States and people across the nation craved news of scientific discoveries made by intrepid American explorers. Newspapers filled their columns with tales of the latest discoveries and advances in a range of scientific areas, from astronomy to botany to meteorology. On the growing American fascination with science during this era, see Donald Zochert, “Science and the Common Man in Ante-Bellum America,” Isis 65, no. 4 (December 1974): 448–473. 59. W. Eugene Hollon, The Lost Pathfinder: Zebulon Montgomery Pike (Norman: University of Oklahoma Press, 1949), 8–12, 19–22, 37–40, 49–50. On Meriwether Lewis, William Clark, and their famous trek to the Pacific, see James P. Ronda, Lewis and Clark Among the Indians (Lincoln, Neb.: Bison Books, 1988); and Thomas P. Slaughter, Exploring Lewis and Clark: Reflections on Men and Wilderness (New York: Vintage, 2004). 60. Hollon, The Lost Pathfinder, 49–52; and Nancy Isenberg, Fallen Founder: The Life of Aaron Burr (New York: Viking Adult, 2007), 286–287. 61. James Wilkinson to Zebulon Montgomery Pike, St. Louis, 30 July 1805, in Jackson, The Journals 1: 3–4. 62. Jackson, The Journals 1: 23–29, 196–198. 63. Jackson, The Journals 1: 29–30. 64. Hollon, The Lost Pathfinder, 79–80, 87–88. 65. President, State of the Union Address (December 6, 1806), in The American Presidency Project http://www.presidency.ucsb.edu/ws/?pid=29448 (accessed 23 May 2007). 66. James Wilkinson to Zebulon Pike, New Orleans, 20 May 1807, in Jackson, The Journals 2: 229. 67. Jackson, The Journals 1: 133. 68. Explorers like Pike were not alone in their efforts to present an enticing portrait of the American West. Boosters in many western cities also gave speeches, penned newspaper articles, and did whatever they could to sell possible investors on the economic possibilities of borderland communities. See, for example, Charles N. Glaab, Kansas City and the Railroads: Community Policy in the Growth of a Regional Metropolis (Lawrence: University Press of Kansas, 1993), 10–35. 69. Forest G. Hill, Roads, Rails and Waterways: The Army Engineers and Early Transportation (Norman: University of Oklahoma Press, 1957), 23. 70. Congress, House, On the Organization of the Topographical Engineers of the Army, 19th Cong., 2nd sess., 1827, Mil. Aff. 339: 492.

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71. Lucile M. Kane, June D. Holmquist, and Carolyn Gilman, eds., The Northern Expeditions of Stephen H. Long: The Journals of 1817 and 1823 and Related Documents (St. Paul: Minnesota Historical Society, 1978), 54–55. 72. Roger L. Nichols and Patrick L. Halley, Stephen Long and American Frontier Exploration (Norman: University of Oklahoma Press, 1995), 43–58. 73. Kane, Holmquist, and Gilman, The Northern Expeditions, 90–92. 74. Nichols and Halley, Stephen Long, 58–60. 75. Richard G. Bremer, Indian Agent and Wilderness Scholar: The Life of Henry Rowe Schoolcraft (Mount Pleasant, Mich.: Clarke Historical Library, 1987), 15–43; and Michael T. Marsden, “Henry Rowe Schoolcraft: A Reappraisal,” The Old Northwest 2, no. 2 (June 1976): 154–156. 76. Henry R. Schoolcraft, Narrative Journal of Travels from Detroit Northwest Through the Great Chain of American Lakes to the Sources of the Mississippi River in the Year 1820 (1821; repr., New York: Arno Press, 1970), 336. 77. Schoolcraft, Narrative Journal, 337–339. 78. Schoolcraft, Narrative Journal, 339, 343, 344–346. 79. Bremer, Indian Agent, 42–43. 80. Bremer, Indian Agent, 44–46, 49–54. 81. Walter B. Hendrickson, “Nineteenth-Century State Geological Surveys: Early Government Support of Science,” Isis 52, no. 3 (September 1961): 358–361, 368–369. 82. Congress, House, Committee on Military Affairs, On an Increase of the Corps of Engineers and a Reorganization of the Topographical Engineers, 19th Congress, 1st sess., 1826, Mil. Aff. 292: 185. 83. Congress, House, On the Importance of the Topographical Engineers of the Army, 21st Congress, 2nd sess., 1831, Mil. Aff. 465: 631. 84. Congress, On an Increase of the Corps, 187; Congress, Senate, Report from the Secretary of War, in Compliance with a Resolution of the Senate, Relative to the Employment of the Topographical Engineers, 24th Congress, 1st sess., 1836, S. Doc. 419: 11. 85. Mary C. Rabbitt, Minerals, Lands, and Geology for the Common Defence and General Welfare, vol. 1, Before 1879 (Washington, D.C.: Government Printing Office, 1979), 44–47. 86. Walter Brookfield Hendrickson, David Dale Owen: Pioneer Geologist of the Middle West (Indianapolis: Indiana Historical Bureau, 1943), 41–44. 87. Congress, Senate, Report of a Geological Exploration of Part of Iowa, Wisconsin, and Illinois Made Under Instructions from the Secretary of the Treasury of the United States, in the Autumn of the Year 1939; with Charts and Illustrations, 28th Cong., 1st sess., 1844, 42. 88. Congress, Senate, Report of a Geological Exploration, 48, 61–62. 89. Hendrickson, David Dale Owen, 54–57.

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Notes to pages 31–34

Chapter 2. A Story of Settlement 1. On the power of frontier mythmaking in American history, see Henry Nash Smith, Virgin Land: The American West as Symbol and Myth (Cambridge, Mass.: Harvard University Press, 1950); G. Edward White, The Eastern Establishment and the Western Experience: The West of Frederic Remington, Theodore Roosevelt, and Owen Wister (New Haven, Conn.: Yale University Press, 1968); Richard Slotkin, Regeneration Through Violence: The Mythology of the American Frontier, 1600–1860 (Middletown, Conn.: Wesleyan University Press, 1973); Richard Slotkin, The Fatal Environment: The Myth of the Frontier in the Age of Industrialization, 1800–1890 (New York: Atheneum, 1985); Gerald Nash, Creating the West: Historical Interpretations, 1890–1990 (Albuquerque: University of New Mexico Press, 1991); and David Hamilton Murdoch, The American West: The Invention of a Myth (Reno: University of Nevada Press, 2001). 2. “Fifty Years Ago,” La Crosse (Daily) Republican and Leader, 10 February 1892, 1. Myrick’s letter is included in Biographical History of La Crosse, Trempealeau and Buffalo Counties, Wisconsin: Containing Portraits of all the Presidents of the United States, with Accompanying Biographies of Each; Engravings of Prominent Citizens of the Counties, with Personal Histories of Many of the Early Settlers and Leading Families (Chicago: Lewis, 1892), 541–569. 3. Westport was attractive to settlers like Barnabas Myrick in 1815 because, at a time when water provided the fastest form of travel, its location on Lake Champlain made it easier for businesspeople to communicate with Albany and other commercial cities to the south. Caroline Halstead Royce, Bessboro: A History of Westport, Essex Co., N.Y. (n.p.: n.p., 1902), 295. 4. For useful discussions of manly expectations during the post-Revolutionary and antebellum period, see E. Anthony Rotundo, American Manhood: Transformations in Masculinity from the Revolution to the Modern Era (New York: Basic Books, 1994), 10– 30; and Michael S. Kimmel, Manhood in America: A Cultural History (New York: Free Press, 1996), 13–42. 5. Biographical History of La Crosse, 543. 6. Biographical History of La Crosse, 544. 7. Jack Larkin, The Reshaping of Everyday Life, 1790–1840 (New York: Harper & Row, 1988), 14–15. 8. Biographical History of La Crosse, 543. 9. Ray Allen Billington and Martin Ridge, Westward Expansion: A History of the American Frontier, 6th ed. (Albuquerque: University of New Mexico Press, 2001), 116– 124; Sean Wilentz, The Rise of American Democracy: Jefferson to Lincoln (New York: W. W. Norton, 2005), 196–201; and Daniel Walker Howe, What Hath God Wrought: The Transformation of America, 1815–1848 (New York: Oxford University Press, 2007), 211–222. 10. William Cronon, Nature’s Metropolis: Chicago and the Great West (New York: W. W. Norton, 1991), 55–63. For a general history of Chicago and its transformation from a backwater frontier outpost into the industrial mecca of the Middle West, see Donald

Notes to pages 35–39

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L. Miller, City of the Century: The Epic of Chicago and the Making of America (New York: Simon & Schuster, 1997). 11. Biographical History of La Crosse, 544–546. 12. Benjamin F. Bryant, Memoirs of La Crosse County: From the Earliest Historical Times Down to the Present with Special Chapters on Various Subjects, Including Each of the Different Towns, and a Genealogical and Biographical Record of Representative Families in the County, Prepared from Data Obtained from Original Sources of Information (Madison, Wisc.: Western Historical Association, 1907), 31. 13. Albert H. Sanford and H. J. Hirsheimer, A History of La Crosse, Wisconsin, 1841– 1900 (La Crosse, Wisc.: La Crosse County Historical Society, 1951), 5–6. 14. Biographical History of La Crosse, 545–546. 15. Biographical History of La Crosse, 549–550. 16. For illuminating discussions of violence between colonists and Indians in early America, see Jill Lepore, The Name of War: King Philip’s War and the Origins of American Identity (New York: Alfred A. Knopf, 1998); Camilla Townsend, Pocahontas and the Powhatan Dilemma (New York: Hill and Wang, 2005); Ned Blackhawk, Violence over the Land: Indians and Empires in the Early American West (Cambridge, Mass.: Harvard University Press, 2008); and Peter Silver, Our Savage Neighbors: How Indian War Transformed Early America (New York: W. W. Norton, 2008). 17. Biographical History of La Crosse, 547–549. 18. Biographical History of La Crosse, 555. 19. Biographical History of La Crosse, 562. 20. Biographical History of La Crosse, 550–551. 21. Biographical History of La Crosse, 567–568; William R. Marshall, “Henry Mower Rice,” in Collections of the Minnesota Historical Society, vol. 9 (St. Paul: Minnesota Historical Society, 1901), 654–658. 22. George Rogers Taylor, The Transportation Revolution, 1815–1860 (New York: Holt, Rinehart and Winston, 1951), 15, 32, 79. 23. Ruth Schwartz Cowan, A Social History of American Technology (New York: Oxford University Press, 1997), 95–96. 24. John Lauritz Larson, “‘Bind the Republic Together’: The National Union and the Struggle for a System of Internal Improvements,” Journal of American History 7, no. 2 (September 1987): 363–387. 25. Howe, What Hath God Wrought, 212. 26. Larson, “‘Bind the Republic Together,’ ” 380. 27. Howe, What Hath God Wrought, 357–360. 28. Lawmakers in New York had long rallied behind public investment in the state’s infrastructure. In the 1810s, when James Madison balked at comprehensive federal funding for internal improvements, New York legislators began an aggressive campaign to finance transportation projects in their state. Taylor, The Transportation Revolution, 19. 29. For illuminating discussions of the Erie Canal and its impact on nineteenthcentury America, see Carol Sheriff, The Artificial River: The Erie Canal and the Paradox

204

Notes to pages 39–42

of Progress, 1817–1862 (New York: Hill and Wang, 1996); Peter L. Bernstein, Wedding of the Waters: The Erie Canal and the Making of a Great Nation (New York: W. W. Norton, 2005); and Gerard Koeppel, Bond of Union: Building the Erie Canal and the American Empire (Cambridge, Mass.: De Capo Press, 2009). On state investment in antebellum canals and transportation generally, see Carter Goodrich, Government Promotion of American Canals and Railroads, 1800–1890 (New York: Columbia University Press, 1960); and Harry N. Scheiber, Ohio Canal Era: A Case Study of Government and the Economy, 1820–1861 (Athens: Ohio University Press, 1969). 30. Bernstein, Wedding of the Waters, 193–197. 31. Sheriff, The Artificial River, 21–22. 32. Mark Goldman, High Hopes: The Rise and Decline of Buffalo, New York (Albany: State University of New York Press, 1983), 3–142; and David A. Gerber, The Making of an American Pluralism: Buffalo, New York, 1825–60 (Urbana: University of Illinois Press, 1989). 33. Ronald E. Shaw, Erie Water West: A History of the Erie Canal, 1792–1854 (Lexington: University Press of Kentucky, 1966), 140–142. 34. Shaw, Erie Water West, 143–163. 35. The canal was a tremendous economic success for New Yorkers. By financing canal construction and improving Buffalo’s harbor, lawmakers transformed upstate New York into a bustling commercial hive and made New York City a marketplace for both North America and the Atlantic world. In just nine years, the canal generated $8.5 million in tolls, more than enough to cover its original construction costs. Ray Allen Billington, Westward Expansion: A History of the American Frontier (New York: Macmillan, 1967), 334. Moreover, by 1835 traffic on the canal was so heavy that New York lawmakers embarked on an ambitious plan to enlarge the waterway, an improvement that lasted until 1862. Taylor, The Transportation Revolution, 34. 36. Billington, Westward Expansion, 301–302. 37. This part of Myrick’s journey remains confusing. In his memoir, he recalled traveling by train from Troy to Albany. These cities, however, were not connected by railroad in 1841. He likely sailed past Troy, then boarded a train at Albany bound for Schenectady. 38. Biographical History of La Crosse, 544. 39. “Treaty with the Chippewa [Ojibwa], 1826,” in Francis Paul Prucha, American Indian Treaties: The History of a Political Anomaly (Berkeley: University of California Press, 1994), 268–270. 40. “Treaty With the Winnebago, 1829,” in Prucha, Indian Treaties, 300–301. Measuring Worth, http://www.measuringworth.com/calculators/uscompare/result.php (accessed 3 October 2009). 41. “Treaty With the Chippewa [Ojibwa], 1837,” in Prucha, Indian Treaties, 491– 493; “Treaty With the Sioux, 1837,” in Prucha, Indian Treaties, 493–494; “Treaty With the Winnebago [Ho-Chunk], 1837,” in Prucha, Indian Treaties, 498–500. 42. Prucha, Indian Treaties, 228–232.

Notes to pages 42–45

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43. Robert E. Bieder, Native American Communities in Wisconsin, 1600–1960: A Study of Tradition and Change (Madison: University of Wisconsin Press, 1995), 151–177. 44. Although the Ho-Chunk (or Winnebago) and Dakota Indians had ceded their territory in Wisconsin to the federal government in 1837, many stayed in Wisconsin and Minnesota and interacted with white settlers in the region for years. Members of these nations lived in the vicinity of Prairie La Crosse during the 1840s. Wisconsin Cartographers’ Guild, Wisconsin’s Past and Present: A Historical Atlas (Madison: University of Wisconsin Press, 1998), 8–9. 45. Biographical History of La Crosse, 555–557. 46. Francis Paul Prucha, American Indian Policy in the Formative Years: The Indian Trade and Intercourse Acts, 1790–1834 (Cambridge, Mass.: Harvard University Press, 1962), 93–101. 47. Prucha, American Indian Policy, 262–263. 48. Richard White, “It’s Your Misfortune and None of My Own”: A New History of the American West (Norman: University of Oklahoma Press, 1993), 137–142. Billington suggests that between one-half and two-thirds of all settlers in the Northwest Territory were squatters; Billington, Westward Expansion, 374. 49. Paul Wallace Gates, History of Public Land Law Development (Washington, D.C.: Government Printing Office, 1968), 225. 50. Congress passed preemption legislation either extending or modifying previous acts in 1832, 1834, 1838, and 1840. Gates, History of Public Land Law, 228–238. 51. Everett Dick, The Lure of the Land: A Society History of the Public Lands from the Articles of Confederation to the New Deal (Lincoln: University of Nebraska Press, 1970), 68–69. 52. Nathan Myrick, Prairie La Crosse, Wisconsin Territory, to Barnabas Myrick, Westport, New York, 9 January 1842, in The Barnabas Myrick Family of Westport, New York, ed. Kent D. Myrick (Phoenix, Ariz.: K. D. Myrick, 1993), 1–3. 53. Biographical History of La Crosse, 551. 54. Biographical History of La Crosse, 552. 55. Myrick’s memoir does not mention the price of these sales. 56. These men included Jacob Spaulding, who purchased Mills’s land claim, Mr. Kounts and Mr. Scott, who made a claim south of Myrick and Miller’s claim, and Peter Cameron, who took possession of Kounts and Scott’s claim after they abandoned it. Cameron also began trading with Indians in the area. Biographical History of La Crosse, 533. 57. For informative histories of the Latter-Day Saints, see Jan Shipps, Mormonism: The Story of a New American Religious Tradition (Urbana: University of Illinois Press, 1987); John L. Brooke, The Refiner’s Fire: The Making of Mormon Cosmology, 1644–1844 (New York: Cambridge University Press, 1996); and Richard Lyman Bushman, Joseph Smith: Rough Stone Rolling (New York: Vintage, 2007). 58. Biographical History of La Crosse, 555, 559–560, 563.

206

Notes to pages 45–50

59. Nathan Myrick, Prairie La Crosse, Wisconsin Territory, to Barnabas Myrick, Westport, New York, 2 January 1843, in Myrick, The Barnabas Myrick Family, 2–3. 60. Although Myrick had commissioned Ira Brunson to survey his and Miller’s land claim in 1842, Brunson was not a federal surveyor. For this reason, the federal government did not recognize his original town plot when it surveyed the lands of Prairie La Crosse for public auction in 1848. 61. Historical Biography of La Crosse, 561. 62. Historical Biography of La Crosse, 561. 63. In 1892, Myrick was uncertain about the total number of acres that he and his fellow representatives purchased in 1848. Historical Biography of La Crosse, 562. Chapter 3. Politics and Pine 1. Spencer Carr, A Brief Sketch of La Crosse, Wisc’n, Showing the Location of the Place, Its Surrounding Scenery, Commercial Advantages, Early History, and the Social, Moral, Literary, and Religious Character of the Inhabitants; and Various Other Interesting Items (La Crosse, Wisc.: W. C. Rogers, 1854), 12–13. 2. La Crosse was not the only Wisconsin city that profited from the lumber industry. Businessmen in other of the state’s emerging communities also navigated the intertwined worlds of lumber and government to become wealthy in the nineteenth century. On the rise of the business in Oshkosh, Wisconsin, see Richard Nelson Current, Pine Logs and Politics: A Life of Philetus Sawyer, 1816–1900 (Madison: State Historical Society of Wisconsin, 1950), 103–145. 3. For a survey of the lumber industry in Wisconsin during the nineteenth century, see Robert F. Fries, Empire in Pine: The Story of Lumbering in Wisconsin, 1830–1900 (Madison: State Historical Society of Wisconsin, 1951); for other works that explore the origins and consequences of lumbering in the Old Northwest during this period, see Agnes M. Larson, History of the White Pine Industry in Minnesota (Minneapolis: University of Minnesota Press, 1949); and Theodore J. Karamanski, Deep Woods Frontier: A History of Logging in Northern Michigan (Detroit: Wayne State University Press, 1989). 4. Alice E. Smith, The History of Wisconsin, vol. 1, From Exploration to Statehood (Madison: State Historical Society of Wisconsin, 1973), 1–121; for an excellent discussion of Indian and European trade and interaction around the Great Lakes during this period, see Richard White, The Middle Ground: Indians, Empires, and Republics in the Great Lakes Region, 1650–1815 (New York: Cambridge University Press, 1991). 5. On white settlement and mining in Wisconsin’s lead region, see Smith, The History of Wisconsin, 1: 129, 133–134, 171–172, 184–187. 6. Figures cited from Smith, The History of Wisconsin, 1: 119, 187. Measuring Worth, http://www.measuringworth.com/calculators/uscompare/result.php (accessed 3 October 2009). On the wealth generated by the North American fur trade, see Axel Madsen, John Jacob Astor: America’s First Multimillionaire (New York: Wiley, 2001); and Justin Kaplan, When the Astors Owned New York: Blue Bloods and Grand Hotels in a Gilded Age (New York: Viking Adult, 2006).

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7. Wisconsin’s timberlands were part of a sprawling continental forest that extended east from New England across Canada. Historians estimate that this huge forest contained nearly 100 billion board feet of lumber in the nineteenth century. Fries, Empire in Pine, 5–6; and Timothy Bawden, “The Northwoods: Back to Nature?” in Wisconsin Land and Life, ed. Robert C. Ostergren and Thomas R. Vale (Madison: University of Wisconsin Press, 1997), 450–469. 8. The availability of white pine shaped the settlement of the Old Northwest and Great Plains. Most settlers in these regions relied on white pine to build balloon-frame homes and farm buildings during the nineteenth century. Jeffry Maas, “Timber, River and Mill,” in Wisconsin’s Past and Present: A Historical Atlas, ed. Wisconsin Cartographers’ Guild (Madison: University of Wisconsin Press, 1998), 40–41. 9. Horace Samuel Merrill, “An Early History of the Black River Falls Region” (M.A. thesis, University of Wisconsin, 1933). On the Mississippi River and its critical role in the history of the Middle West, see John O. Anfinson, The River We Have Wrought: A History of the Upper Mississippi (Minneapolis: University of Minnesota Press, 2005); and Calvin R. Fremling, Immortal River: The Upper Mississippi in Ancient and Modern Times (Madison: University of Wisconsin Press, 2005). 10. Reports of the army’s pursuit of the Sauk chief Black Hawk through southwestern Wisconsin helped to popularize the territory’s abundant natural resources, particularly its timber, as early as 1832. For a discussion of the federal government’s pursuit of Black Hawk across Wisconsin in 1832, see , Black Hawk, Black Hawk: An Autobiography, ed. Donald Jackson (Urbana: University of Illinois Press, 1990), 127– 140; and Kerry A. Trask, Black Hawk: The Battle for the Heart of America (New York: Henry Holt, 2005). 11. Fries, Empire in Pine, 4–5, 11–14. 12. “La Crosse, Wisconsin,” New York Daily Tribune, 16 June 1853. I thank Sarah E. Fatherly for sharing this citation with me. 13. Fries, Empire in Pine, 4, 11–14. 14. Selma Sather Casberg, “The Lumbering Industry of La Crosse, Wisconsin, 1841– 1905” (master’s thesis, University of Wisconsin, 1953), 22–34. Myrick also recounts their logging adventurers in a letter to F. A. Copeland in 1892. Biographical History of La Crosse, Trempealeau and Buffalo Counties, Wisconsin. Containing Portraits of All the Presidents of the United States, with Accompanying Biographies of Each; Engravings of Prominent Citizens of the Counties, with personal Histories of Many of the Early Settlers and Leading Families (Chicago: Lewis Publishing, 1892), 541–569. 15. For an account of Myrick and Miller’s failed efforts to build and run a sawmill on the Black River, see “La Crosse Once Key to Lumbering Industry Throughout This Section,” La Crosse Tribune and Leader-Press, 17 October 1926, 9. 16. Casberg, “The Lumbering Industry,” 31–32. 17. Nathan Myrick, quoted in “La Crosse Once Key,” 9. 18. Myrick’s disastrous attempts to log in the Black River pinery, however, did not wipe him out financially. After he left La Crosse, he made a fortune selling property in

208

Notes to pages 53–55

the town. Furthermore, when he reached St. Paul, he traded with Indians and white settlers throughout Minnesota and the Dakotas until 1876, when he focused on land speculation. Casberg, “The Lumbering Industry,” 32–34. 19. “Real Estate at La Crosse,” La Crosse Independent Republican, 6 September 1854, 2. 20. Charles L. Colman, La Crosse, Wisconsin, to H. R. Colman, Fond du Lac, Wisconsin, 11 April 1860; and Charles L. Colman, La Crosse, Wisconsin to his parents, Fond du Lac, Wisconsin, 1 March 1863, Additions to the Henry R. Colman Papers, 1854–1901, Colman Family Papers, 1854–1901, Wisconsin Historical Society (hereafter AHC). Measuring Worth (accessed 3 October 2009). 21. Charles L. Colman, La Crosse, Wisconsin, to his parents, Fond du Lac, Wisconsin, 27 January 1856, AHC. Measuring Worth (accessed 3 October 2009). 22. Charles L. Colman, La Crosse, Wisconsin, to H. R. Colman, Fond du Lac, Wisconsin, 1 October 1855, AHC. 23. “La Crosse Once Key,” 9. 24. Benjamin F. Bryant, Memoirs of La Crosse County: From the Earliest Historical Times down to the Present with Special Chapters on Various Subjects, Including Each of the Different Towns, and a Genealogical and Biographical Record of Representative Families in the County, Prepared from Data Obtained from Original Sources of Information (Madison, Wisc.: Western Historical Association, 1907), 202–203. 25. Charles L. Colman, La Crosse, Wisconsin, to H. R. Colman, Fond du Lac, Wisconsin, 15 April 1886, Charles Lane Colman, correspondence to his parents, 1878–1894, Colman Family Papers, 1837–1894, Mss V; La Crosse Public Library. 26. “The Pineries on Fire,” La Crosse Republican and Leader, 14 October 1871, 5; and “Fires in Clark County,” La Crosse Republican and Leader, 21 October 1871, 1. 27. Frederick Merk, Economic History of Wisconsin During the Civil War Decade (Madison: State Historical Society of Wisconsin, 1916), 61. 28. Fries, Empire in Pine, 109–112. 29. On the history of corporations, see Oscar Handlin and Mary Handlin, “Origins of the American Business Corporation,” Journal of Economic History 5, no. 1 (May 1945): 1–23; Ronald E. Seavoy, The Origins of the American Business Corporation, 1784– 1855 (Westport, Conn.: Greenwood Press, 1982); Kermit L. Hall, The Magic Mirror: Law in American History (New York: Oxford University Press, 1989), 96–105, 109–111, 193–195; and Mansel G. Blackford and K. Austin Kerr, Business Enterprise in American History (Boston: Houghton Mifflin, 1990), 142–144. 30. According to Colman’s diary, Balch furnished $300.00 in cash, a wagon valued at $35.00, a lot valued at $35.00, a note from Colman worth $25.89, an account worth $20.00, and $25.00 toward erecting a shingle shop. Colman contributed $300.00 in cash, a fountain machine worth $75.00, and two notes from Abram Butler valued at $60.89. Together, Balch and Colman contributed $876.78 to their partnership. Charles L. Colman, Copy of Diaries or Memoranda of C. L. Colman, La Crosse, for 1854, 1855, 1856,

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and 1857, 22 March 1853; typescript, box 2, Correspondence, Memoranda and Genealogy, Colman Papers, 1880–1894, Wisconsin Historical Society (hereafter CD). 31. Balch purchased Colman’s interest for $488 and agreed to pay all of Colman’s debts and protect him from any claims. The two men officially dissolved their partnership on July 11, 1853. CD, 3 August 1853. 32. Charles L. Colman, 15 November 1854, CD. 33. Charles L. Colman, 30 January 1855, CD. Measuring Worth (accessed 3 October 2009). 34. Charles L. Colman, 31 January 1855, CD. 35. Casberg, “The Lumbering Industry,” 20. 36. Drucilla K. Munson, “Gideon Cooley Hixon: La Crosse Lumberman,” Studies in State and Local History 1, no. 9 (1967): 4–5. 37. Casberg, “The Lumbering Industry,” 19–20. 38. Hall, The Magic Mirror, 96–99. 39. Naomi R. Lamoreaux, “Partnerships, Corporations, and the Theory of the Firm,” American Economic Review 88, no. 2 (May 1998): 66–67. 40. On the economic struggles of these states during the 1830s and 1840s, see George Rogers Taylor, Transportation Revolution, 1815–1860 (New York: Rinehart, 1951), 91, 138–141. 41. James Willard Hurst, Law and Economic Growth: The Legal History of the Lumber Industry in Wisconsin, 1836–1915 (Cambridge, Mass.: Belknap Press of Harvard University Press, 1964), 410–423. 42. The La Crosse Lumber Company charter is no longer held at the Wisconsin Historical Society. For a list of the company’s amended legal privileges and obligations, see Amended Articles of Association of La Crosse Lumber Company, 6 February 1882, folder L8, series 356, box 426, Incorporation Papers: Domestic Corporations, 1848–1945, Corporation Division, Secretary of State, Wisconsin Historical Society (hereafter IP). 43. History of La Crosse County, Wisconsin, Containing an Account of Its Settlement, Growth, Development and Resources; an Extensive and Minute Sketch of Its Cities, Towns and Villages—Their Improvements, Industries, Manufactories, Churches, Schools and Societies; Its War Record, Biographical Sketches, Portraits of Prominent Men and Early Settlers; the Whole Preceded by a History of Wisconsin, Statistics of the State; and an Abstract of Its Laws and Constitution and of the Constitution of the United States (Chicago: Western Historical, 1881), 617. 44. Articles of Association, 4 March 1885, folder D48, box 188, series 356, IP. 45. Articles of Incorporation of Henry A. Salzer Lumber Company, 13 September 1887, folder S257, box 781, series 356, IP; and Articles of Association of C. H. Nichols Lumber Company, folder N141, box 598, series 356, IP. 46. Articles of Incorporation of C. L. Colman Lumber Company, 16 February 1899, folder C676, box 131, series 356, IP; and Articles of Incorporation of Hixon & Company, 15 September 1900, folder H389, box 327, series 356, IP.

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Notes to pages 59–62

47. Richard White, “It’s Your Misfortune and None of My Own:” A New History of the American West (Norman: University of Oklahoma Press, 1991), 137–142. 48. Paul Wallace Gates, History of Public Land Law Development (Washington, D.C.: Government Printing Office, 1968), 141. 49. Fries, Empire in Pine, 8–11. 50. Fries, Empire in Pine, 161–162. 51. Wisconsin courts showed little interest in policing these sales and typically deferred to the judgment of lawmakers when it came to disposing of public land. Hurst, Law and Economic Growth, 128–129. Fries, Empire in Pine, 170. 52. Fries, Empire in Pine, 194. 53. Hurst suggests that this cycle of purchase, logging, and default was a substantial pattern of ownership as early as the 1860s. He estimates that this pattern had defined ownership of over half a million acres of the state’s northern forests by 1898. Hurst, Law and Economic Growth, 84, 127. 54. For a discussion of Wisconsin’s cutover district during the first half of the twentieth century, see Robert Gough, Farming the Cutover: A Social History of Northern Wisconsin, 1900–1940 (Lawrence: University Press of Kansas, 1997). 55. Fries, Empire in Pine, 171. 56. Fries, Empire in Pine, 161. 57. Munson, “Gideon Cooley Hixon,” 1–4. 58. “G. C. Hixon Associated with Many Enterprises in Early Days of City,” La Crosse Tribune and Leader-Press, 8 April 1934, 7; and Munson, “Gideon Cooley Hixon,” 5–6. 59. By the late 1890s, the T. B. Scott Lumber Company controlled tracts of pineland in Lincoln, Vilas, and Forest counties; Munson, “Gideon Cooley Hixon,” 6–7. For a list of these properties, see Lands of T. B. Scott Lumber Co. outside of Lincoln Co., Wis.; T. B. Scott Lumber Company Lands, Lincoln County Outside City of Merrill; and T. B. Scott Lumber Company’s City Property, Hixon and Company, Papers of Related Companies, T. B. Scott Lumber Co., Deeds, 1880–1913, box 84, Hixon and Company Papers, 1856–1928, La Crosse Manuscripts B, Wisconsin Historical Society (hereafter HP). 60. Munson, “Gideon Cooley Hixon,” 7. At the time of Hixon’s death in 1892, his fortune was nearly $1.2 million; Statement of G. C. Hixon’s Assetts & Liabilities, G. C. Hixon Legal Papers—Hixon Estate, 1877–1900, box 1, HP; Hixon’s son, E. P. Hixon, followed in his father’s footsteps when it came to land ownership. In 1896, he purchased tracts of land in the Red Lakes Indian Reservation for just $3.13 an acre. Bryant, Memoirs of La Crosse, 313. Measuring Worth (accessed 3 October 2009). 61. Not every lumber entrepreneur enjoyed such fantastic success in La Crosse. Without going into specific detail, for example, Robert Fries contends that neither tremendous economic success nor epic failure was the norm in the local lumber business. Robert Fries, “Some Aspects of the Lumber Industry in La Crosse,” in La Crosse County Historical Sketches, series 3, The Lumber Industry (La Crosse, Wisc.: La Crosse County Historical Society, 1937), 17. 62. Biographical History of La Crosse, 365–367.

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63. Casberg, “The Lumbering Industry,” 21. 64. Karel D. Bicha, C. C. Washburn and the Upper Mississippi Valley (New York: Garland, 1995), 21, 113–137. 65. Bryant, Memoirs of La Crosse County, 410–411; “The Pineries on Fire,” 5. 66. Biographical History of La Crosse, 157 67. Biographical History of La Crosse, 254. 68. Lumbermen also benefited from the fact that when Wisconsin’s Supreme Court heard contract disputes, it often interpreted them in ways that drove further market expansion. The court, in particular, issued decisions that encouraged sawyers and millers to increase their use of contracts and made it easier for them to expand their operations. Hurst, Law and Economic Growth, 297. 69. Biographical History of La Crosse, 549. 70. Colman first discussed establishing economic connections with businessmen in Dubuque, Iowa, and Winona, Minnesota, in an 1856 letter to his parents. Charles L. Colman, La Crosse, Wisconsin, to his parents, Fond du Lac, Wisconsin, 13 October 1856, AHC. 71. Beginning in 1873, The Wisconsin Lumberman, a monthly journal undoubtedly perused by lumbermen in La Crosse, began publishing the price and quantity of lumber at different yards throughout the United States. “Lumbering Statistic,” Wisconsin Lumberman 1, no. 2 (November 1873): 74; and “The Lumber Market,” Wisconsin Lumberman 1, no. 2 (November 1873): 99–100. For an illuminating discussion of the rise of Chicago as a lumbering center in the Old Northwest after 1850, see William Cronon, Nature’s Metropolis: Chicago and the Great West (New York: W. W. Norton, 1991), 148–206. 72. La Crosse lumbermen, in other words, likely would have had little experience with the “moral” economy described by many historians of the Northeast. See, for example, Michael A. Merrill, “Cash Is Good to Eat: Self-sufficiency and Exchange in the Rural Economy of the United States,” Radical History Review 4, no. 1 (Winter 1977): 52–66. 73. Biographical History of La Crosse, 549. 74. G. C. Hixon Journal, 29 April 1865–20 July 1870, vol. 81, box 91, HP. 75. Balance Sheet T. B. Scott Lumber Co., April 1st 1886, Hixon and Company, Papers of Related Companies, T. B. Scott Lumber Co. Sales & Inventory Records, 1886– 1897, box 83, HP. 76. Hurst, Law and Economic Growth, 309. 77. Land Contract between G. C. Hixon of La Crosse County, State of Wisconsin, and Mrs. Thea Christianson of Clark County, State of Wisconsin, 13 January 1884, Legal Papers—Hixon Estate, 1877–1900, HP; and Land Contract between T. B. Scott Lumber Company of Merrill, Lincoln County, Wisconsin, and Herman Hessel of town of Scott, Lincoln County, 29 July 1885, Hixon and Company, Papers of Related Companies, T. B. Scott Lumber Co. Mortgages and Land Contracts, 1884–1898, HP. 78. Memorandum of an Agreement Made and Concluded Between W. D. Hogan, Chippewa County, Wisconsin, and G. C. Hixon and N. H. Withee, La Crosse County, Wisconsin, 3 December 1877; and Contract Made Between Sheehan V. Kerns and G.

212

Notes to pages 64–68

C. Hixon, La Crosse County, Wisconsin, 8 March 1880; Legal Papers—Hixon Estate, 1877–1900, box 1, HP. 79. In 1886, for example, the T. B. Scott Lumber Company reportedly sold Hixon 5 million feet of lumber from their mill yard in Merrill, Wisconsin; Contract between the T. B. Scott Lumber Co., of Merrill, Lincoln County, Wisconsin, and G. C. Hixon of La Crosse, Wisconsin, 10 November 1886, Hixon and Company, Papers of Related Companies, T. B. Scott Lumber Co., Legal Papers, 1878–1892, box 83, HP. In 1887, the T. B. Scott Lumber Company made a contract to purchase from John N. Staub the right to overflow a portion of his land in Lincoln County for the purpose of driving logs. Contract between John N. Staub of the Town of Russell, Lincoln County, Wisconsin, and the T. B. Scott Lumber Company, a corporation doing business at Merrill, Wisconsin, 19 October 1887. One year later, the T. B. Scott Company signed a contract to buy out the shingle contract of the Western Lumber Company. Contract between the Western Lumber Company of Chicago, Illinois, and the T. B. Scott Lumber Company of Merrill, Wisconsin, December 1888, Hixon and Company, Papers of Related Companies, T. B. Scott Lumber Co., Mortgages and Land Contracts, 1884–1898, box 84, HP. 80. Hixon and other La Crosse lumbermen undoubtedly made contracts when they sold lumber to private customers. Few lumbermen, however, apparently saved such contracts. Hixon and Colman’s legal papers, for example, do not contain copies of contracts for private lumber sales. 81. Brief submitted by Charles L. Sheridan in Circuit Court, Vilas County, in the case of Charles L. Sheridan, Plaintiff, vs. The Alexander Stewart Lumber Company and the T. B. Scott Lumber Company, Defendants, n.d., Legal Papers—Hixon Estate, 1877– 1900, box 1, HP. Measuring Worth (accessed 3 October 2009). 82. No records exist in the Vilas County Court House, the Wisconsin Historical Society, or local newspapers to verify that Sheridan’s case ever went to trial. 83. Silverthorn, Hurley, Ryan & Jones, Wausau, Wisconsin, to Frank P. Hixon, La Crosse, Wisconsin, 28 November 1893, 1–2, T. B. Scott, Correspondence, HP. 84. For informative histories of the origins of Black River lumbering, see Horace Samuel Merrill, “An Early History of the Black River Falls Region” (master’s thesis, University of Wisconsin, 1933), 19–37; and A. D. Polleys, Stories of . . . Pioneer Days in the Black River Valley (Black River Falls, Wisc.: Banner-Journal, 1948). 85. Merrill, “An Early History,” 50–51. 86. Wisconsin’s Supreme Court had long recognized the legislature’s power to grant franchises to improve state waterways, as long as it did so in ways that benefited the broader public interest over any private interests. Hurst, Law and Economic Growth, 163–165. 87. That Wisconsin lawmakers extended franchise power in 1864 was no surprise. On other occasions, they had granted private companies expansive legal authority to improve transportation and water power in their economic interest. Why they did so, however, remains something of a mystery, largely because Wisconsin’s legislature did

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not keep detailed records of debates or hearings in the 1860s. Hurst, Law and Economic Growth, 143–288. The La Crosse lumbermen who decided to lobby the legislature for new powers in 1864 followed in the footsteps of forty-eight earlier petitioners who in 1854 had convinced state lawmakers for a driving and booming franchise on the Black River. Wisconsin, Legislature, An Act to Incorporate the Black River Lumber Driving and Booming Company, Private and Local Acts Passed by the Legislature of Wisconsin, in the Year Eighteen Hundred and Fifty-Four (Madison, Wisc.: Beriah Brown, 1854), 69–73. 88. Wisconsin, Legislature, An Act to Incorporate the Black River Improvement Company, Private and Local Acts and Charters of Incorporated Companies, Passed by the Legislature of Wisconsin, in the Year 1864 (Madison, Wisc.: William J. Park, 1864), 36–45. 89. La Crosse’s were not the only lumbermen who petitioned Wisconsin lawmakers for franchises to improve rivers after 1850. The legislature granted similar franchises to the Wisconsin River Improvement Company in 1856, the Chippewa River Improvement Company in 1856, and the Wolf River Boom Company in 1857. Hurst, Law and Economic Growth, 152–153, 192, 195. 90. Wisconsin, Committee on Internal Improvements, Report of the Committee on Internal Improvements, Journal of the Assembly of Wisconsin, for the Year A. D. 1867, 1270. 91. Hixon wrote this passage over two days in his memo book. G. C. Hixon Memo Book, 28 May 1874–29 May 1874, vol. 153, box 94, HP. 92. J. A. Watrous claimed that twenty-three of the twenty-five mill owners in Jackson County, thirty-four people engaged in manufacturing and lumber rafting on the Black River, and “five-sixths” of the residents of Jackson and Clark counties supported his position to repeal the charters. Wisconsin, Committee on Internal Improvements, Report of the Committee, 1271. 93. For an autobiographical account of Watrous’s life in Black River Falls, see J. A. Watrous, “Black River Falls an Historic City,” Milwaukee Sentinel, 28 November 1910, 3. 94. Watrous also called on the assembly to repeal legislation that allowed boom construction on the Black River, incorporated the Black River Log Driving Company, and, in his opinion, injured his constituents in Jackson and Clark counties. This legislation included Wisconsin, Legislature, An Act to Incorporate (1854), 69–73; Wisconsin, Legislature, An Act to Amend an Act Entitled “An Act to Incorporate the Black River Lumber, Driving and Booming Company” approved February 21, 1854, Private and Local Laws Passed by the Legislature of Wisconsin in the Year Eighteen Hundred and Fifty-Six (Madison, Wisc.: Calkins & Proudfit, 1854), 829–831; and Wisconsin, Legislature, An Act to Protect the Lumber Interests of Black River, and to Amend Certain Laws Therein Named, Private and Local Laws Passed by the Legislature of Wisconsin, in the Year Eighteen Hundred and Fifty-Seven (Madison, Wisc.: Calkins & Proudfit, 1857), 335–337. See also Wisconsin, Report of the Committee, 419.

214

Notes to pages 70–77

95. Wisconsin, Committee on Internal Improvements, Report of the Committee, 1272. 96. The Legislative Manual of the State of Wisconsin: Comprising Jefferson’s Manual, Rules, Forms and Laws for the Regulation of Business; Also Lists and Tables for Reference. Compiled by the Secretary of State, in the Year 1870, Ninth Annual Edition (Madison, Wisc.: Atwood & Rublee, 1870), 239. 97. Wisconsin, Committee on Internal Improvements, Report of the Committee, 1268. 98. Wisconsin, Committee on Internal Improvements, Report of the Committee, 1268. 99. Watrous, “Black River Falls,” 3. 100. La Crosse businessmen continued to dominate the company into the twentieth century. As late as 1910, four years before the company dissolved, its president, secretary, treasurer, and directors all lived in La Crosse. Annual Report of Black River Improvement Company, 19 February 1910, folder B1902, box 82, series 356, IP. 101. The career of Frederick Allen Copeland, who managed and eventually owned Washburn’s lumber operations, provides a good example of the significant position that many lumbermen occupied in La Crosse. Copeland was a central player in local commerce; he not only controlled Washburn’s lumber holdings, he also owned stock in a number of local companies. He was a member of the Board of Trade for two decades, served on five separate standing committees as well as the Board of Directors, and was president of the Board of Trade in 1895 and 1896. He was also active in a number of organizations, including the La Crosse Club, the Grand Army of the Republic, and the Masons. Copeland was elected mayor in 1891. For a brief outline of Copeland’s personal history, see Biographical History of La Crosse, 239. 102. Albert H. Sanford and H. J. Hirsheimer, A History of La Crosse, Wisconsin, 1841–1900 (La Crosse, Wisc.: La Crosse County Historical Society, 1951), 172; and Casberg, 71. 103. Board of Trade of the City of La Crosse, Wisconsin, Annual Report of the Board of Trade of the City of La Crosse, Wis. for the Year 1890 (La Crosse, Wisc.: Walter Boycott’s Electric Print, 1890), 18. Measuring Worth (accessed 3 October 2009). 104. Munson, “Gideon Cooley Hixon,” 8–10. Chapter 4. Iron Tracks to the City 1. For a useful discussion of the origins of Federalist economic policies, see Stanley Elkins and Eric McKitrick, The Age of Federalism: The Early American Republic, 1788– 1800 (New York: Oxford University Press, 1994), 257–302. 2. History of Northern Wisconsin Containing an Account of Its Settlement, Growth, Development and Resources, an Extensive Sketch of Its Counties, Cities, Towns and Villages, Their Improvements, Industries, Manufactories; Biographical Sketches, Portraits of Prominent Men and Early Settlers; Views of County Seats, Etc. (Chicago: Western Historical, 1881), 473.

Notes to pages 79–80

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3. See, for example, Richard C. Wade, The Urban Frontier: The Rise of Western Cities, 1790–1830 (Cambridge, Mass.: Harvard University Press, 1959), 184, 334–335, Carter Goodrich, Government Promotion of American Canals and Railroads, 1800–1890 (New York: Columbia University Press, 1960), 261–262; Albert Fishlow, American Railroads and the Transformation of the Ante-Bellum Economy (Cambridge, Mass.: Harvard University Press, 1965), 163–204; Timothy R. Mahoney, River Towns in the Great West: The Structure of Provincial Urbanization in the American Midwest, 1820–1870 (New York: Cambridge University Press, 1990), 248–249; William Cronon, Nature’s Metropolis: Chicago and the Great West (New York: W. W. Norton, 1991), 55–93; Jon C. Teaford, Cities of the Heartland: The Rise and Fall of the Industrial Midwest (Bloomington: Indiana University Press, 1993), 33–40; and Carroll Engelhardt, Gateway to the Northern Plains: Railroads and the Birth of Fargo and Moorhead (Minneapolis: University of Minnesota Press, 2007), 37–105. 4. On the struggles of state-level railroad regulation, see Robert S. Hunt, Law and Locomotives: The Impact of the Railroad on Wisconsin Law in the Nineteenth Century (Madison: State Historical Society of Wisconsin, 1958), 167–175; Stanley Caine, “Why Railroads Supported Regulation: The Case of Wisconsin, 1905–1910,” Business History Review 44, no. 2 (Summer 1970): 175–189; and George H. Miller, Railroads and the Granger Laws (Madison: University of Wisconsin Press, 1971). On the difficulties of federal railroad regulation, see Gabriel Kolko, Railroads and Regulation, 1877–1916 (Princeton, N.J.: Princeton University Press, 1965), 3; Albro Martin, “The Troubled Subject of Railroad Regulation in the Gilded Age—A Reappraisal,” Journal of American History 61, no. 1 (June 1974): 343; Stephen Skowronek, Building a New American State: The Expansion of National Administrative Capacities, 1877–1920 (New York: Cambridge University Press, 1982), 161–162; Maury Klein, “Competition and Regulation: The Railroad Model,” Business History Review 64 (Summer 1990): 318; Colleen A. Dunlavy, Politics and Industrialization: Early Railroads in the United States and Prussia (Princeton, N.J.: Princeton University Press, 1994), 239–245; and Steven W. Usselman, Regulating Railroad Innovation: Business, Technology, and Politics in America, 1840–1920 (New York: Cambridge University Press, 2002). Together, the works of these scholars highlight the numerous challenges of state and federal railroad regulation, but they say little about whether or not municipal authorities in Wisconsin or elsewhere tried to rein in railroad corporations in the late nineteenth century. 5. Even before the first American settlers migrated to the region, these waterways helped make the site a colonial crossroads for Ho-Chunk travelers, French voyageurs, British traders, and other migrants eager to exchange their wares or share news. 6. Albert H. Sanford and H. J. Hirsheimer, A History of La Crosse, Wisconsin, 1841– 1900 (La Crosse, Wisc.: La Crosse County Historical Society, 1951), 60. 7. Spencer Carr, A Brief Sketch of La Crosse, Wisc’n, Showing the Location of the Place, Its Surrounding Scenery, Commercial Advantages, Early History, and the Social, Moral, Literary, and Religious Character of the Inhabitants; and Various Other Interesting Items (La Crosse, Wisc.: W. C. Rogers, 1854), 15.

216

Notes to pages 81–84

8. Ruth Schwartz Cowan, A Social History of American Technology (New York: Oxford University Press, 1997), 112–118. 9. On the railroad’s impact on New York City, see Edwin G. Burrows and Mike Wallace, Gotham: A History of New York City to 1898 (New York: Oxford University Press, 1999), 563–586, 655–656. For a discussion of railroads and Baltimore, see John F. Stover, History of the Baltimore and Ohio Railroad (West Lafayette, Ind.: Purdue University Press, 1987), 1–97. 10. Cronon, Nature’s Metropolis, 67–68. 11. “Milwaukee and La Crosse Railroad,” La Crosse Democrat, 26 April 1853, 1. 12. Cronon, Nature’s Metropolis, 81–93. 13. In 1830, for example, as noted in Chapter 3, Jackson vetoed the federal bill authorizing construction of the Maysville Road, intended to run through Lexington, Kentucky, and become a key link in the national transportation system, on the ground that the federal government did not have power to invest in local projects. For a sharp discussion of this veto, see Daniel Walker Howe, What Hath God Wrought: The Transformation of America, 1815–1848 (New York: Oxford University Press, 2007), 357–359. 14. For a thorough discussion of Jacksonian ideology and American politics during the antebellum period, see Harry L. Watson, Liberty and Power: The Politics of Jacksonian America (New York: Hill and Wang, 1990). 15. Gale was far from alone in his concerns about the link between fair state taxation and democracy at midcentury. As historian Robin L. Einhorn reminds us, state lawmakers from across the United States engaged in a passionate debate over taxation that sheds light on deeper concerns about majority versus minority rights, industrial development, freedom versus bondage, and the meaning of the American Revolution in the nineteenth century. Robin L. Einhorn, American Taxation, American Slavery (Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 2006), 218–250. 16. Wisconsin State Constitutional Convention, Journal of the Convention to Form a Constitution for the State of Wisconsin, with a Sketch of the Debates, Begun and Held at Madison, on the Fifteenth Day of December, Eighteen Hundred and Forty-Seven (Madison, Wisc.: Tenney, Smith & Holt, 1848), 348. 17. George Rogers Taylor, Transportation Revolution, 1815–1860 (New York: Rinehart, 1951), 138–141. 18. Taylor, Transportation Revolution, 91. 19. Not every delegate viewed state financing with equal disdain. Some, in fact, argued that prohibition on funding internal projects was an ill-advised overreaction that would hurt the people of the state in the long run. One of the most assertive voices was that of Dane County physician William H. Fox. According to the convention report, Fox argued, “if other states had been imprudent or unfortunate in carrying out systems of internal improvements, it was no reason for prohibiting them among us, but only for greater caution. He did not think that because one man got drunk, that the making of brandy should be prohibited.” Horace A. Tenney, Memorial Record of the Fathers of

Notes to pages 84–86

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Wisconsin Including Sketches of the Lives and Careers of the Members of the Constitutional Conventions of 1846 and 1847–48 with a History of Early Settlement in Wisconsin (Madison, Wisc.: D. Atwood, 1880), 220; Wisconsin State Constitutional Convention, Journal of the Convention, 345, 347. 20. Wisconsin State Constitutional Convention, Journal of the Convention, 360. 21. Wisconsin State Constitutional Convention, Journal of the Convention, 614. 22. Tenney, Memorial Record, 230–231; Hunt, Law and Locomotives, 6–7; Wisconsin State Constitutional Convention, Journal of the Convention, 360. 23. On the growing ability of American municipalities to gain greater autonomy from state lawmakers, see Jon C. Teaford, The Unheralded Triumph: City Government in America, 1870–1900 (Baltimore: Johns Hopkins University Press, 1984). For an interesting theoretical exploration of ways to enhance municipal power in the United States, see Gerald E. Frug, City Making: Building Communities Without Building Walls (Princeton, N.J.: Princeton University Press, 1999). 24. Wisconsin State Constitutional Convention, Journal of the Convention, 616. 25. For an excellent discussion of the legal debates that occurred in Wisconsin over public funding and the relationship between the state and its municipalities during the second half of the nineteenth century, see Balthasar H. Meyer, “Early General Railway Legislation in Wisconsin, 1853–1874,” Transactions of the Wisconsin Academy 12, no. 1 (1898): 336–388. 26. This effort was not wholly altruistic. As historian Robert C. Nesbit points out, Kilbourn and other self-interested railroad investors were more than willing to bribe state lawmakers to support their commercial plans and boost their railroad corporations. Robert C. Nesbit, Wisconsin: A History (Madison: University of Wisconsin Press, 1973), 206. 27. Wisconsin was far from the first state to charter private railroads. Maryland was the first state to do so when it chartered the Baltimore and Ohio Railroad in 1827. John Lauritz Larson, Internal Improvement: National Public Works and the Promise of Popular Government in the Early United States (Chapel Hill: University of North Carolina Press, 2001), 230–232. 28. Wisconsin, Legislature, An Act to Authorize the County of Columbia to Aid in the Construction of Certain Railroads, Private and Local Acts Passed by the Legislature of Wisconsin in the Year Eighteenth Hundred and Fifty-Three (Madison, Wisc., 1853), 198–201. 29. The state legislature declared that every bond would be issued for the amount of $1,000, would have a repayment term of not less than ten or more than twenty years, and would have a yearly interest rate of 7 percent. Wisconsin, An Act to Authorize the County of Columbia, 198. 30. The act stated that the county could transfer public aid to another railroad company if the Milwaukee and Watertown Railroad Company failed to comply with its terms within eighteen months. It further stipulated that the La Crosse and Milwaukee Company would not receive county aid unless it could finish construction of its portion

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Notes to pages 86–87

of the railroad within three years from passage of the act. Wisconsin, An Act to Authorize the County of Columbia, 200–201. 31. The act, in a sentiment expressed in every similar law that would follow in the next two decades, declared that “No Bonds shall be issued in pursuance of the provisions of this act, until a majority of the legal voters of said County, voting upon said question shall vote in favor of the same, at an Election called by said Board of Supervisors for that purpose.” Wisconsin, An Act to Authorize the County of Columbia, 200. 32. Legislators made two modifications that gave municipalities greater flexibility to raise money over the next several decades. First, they increasingly authorized them to raise local property taxes to help finance railroad construction. Second, as early as 1853, they stipulated that municipal boards would appoint a local railroad commissioner to attend stockholder meetings and cast one vote for every share of stock held by the community. This second change gave towns and counties greater say over railroads that they had helped finance. For the most part, however, the 1853 law empowering Columbia County remained the blueprint for future legislation. 33. With the exception of 1853, when the state legislature passed eleven acts authorizing municipal railroad funding, and 1857, when it passed nineteen acts, the number never reached double digits before 1866. 34. Wisconsin lawmakers passed the act on March 25, 1872. Wisconsin, Legislature, An Act to Authorize Municipal Corporations to Aid in the Construction of Railroads, General Laws Passed by the Legislature of Wisconsin in the Year 1872, Together with Joint Resolutions and Memorials (Madison, Wisc.: Atwood & Culver, 1872), 261–267. Wisconsin was not unique in its movement toward general charters. See, for example, L. Ray Gunn, The Decline of Authority: Public Economic Policy and Political Development in New York State, 1800–1860 (Ithaca, N.Y.: Cornell University Press, 1988), 222–245. 35. Even with tight restrictions, Wisconsin lawmakers could not guarantee that every village, town, city, and county that sold bonds and invested in railroads would enjoy prosperity. As the legislature granted more municipalities power to raise public money, some of these communities faced fiscal problems as they mortgaged their economic security to try and become players in railroading. During the 1870s and 1880s, no city suffered more than Watertown, a small city in southeastern Wisconsin. By 1879, the city was more than $600,000 in debt and, one year later, the state railroad commissioner questioned whether it would be able to retire this amount in ten years. Wisconsin Railroad Commissioner, Sixth Annual Report of the Railroad Commissioner of the State of Wisconsin, 1879 (Madison, Wisc.: David Atwood, 1880), 312; and Wisconsin Railroad Commissioner, Seventh Annual Report of the Railroad Commissioner of the State of Wisconsin, 1880 (Madison, Wisc.: David Atwood, 1882), xxxiii. 36. Data from railroad investment is from Wisconsin Railroad Commissioner, Seventh Annual Report, xxxix, 344–347. Although communities pledged money for railroads, the amount actually invested never reached the amount authorized. According to the Wisconsin Railroad Commissioner, “A considerable portion [of municipal and

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county money authorized for railroad construction] was never earned by the companies to whom it was voted, and no bonds were issued; another portion was paid in cash or scrip; some of the bonds were protected by the companies earning them, and the communities were not required to pay them; some were compromised, and others still were contested.” In other words, the fact that a village, town, city, or county in Wisconsin authorized public money for railroad construction did not necessarily mean it would actually invest that money. Wisconsin Railroad Commissioner, Fourth Annual Report of the Railroad Commission of the State of Wisconsin, 1877 (Madison, Wisc.: David Atwood, 1878), xxxiv. On the creation and evolution of the Commission, see Hunt, Law and Locomotives, 101–102, 163–166. Measuring Worth, http://www.measuringworth. com/calculators/uscompare/result.php (accessed 3 October 2009). 37. This railroad later became known as the La Crosse and Milwaukee Railroad. Wisconsin, Legislature, An Act to authorize the county of La Crosse to aid in the construction of the Milwaukee and La Crosse Railroad, Private and Local Acts Passed by the Legislature of Wisconsin in the Year Eighteenth Hundred and Fifty-Three (Madison, Wisc., 1853), 598–599. Measuring Worth (accessed 3 October 2009). 38. “La Crosse and Milwaukee Rail Road,” La Crosse Democrat, 25 October 1853, 2. 39. According to state law regulating municipal finances during the 1850s, the residents of La Crosse would have needed to gain special permission from the state legislature to issue bonds to invest money in railroad stock and fulfill such a bold pledge. However, the pledge to raise $50,000 was not legally binding in any way and was likely an effort by La Crosse residents to encourage their neighbors to individually invest in the railroad. “Turn Out!” La Crosse Democrat, 4 October 1853, 2. 40. Katharine Wesson, “Early Overland Routes of Travel to La Crosse,” in La Crosse County Historical Sketches, reprinted from the La Crosse Tribune and Leader-Press, ser. 2 (La Crosse, Wisc.: Liesenfeld Press, 1931), 26–27. 41. “Railroad Jubilee,” La Crosse National Democrat, 12 October 1858, 2. 42. “The Opening of the La Crosse and Milwaukee Rail Road,” La Crosse Independent Republican, 20 October 1858, 3. 43. For an account of Stoddard’s life, see History of La Crosse County, Wisconsin, Containing an Account of Its Settlement, Growth, Development and Resources; an Extensive and Minute Sketch of Its Cities, Towns and Villages—Their Improvements, Industries, Manufactories, Churches, Schools and Societies; Its War Record, Biographical Sketches, Portraits of Prominent Men and Early Settlers; the Whole Preceded by a History of Wisconsin, Statistics of the State; and an Abstract of Its Laws and Constitution and of the Constitution of the United States (Chicago: Western Historical, 1881), 457–458. 44. For a discussion of Stoddard’s efforts to found the Root River Valley and Southern Minnesota Railroad, see Sanford and Hirsheimer, A History of La Crosse, 145. 45. H. E. Rogers, “Recollections of T. B. Stoddard,” in La Crosse County Historical Sketches, reprinted from the La Crosse Tribune and Leader-Press, ser. 1 (La Crosse, Wisc.: Liesenfeld Press, 1931), 51. 46. Rogers, “Recollections of T. B. Stoddard,” 51.

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Notes to pages 88–90

47. Minnesota’s legislature granted a new corporate charter to reorganize the Southern Minnesota Railroad on March 4, 1864. Minnesota, Legislature, An Act to Facilitate the Construction of the Southern Minnesota Railroad, and to Amend and Continue Certain Acts in Relation Thereto, General and Special Laws (St. Paul, Minn., 1864), 147– 163. Minnesota lawmakers also distributed public land to the corporation. Minnesota, Legislature, An Act to Accept the Grant, and in Execution of the Trust Made and Created in and by Section Seven of an Act of Congress, Approved May Twelfth, Eighteen Hundred and Sixty-four, Entitled “An Act for a Grant of Lands to the State of Iowa, in Alternate Sections, to Aid in the Construction of a Railroad in Said State,” General Laws (St. Paul, Minn., 1865), 48–50. 48. The act did not specify a particular railroad corporation that would receive public money from La Crosse. Instead, it gave the Common Council authority to fund any Minnesota railroad that terminated on the western bank of the Mississippi River across from La Crosse and approached or went through the city. The timing of the act, however, suggests clearly that it was passed to help finance the Southern Minnesota Railroad. Wisconsin, Legislature, An Act to Authorize the City of La Crosse to Aid in the Construction of Railroads, Acts of a General Nature (Madison, Wisc., 1864): 423–424. Measuring Worth (accessed 3 October 2009). 49. “Southern Minnesota Railroad,” La Crosse Weekly Republican, 7 December 1864, 1. 50. History of La Crosse County, 636; Wisconsin, Legislature, An Act to Incorporate the City of La Crosse, Private and Local Laws Passed by the Legislature of Wisconsin in the Year Nineteen Hundred and Fifty-Six (Madison, Wisc.: Calkins & Proudfit), 274–279; and Sanford and Hirsheimer, A History of La Crosse, 145. 51. “Railway Opening Celebration!” La Crosse Evening Democrat, 18 November 1870, 3. 52. Truth, “The Green Bay and Minn. R. R. Proposition,” (La Crosse) Daily Republican and Leader, 13 March 1876, 4. 53. Truth, “Seventy-Five Thousand,” (La Crosse) Daily Republican and Leader, 10 March 1876, 4. 54. Vote it Down, “The Green Bay and Minn. R.R. Proposition,” (La Crosse) Daily Republican and Leader, 14 March 1876, 1. 55. Citizen, “More Objections,” (La Crosse) Daily Republican and Leader, 11 March 1876, 4. 56. “The Result,” (La Crosse) Daily Republican and Leader, 21 March 1876, 1. 57. In 1885, these railroads included the Chicago, Milwaukee and St. Paul, which first entered La Crosse in 1857; the Green Bay and Western, which entered the city in 1876; the Chicago, Burlington and Northern; and the Chicago and Northwestern, which both began operations in town in 1886. These railroads often began as independent lines with different names and many were purchased and renamed as part of larger railroad networks. Anita Taylor Doering, “Grand Excursion La Crosse, 1854–2004,” in Where Rivers Meet: An Educator’s Guide to the History of La Crosse, Wisconsin (La Crosse,

Notes to pages 90–95

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Wisc.: La Crosse Grand Excursion Educate Committee, La Crosse Convention and Visitors Bureau, 2003), 101–103. 58. Board of Trade of the City of La Crosse, Wisconsin, Annual Report of the Board of Trade of the City of La Crosse, Wisconsin, 1879 (La Crosse, Wisc.: Chronicle Book and Job Printing House, 1880), 23; Board of Trade of the City of La Crosse, Wisconsin, Thirty-third Anniversary of the Board of Trade of the City of La Crosse, Wisconsin, 1900 (La Crosse, Wisc.: Republican and Leader, n.d.), 27. 59. Wisconsin, Legislature, Message of the Governor of Wisconsin, Together with the Annual Reports, of the Officers of the State (Madison, Wisc., 1866), 107; Wisconsin, Secretary of State, Tabular Statements of the Census Enumeration and the Agricultural, Mineral, and Manufacturing Interests of the State of Wisconsin (Madison, Wisc., 1895), 57. 60. Board of Trade of the City of La Crosse, Wisconsin, Annual Report of the Board of Trade of the City of La Crosse, Wis., for the Year 1890 (La Crosse, Wisc.: Walter Boycott’s Electric Print, 1890), 18. Measuring Worth (accessed 3 October 2009). 61. Wolfgang Schivelbusch, The Railway Journey: The Industrialization of Time and Space in the Nineteenth Century (Berkeley: University of California Press, 1986), 178–187; William Deverell, Railroad Crossing: Californians and the Railroad, 1850–1910 (Berkeley: University of California Press, 1994), 3. 62. For an excellent account of railroad accidents and liability law in Progressive Era America, see Barbara Young Welke, Recasting American Liberty: Gender, Race, Law, and the Railroad Revolution, 1865–1920 (New York: Cambridge University Press, 2001). 63. “Hand Badly Smashed By a Car,” La Crosse Evening Democrat, 27 October 1870, 4; “Accident—Leg Broken,” La Crosse Evening Democrat, 3 November 1870, 4; “Hand Crushed by Cars,” La Crosse Evening Democrat, 14 November 1870, 2; “Railroad Accident,” La Crosse Republican, 26 November 1870, 3; “This Morning as the Train,” La Crosse Republican, 10 December 1870, 2; “Fearful Explosion,” La Crosse Evening Democrat, 12 December 1870, 4; “There Has Been Two Accidents,” La Crosse Evening Democrat, 23 December 1870, 4. 64. “On Monday as the Morning Passenger Train,” La Crosse Evening Democrat, 17 November 1870, 4. 65. La Crosse residents raised this very issue in 1895. See John Schaefer et al., Petition for Damages Claimed to Have Sustained by Residents Along the Right of Way of the C.B. and N.R.R. Cos Tracks on North Side Caused by Reason of Building Trestle and Embankment, 10 June 1895, Chicago, Burlington, and Northern Rail Road Company File (hereafter CBN), Committee on Railroads, Resolutions and Reports, 1858–1932, Common Council, City of La Crosse, La Crosse Public Library Archives, La Crosse, Wisconsin (hereafter CoRR). 66. Hunt, Law and Locomotives, 99, 140–141. 67. Miller, Railroads and the Granger Laws; Thomas K. McCraw, Prophets of Regulation: Charles Francis Adams, Louis D. Brandeis, James M. Landis, Alfred E. Kahn (Cambridge, Mass.: Belknap Press of Harvard University Press, 1984), 57–58.

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68. Wisconsin, Legislature, An Act to Incorporate the City of La Crosse, 274–279. La Crosse’s inhabitants were far from alone in their willingness and effort to regulate a wide range of local economic activities during the nineteenth century. Instead, they were part of a chorus of Americans who embraced the notion that state legislatures and courts had vested cities with police power necessary to govern their own commercial affairs. For an evocative study of municipalities as centers of American regulatory power that undercuts conventional scholarly and popular notions that nineteenth-century America was a stateless society, see William J. Novak, The People’s Welfare: Law and Regulation in Nineteenth-Century America (Chapel Hill: University of North Carolina Press, 1996). For a comprehensive study of law ordering the Wisconsin timber industry, see James Willard Hurst, Law and Economic Growth: The Legal History of the Lumber Industry in Wisconsin, 1836–1915 (Cambridge, Mass.: Belknap Press of Harvard University Press, 1964). 69. Benjamin F. Bryant, Memoirs of La Crosse County: From the Earliest Historical Times down to the Present with Special Chapters on Various Subjects, Including Each of the Different Towns, and a Genealogical and Biographical Record of Representative Families in the County, Prepared from Data Obtained from Original Sources of Information (Madison, Wisc.: Western Historical Association, 1907), 343–344; “Wisconsin Legislature,” (Madison) Wisconsin State Journal, 10 January 1883, 1; “Wisconsin Legislature,” (Madison) Wisconsin State Journal, 1 February 1883, 1. 70. “Wisconsin Legislature,” (Madison) Wisconsin State Journal, 14 March 1883, 1. Why state legislators did this remains murky. In the 1880s, the state legislature did not keep a journal of legislative debates. 71. Wisconsin, Legislature, An Act to Amend the Charter of the City of La Crosse and to Confer Certain Additional Powers upon the Common Council of Said City, Laws of Wisconsin (Madison, Wisc., 1883), 855–857. 72. La Crosse’s Common Council first issued an ordinance granting a railroad corporation—the Green Bay and Minnesota Railroad Company—the right to build a line in the city in 1876. The legislation, however, did little more than dictate where the line would run and protect the city from liability claims filed by angry property owners who did not want the line to violate their private holdings. La Crosse, Wisconsin, Common Council, Special Charter and Ordinances of the City of La Crosse Together with a Compilation of State Laws Pertaining to Cities Under Special Charters (La Crosse, Wisc., 1911), 156–157. 73. History of La Crosse County, 681; “The Ordinance Passed,” La Crosse Daily Republican, 10 September 1885, 1. 74. “The City Legislature,” La Crosse Daily Chronicle, 18 November 1885, 1; Medary’s devotion to railroad companies did not go unnoticed in La Crosse. Just days after the council ratified the Chicago and Northwestern ordinance, the editor of the La Crosse News accused Medary of receiving money from the Chicago, Milwaukee and St. Paul railroad “for services rendered” and “for passage of bills which he has pushed through.” The paper also asserted that Medary was in thrall to the Chicago,

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Burlington, and Northern. “Section One of Chapter Twelve . . .,” La Crosse News, 21 November 1885, 2. 75. “The Local Election,” La Crosse (Weekly) Republican and Leader, 11 April 1885, 2; “The City Legislature,” 1. 76. La Crosse Common Council, Special Charter and Ordinances, 256–263. 77. The council also required that both railroads gain its approval before expanding their operations in town. In 1886, the aldermen amended the Chicago, Burlington and Northern ordinance and allowed it to build tracks across streets and alleys on its depot grounds. La Crosse Common Council, Special Charter and Ordinances, 267. In 1890, the council took similar steps when it amended the original Chicago and Northwestern ordinance to give the corporation permission to establish a new sidetrack. La Crosse, Wisconsin, Ordinances of the City of La Crosse (La Crosse, Wisc., 1891), 53–54. For a compelling discussion of how municipal regulation of slaughterhouses in New York, Jersey City, and Chicago remade the meatpacking industry in the nineteenth century, see Christine Meyer Rosen, “The Role of Pollution Regulation and Litigation in the Development of the U.S. Meatpacking Industry, 1865–1880,” Enterprise and Society 8, no. 2 (June 2007): 297–347. 78. On the influence of the Chicago, Milwaukee and St. Paul railroad in Wisconsin, see Agnes Mary Hayes, “The History of Transportation of La Crosse Wisconsin” (bachelor’s thesis, University of Wisconsin, 1916), 33–35; and Robert C. Nesbit, The History of Wisconsin, vol. 3, Urbanization and Industrialization, 1873–1893 (Madison: University of Wisconsin Press, 1985), 90–91. 79. La Crosse, Special Charter (1911), 265–266. 80. On four different occasions between 1885 and 1901, La Crosse residents submitted petitions accusing railroads of violating local ordinances by blocking city streets. A. Hirsheimer et al., Petition of A. Hirsheimer and of Others, 17 November 1885, Chicago and Northwestern Railroad File, CoRR; Paul Wagner et al., Petition in Regard to Crossing of the G.B. & W.R.R. at 13–14 & 15 Sts, 14 October 1887, Green Bay and Winona Railroad File (hereafter GBW), CoRR; Daniel Roberts et al., Petition in Regard to Obstructions on Front and Pine Sts Referred to the Committee on Streets & Alleys, 9 March 1888, Chicago, Milwaukee and St. Paul Railroad File, 1872–1903 (hereafter CMS), CoRR; John O. Neil et al., Petition for Abatement of Mill Street R. R. Crossing, 16 April 1901, CMS, CoRR. These petitions were often enough to convince the Common Council to investigate the activities of railroads in town. 81. La Crosse, Wisconsin, Common Council, Resolution Requiring G.B.R.R. Co to Put in Crossing on Market Ferry and Madison Streets, 18 October 1889, GBW, CoRR. 82. La Crosse, Wisconsin, Common Council, Committee Reported on and Report & Resolution Adopted, 14 February 1896, GBW, CoRR. 83. La Crosse, Wisconsin, Common Council, Resolution Board of Public Works to Notify the C.M. and St. P. Ry. Co Not to Obstruct Mill St. Crossing, 10 December 1897, CMS, CoRR. 84. “City Government,” La Crosse Morning Chronicle, 19 October 1887, 3.

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85. Richard C. Overton, Burlington Route: A History of the Burlington Lines (New York: Alfred A. Knopf, 1965), 192–196, 229, 377. Measuring Worth (accessed 3 October 2009). 86. John Zahn et al., Petition in Regard to Chicago, Burlington, and Northern, 18 October 1893, CBN, CoRR. 87. La Crosse, Wisconsin, Common Council, Resolution Regarding the Speed of Trains, 20 October 1893, CBN, CoRR. 88. D. Cunningham, Chicago, to W. T. Symons, La Crosse, 26 October 1893, CBN, CoRR. 89. Schaefer et al., Petition for Damages Claimed, CBN, CoRR; Christ Kiel et al., Petition from Property Owners Along C. B. and N. Ry Cos Right of Way on the North Side Complaining of the High Trestle as Being a Damage to their Property, 10 July 1897, CBN, CoRR; and Wendell A. Anderson et al., Petition for Relief from Surface Water Resulting from Floods and Back Water from La Crosse River, 14 July 1899, Chicago, Burlington and Quincy Rail Road Company File, CoRR. 90. H. P. Magill to the mayor and Common Council of La Crosse, 25 January 1887, CMS, CoRR. 91. La Crosse, Wisconsin, Common Council, Resolution to Compel the C. M. and St. P. R.R. to Construct Crossings on Caledonia, Hagar, and Avon Streets, 28 May 1887, CMS, CoRR. 92. W. G. Collins, Milwaukee, to F. J. Toeller, La Crosse, 28 August 1887, General 1860–1890 File, CoRR. 93. La Crosse, Wisconsin, Common Council, Resolution Railroad Companies to Build Suitable Platforms at Depots for the Protection of Passengers from Climatic Conditions, 17 December 1897, General 1891–1924 File, CoRR. 94. On the effort to create inviting railway stations that would serve as gateways to the nation’s growing cities in the late nineteenth and early twentieth centuries, see Jon A. Peterson, The Birth of City Planning in the United States, 1840–1917 (Baltimore: Johns Hopkins University Press, 2003), 160–162. 95. The three entities involved were the La Crosse, Viroqua and Mineral Point Rail Road Company; the Prairie du Chien and La Crosse Rail Road Company; and the La Crosse, Vernon, Richland and Mineral Point Rail Road Company. “$200,000,” La Crosse Daily Republican, 16 April 1869, 1. The Dunleith & St. Croix River Shore Railroad Company also held a charter to build a similar road, but did not petition the city for money in 1869. “Railroad Report,” (La Crosse) Daily Democrat, 19 May 1869, 1. 96. “Down a Little,” (La Crosse) Daily Democrat, 22 May 1869, 1. 97. “La Crosse and Her Railroad Wants,” (La Crosse) Daily Democrat, 20 April 1869, 1. 98. “Railroad Report,” 1. 99. “We Need More Railroads,” (La Crosse) Daily Democrat, 15 September 1869, 4. 100. “Our Railroad Matters,” La Crosse Evening Democrat, 30 March 1870, 1. 101. “Excursion of Railroaders,” La Crosse Daily Republican, 11 June 1870, 1.

Notes to pages 101–107

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102. “Railroad Interests,” La Crosse Daily Republican, 14 June 1870, 1. 103. “Depot Matters,” La Crosse Daily Republican, 25 June 1870, 1. 104. “The Railway Connection,” La Crosse Daily Republican, 30 June 1870, 1. 105. “No Railroad on the River Front,” La Crosse Daily Republican, 19 August 1870, 1. 106. Sanford and Hirsheimer, A History of La Crosse, 151. 107. An Act to Authorize the Southern Minnesota Railroad Company to Construct and Maintain a Bridge Across the Mississippi River and Establish a Post Route, U.S. Statutes at Large 15 (1868): 37. For an insightful discussion of the shifting nature of the commerce clause in American legal history, see Mark Tushnet, The Constitution of the United States of America: A Contextual Analysis (Portland, Ore.: Hart, 2009), 159–185. 108. An Act to Authorize the Construction of a Bridge Across the Mississippi River at or Near the Town of Clinton, in the State of Iowa, and Other Bridges Across Said River, and to Establish Them as Post-roads, U.S. Statutes at Large 17 (1872): 46. 109. “La Crosse,” La Crosse Daily Liberal Democrat, 9 October 1873, Supplement, 1. 110. “The Veto Message,” (La Crosse) Daily Republican and Leader, 19 March 1873, 1 111. “Serenade to Gov. Washburn,” (La Crosse) Daily Republican and Leader, 31 March 1873, 1. 112. History of La Crosse County, Wisconsin, 591–592. 113. “The Bridge,” (La Crosse) Daily Republican and Leader, 14 April 1873, 4. 114. “The Result,” (La Crosse) Daily Republican and Leader, 16 April 1873, 4. 115. Wisconsin, Legislature, An Act to Authorize the Milwaukee and St. Paul Railway Company to Erect a Bridge across the Mississippi River, and to Ratify the Location of Said Bridge as Made, Laws of Wisconsin 27 (Madison, 1874): 450. 116. La Crosse Board of Trade, Thirty-third Anniversary, 39. Chapter 5. “The Most Necessary Reformes” 1. John A. Renggly, La Crosse, to Board of Health of the City of La Crosse, 22 July 1882, 7–8, series 22, box 7, folder 1, Public Records Collection, La Crosse Public Library Archives, La Crosse, Wisconsin (hereafter LCPA). 2. Renggly was far from alone in his concern about the near constant threat of disease in nineteenth-century cities. Historians also remind us that virulent illness was a painful reality in most Gilded Age cities. For pathbreaking studies of urban sanitation in American history, see Stanley K. Schultz and Clay McShane, “To Engineer the Metropolis: Sewers, Sanitation, and City Planning in Late-Nineteenth-Century America,” Journal of American History 65, no. 2 (September 1978): 390; Martin V. Melosi, Garbage in the Cities: Refuse, Reform, and the Environment, 1880–1980 (College Station: Texas A&M Press, 1981); and Martin V. Melosi, The Sanitary City: Urban Infrastructure in America from Colonial Times to the Present (Baltimore: Johns Hopkins University Press, 2000). 3. Renggly to Board of Health, 7–8, 17–18. 4. The origin and evolution of municipal works has long fascinated historians of nineteenth-century urban America and generated a rich vein of innovative scholarship.

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Notes to page 107

Yet these scholars focus almost exclusively on the nation’s major cities, like New York, Boston, Cincinnati, Chicago, Denver, Kansas City, and San Francisco during the Progressive Era. In doing so, they say little about the historical experiences of the millions of Americans who may not have called a metropolis home, but who were just as concerned about pure drinking water, safe streets, affordable streetcars, access to telephone connections, and other issues in their own communities. See, for example, Sam Bass Warner, Jr., Streetcar Suburbs: The Process of Growth in Boston, 1870–1900 (Cambridge, Mass.: Harvard University Press, 1962); Zane L. Miller, Boss Cox’s Cincinnati: Urban Politics in the Progressive Era (Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 1968); Louis P. Cain, “Raising and Watering a City: Ellis Sylvester Chesbrough and Chicago’s First Sanitation System,” Technology and Culture 13, no. 3 (July 1972): 353–372; David Paul Nord, “The Politics of Agenda Setting in Late 19th Century Cities,” Journalism Quarterly 58, no. 4 (Winter 1981): 565–574, 612; Harold L. Platt, The Growth of Public Services in Houston, Texas, 1830–1910 (Philadelphia: Temple University Press, 1983); Jon C. Teaford, The Unheralded Triumph: City Government in America, 1870– 1900 (Baltimore: Johns Hopkins University Press, 1984); Terrence J. McDonald, The Parameters of Urban Fiscal Policy: Socioeconomic Change and Political Culture in San Francisco, 1860–1906 (Berkeley: University of California Press, 1986); Christine Meisner Rosen, The Limits of Power: Great Fires and the Process of City Growth in America (New York: Cambridge University Press, 1986); Stanley K. Schultz, Constructing Urban Culture: American Cities and City Planning, 1800–1920 (Philadelphia: Temple University Press, 1989); Robin L. Einhorn, Property Rules: Political Economy in Chicago, 1833–1872 (Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 1991); Mark H. Rose, Cities of Light and Heat: Domesticating Gas and Electricity in Urban America (University Park: Pennsylvania State University Press, 1995); Sarah S. Elkind, Bay Cities and Water Politics: The Battle for Resources in Boston and Oakland (Lawrence: University of Kansas Press, 1998); Charles David Jacobson, Ties That Bind: Economic and Political Dilemmas of Urban Utility Networks, 1800–1990 (Pittsburgh: University of Pittsburgh Press, 2000); Joel A. Tarr, “The Metabolism of the Industrial City: The Case of Pittsburgh,” Journal of Urban History 28, no. 5 (July 2002): 511–545; and Gail Radford, “From Municipal Socialism to Public Authorities: Institutional Factors in the Shaping of American Public Enterprise,” Journal of American History 90, no. 3 (December 2003): 863–890. A few historians break with this trend and highlight urban infrastructure in smaller cities. See Richard Harmond, “Profits and Practicality: The Danvers Arc Lighting Station and the Municipal Ownership Movement in Massachusetts, 1888–1891,” Essex Institute Historical Collections, 108, no. 1 (January 1972): 75–85; Paul E. Isaac, “Municipal Reform in Beaumont, Texas, 1902–1909,” Southwestern Historical Quarterly 78, no. 4 (April 1975): 409–430; and Maureen Ogle, “Water Supply, Waste Disposal, and the Culture of Privatism in the Mid-Nineteenth-Century American City,” Journal of Urban History 25, no. 3 (March 1999): 321–347. 5. For a helpful review of scholarship that explores the impact of political institutions on urban technology, see Mark H. Rose and Joel A. Tarr, “Introduction: Technol-

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ogy, Politics, and the Structuring of the City,” Journal of Urban History 30, no. 5 (July 2004): 643–647. 6. Schultz, Constructing Urban Culture, 114–119, 162. 7. Rosen, The Limits of Power, 4, 48–49. 8. Elkind, Bay Cities, 10–41. 9. State courts upheld and clarified this power beginning in the middle of the nineteenth century. William J. Kiernan, Jr., “Wisconsin Municipal Indebtedness, Part I: The Power to Become Indebted and Its Limits,” Wisconsin Law Review 1964, no. 2 (1964): 177–183. 10. Wisconsin. Constitutional Convention. Constitution of the State of Wisconsin. Adopted in Convention at Madison, on the First Day of February, in the Year of our Lord One Thousand Eight Hundred and Forty-Eight (Madison, Wisc.: Beriah Brown, 1848), 15–16; online facsimile, http://www.wisconsinhistory.org/turningpoints/search. asp?id=1627 (accessed 2 April 2009). 11. Wisconsin, Legislature, An Act to Incorporate the City of La Crosse, Private and Local Laws Passed by the Legislature of Wisconsin in the Year Eighteen Hundred and FiftySix (Madison, Wisc.: 1856), 272, 284. 12. Kiernan, “Wisconsin Municipal Indebtedness,” 180. 13. Lee H. Cranston, “Contracts of Wisconsin Municipal Corporations,” Marquette Law Review 6 (1921–1922): 59. 14. The council’s initial efforts to water the city were not especially fruitful. In 1868 and again in 1869, for example, ambitious municipal attempts to sink artesian wells failed to produce the uninterrupted water supply so many residents demanded. Albert H. Sanford and H. J. Hirsheimer, A History of La Crosse, Wisconsin, 1841–1900 (La Crosse, Wisc.: La Crosse County Historical Society, 1951), 187. 15. “The Story of the La Crosse Water Works System,” La Crosse Tribune, 23 May 1914, 6; “Water Works,” (La Crosse) Daily Republican and Leader, 2 October 1875, 3; “Common Council,” (La Crosse) Daily and Weekly Republican and Leader, 18 November 1876, 4; “The Election,” (La Crosse) Weekly Republican and Leader, 9 April 1881, 2; History of La Crosse County, 500. Measuring Worth, http://www.measuringworth.com/ calculators/uscompare/result.php (accessed 3 October 2009). 16. “Insurance on Lumber Yards and Manufactories,” (La Crosse) Daily and Weekly Republican and Leader, 9 October 1875, 3. 17. “‘Busted’ and Gone,” (La Crosse) Daily Republican and Leader, 27 November 1875, 3. 18. “City Government,” (La Crosse) Daily Republican and Leader, 9 June 1877, 4. 19. “La Crosse Board of Trade,” (La Crosse) Daily Republican and Leader, 23 May 1877, 4. 20. La Crosse, Wisconsin, Common Council, An Ordinance Establishing Rules, Regulations, and Penalties, for the Management and Control of the Water Works of the City of La Crosse and to Provide for the Licensing of Plumbers, Charter and Ordinances of the City of La Crosse, with the Rules of the Common Council (La Crosse, Wisc.: Repub-

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lican and Leader, 1888), 137–146; History of La Crosse County, Wisconsin, Containing an Account of Its Settlement, Growth, Development and Resources; an Extensive and Minute Sketch of Its Cities, Towns and Villages—Their Improvements, Industries, Manufactories, Churches, Schools and Societies; Its War Record, Biographical Sketches, Portraits of Prominent Men and Early Settlers; the Whole Preceded by a History of Wisconsin, Statistics of the State; and an Abstract of Its Laws and Constitution and of the Constitution of the United States (Chicago: Western Historical, 1881), 772; “The Council,” (La Crosse) Daily Republican and Leader, 20 May 1878, 1; The Legislative Manual of the State of Wisconsin: Comprising the Constitutions of the United States and of the State of Wisconsin, Jefferson’s Manual, Forms and Laws for the Regulation of Business, Also, Lists and Tables for Reference, Etc., ed. R. M. Bashford (Madison, Wisc.: David Atwood, 1878), 393. 21. “Common Council,” (La Crosse) Daily Republican and Leader, 16 July 1877, 4; “Aqua Pura,” (La Crosse) Daily Republican and Leader, 29 September 1877, 4. 22. “The Water Works,” (La Crosse) Daily and Weekly Republican and Leader, 29 December 1877, 3. 23. “The Story of the La Crosse Water Works System,” 6. 24. In 1882, state lawmakers granted Wisconsin’s municipal leaders authority to condemn land and build a city-owned and operated waterworks that, at least in theory, would work in the public interest. Wisconsin, Legislature, General Provisions Relating to Municipalities, Chapter 41, Supplement to the Revised Statutes of the State of Wisconsin, 1878, Containing the General Laws From 1879 to 1883, with the Revisers’ Notes to the Statutes of 1878, and Notes to Cases Construing and Applying These and Similar Statues by the Supreme Court of Wisconsin and the Courts of Other States (Chicago: Callaghan, 1883), 202–204, 392–393. The state legislature further clarified aldermen’s power over municipal water in 1889: “The common council shall have power to legislate on all matters with reference to the construction, operation, management and protection of water works for the city” as long as such legislation “shall be adopted by a vote of not less than a majority of all the members of the council.” State officials further empowered aldermen to acquire land to expand water systems and sanctioned the city treasurer’s collecting water rates and using the money to maintain the works and pay off accrued debts. Wisconsin, Legislature, Annotated Statutes of Wisconsin, Containing the General Laws in Force October 1, 1889, Also the Revisers’ Notes to the Revised Statutes of 1858 and 1878, Notes of Cases Construing and Applying the Constitution and Statues, and the Rules of the County and Circuit Courts and of the Supreme Court, vol. 1 (Chicago: Callaghan, 1889), 569–571. Finally, in 1897, state legislators also granted aldermen even greater power over city waterworks when they placed their operation under the control of either a municipal board of public works or a water commission. Wisconsin, Legislature, Wisconsin Statutes of 1898, Enacted at the Adjourned Session of the Legislature Commencing August 17, 1897, and Approved August 20, 1897, vol. 1 (Chicago: Callaghan, 1898), 663–664. 25. Sanford and Hirsheimer, A History of La Crosse, 186–187. 26. “Municipal,” (La Crosse) Daily Republican and Leader, 9 February 1878, 1; “The Council,” (La Crosse) Daily Republican and Leader, 28 March 1878, 4; “Sewers,” (La

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Crosse) Daily Republican and Leader, 14 May 1878, 4; “The Council,” 20 May 1878, 1; “The Council,” (La Crosse) Daily and Weekly Republican and Leader, 13 July 1878, 4. 27. “To the Public,” (La Crosse) (Weekly) Republican and Leader, 23 April 1881, 1. 28. La Crosse, Wisconsin, Common Council, Report of Sewer Committee, 11 July 1884, series 29, box 1, folder 4, LCPA. 29. La Crosse, Wisconsin, Common Council, Resolution Confirming Plan of Sewerage for First Sewerage District, 15 August 1884, series 29, box 1, folder 4, LCPA. 30. In 1886, 1897, and 1899, for example, the Common Council voted to expand the city’s sewer system to accommodate a growing population. La Crosse, Wisconsin, Common Council, untitled resolutions, 12 March 1886, series 29, box 1, folder 4, LCPA; 8 October 1897, series 29, box 1, folder 5, LCPA; Report & Resolution of Committee on Sewer Approving Pla of Sewer Plans Number One, 9 June 1899, series 29, box 1, folder 5; LCPA. For the amount of bond money raised, see Board of Trade of the City of La Crosse, Wisconsin, Annual Report of the Board of Trade of the City of La Crosse, Wisconsin, for the Year 1885 (La Crosse, Wisc.: A. B. Lamborn, 1886), 12; Board of Trade of the City of La Crosse, Wisconsin, Annual Report of the Board of Trade of the City of La Crosse, Wis., for the Year 1887 (La Crosse, Wisc.: Republican and Leader, 1888), 14; Board of Trade of the City of La Crosse, Wisconsin, Annual Report of the Board of Trade of the City of La Crosse, Wisc., for the Year 1891 (La Crosse, Wisc.: Walter Boycott’s Electric Print, 1892), 12; Board of Trade of the City of La Crosse, Wisconsin, Annual Report of the Board of Trade of the City of La Crosse, Wisc, for the Year 1892 (La Crosse, Wisc.: Walter J. Boycott, n.d.), 13; Board of Trade of the City of La Crosse, Wisconsin, Annual Report of the Board of Trade of the City of La Crosse, Wisc, for the Year 1895 (La Crosse, Wisc.: Volksfreund Electric Print, n.d.) 12, Board of Trade of the City of La Crosse, Wisconsin, Annual Report of the Board of Trade of the City of La Crosse, Wisc, for the Year 1896 (La Crosse, Wisc.: Republican and Leader, n.d.), 20; Board of Trade of the City of La Crosse, Wisconsin, Thirty-Second Anniversary of the Board of Trade of the City of La Crosse, Wis., and Annual Report for the Year 1899 (La Crosse, Wisc.: W. J. Boycott, n.d.), 17. 31. Annual Report of the Superintendent of Water Works [8 April 1879], 1, series 22, box 15, folder 2, LCPA; Annual Report of the City Engineer, of the City of La Crosse, Wis., for the Year Ending December 31st, 1897, 4, series 22, box 15, folder 4, LCPA. 32. Annual Report of Board of Public Works, 1888, 3, series 22, box 15, folder 2, LCPA; Report of City Engineers for Year Ending December 31, 1899, 2, series 22, box 15, folder 4, LCPA. 33. Board of Trade of the City of La Crosse, Wisconsin, Thirty-third Anniversary of the Board of Trade of the City of La Crosse Wis. and Annual Report for the Year 1900 (La Crosse, Wisc.: Republican and Leader, n.d.), 39. 34. “The Story of the La Crosse Water Works System,” 6; La Crosse, Wisconsin, Common Council, untitled resolution, 3 December 1894, series 16, unprocessed box 1, LCPA. 35. “Cut and Dried,” La Crosse Daily Press, 4 January 1895, 1.

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36. Biographical History of La Crosse, Monroe and Juneau Counties, Wisconsin. Containing Portraits of All the Presidents of the United States, with Accompanying Biographies of Each; Engravings of Prominent Citizens of the Counties, with Personal Histories of Many of the Early Settlers and Leading Families (Chicago: Lewis Publishing, 1892), 184–185. 37. On the emergence of the Populist Party and its rhetoric, see Lawrence Goodwyn, Democratic Promise: The Populist Movement in America (New York: Oxford University Press, 1976); Steven Hahn, The Roots of Southern Populism: Yeoman Farmers and the Transformation of the Georgia Upcountry, 1850–1890 (New York: Oxford University Press, 1983); Robert C. McMath, Jr., American Populism: A Social History, 1877–1898 (New York: Hill and Wang, 1992); and Michael Kazin, The Populist Persuasion: An American History (Ithaca, N.Y.: Cornell University Press, 1998), 27–46. 38. “Beaver a Winner,” La Crosse Daily Press, 12 January 1895, 1; “Veto by the Mayor Read Jan. 11, 1895,” 6, series 22, box 10, folder 1, LCPA. 39. La Crosse, Wisconsin, Common Council, untitled resolution, 11 January 1895, series 16, unprocessed box 2, LCPA. 40. “Loaded for Bear,” La Crosse Daily Press, 15 February 1895, 1. 41. “Created a Sensation,” (La Crosse) (Weekly) Republican and Leader, 23 February 1895, 4; “In Explanation,” (La Crosse) (Weekly) Republican and Leader, 23 February 1895, 4. 42. “The Holley Won,” La Crosse Daily Press, 5 March 1895, 1. 43. A. Roger Ekirch, At Day’s Close: Night in Times Past (New York: W. W. Norton, 2006), 9; Christopher Dewdney, Acquainted with the Night: Excursions Through the World After Dark (New York: Bloomsbury, 2004), 201. 44. Rose, Cities of Light and Heat, 17–21. 45. David E. Nye, Electrifying America: Social Meanings of a New Technology, 1880– 1940 (Cambridge, Mass.: MIT Press, 1992), 5–6. 46. Rose, Cities of Light and Heat, 21. 47. Thomas P. Hughes, Networks of Power: Electrification in Western Society, 1880– 1930 (Baltimore: Johns Hopkins University Press, 1983), 37–42. 48. Sanford and Hirsheimer, A History of La Crosse, 187. 49. La Crosse, Wisconsin, Common Council, Agreement Between the City of La Crosse & Herman Bender, 17 November 1876, series 33, vol. 1, LCPA. 50. La Crosse, Wisconsin, Common Council, untitled contract, 13 July 1877, series 33, vol. 1, LCPA. 51. “Local News—Electric Light,” (La Crosse) Daily Republican and Leader, 19 November 1881, 3. 52. “Electric Light Difficulties,” (La Crosse) (Weekly) Republican and Leader, 26 November 1881, 4. Measuring Worth (accessed 3 October 2009). 53. Articles of Association for Edison Light & Power Co. of La Crosse, 25 February 1887, folder E123, box 217, Incorporation Papers: Domestic Corporations, 1848–1945, Corporation Division, Secretary of State, Wisconsin Historical Society.

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54. Balthasar H. Meyer, “Central Utilities Commissions and Home Rule: A Paper Before the Madison Literary Society, May 9, 1910,” American Political Science Review 5, no. 3 (August 1911): 387; La Crosse, Wisconsin, Common Council, untitled contracts, 8 January 1897, 12 February 1897, 6 May 1897, 11 June 1897, 16 July 1897, 24 September 1897, series 16, unprocessed box 2, LCPA; La Crosse, Wisconsin, Common Council, untitled contract, 24 September 1897, series 33, vol. 3, LCPA. 55. La Crosse, Wisconsin, Common Council, untitled contract, 31 July 1882, series 33, vol. 1, LCPA. 56. La Crosse, Wisconsin, Common Council, untitled contract, 1 March 1890, series 33, vol. 2, LCPA. Measuring Worth (accessed 3 October 2009). 57. La Crosse, Wisconsin, Common Council, untitled contracts, 13 June 1890, series 16, unprocessed box 1, LCPA; 3 July 1890, 21 January 1891, series 33, vol. 2, LCPA; 8 November 1895, 13 December 1895, 8 January 1897, 12 February 1897, 6 May 1897, series 16, unprocessed box 2, LCPA. 58. La Crosse, Wisconsin, Common Council, untitled contract, 3 July 1890, series 33, vol. 2, LCPA. 59. La Crosse, Wisconsin, Common Council, untitled contract, 20 May 1897, series 33, vol. 3, LCPA. Measuring Worth (accessed 3 October 2009). 60. La Crosse, Wisconsin, Common Council, Contract Between the City of La Crosse and the La Crosse Gas Light Company, 28 June 1875, series 33, vol. 1, LCPA; La Crosse, Wisconsin, Common Council, Bill Report & Resolve to Pay La X Gas Co Six Hundred & 39/100 doll. for Relaying Gas Pipe on Various Streets, 31 December 1886, series 11, box 41, folder 4, LCPA; La Crosse, Wisconsin, Common Council, untitled resolution, 10 May 1889; and Contract with La Crosse Brush Electric Light & Power Co., untitled resolution, 24 February 1890, series 16, unprocessed box 1, LCPA. 61. Untitled resolution, 12 February 1897, series 16, unprocessed box 2, LCPA. 62. Articles of Association, La Crosse Brush Electric Light & Power Co. of La Crosse, Wisconsin, 29 October 1881, folder L35, box 426, Incorporation Papers: Domestic Corporations, 1848–1945, Corporation Division, Secretary of State, Wisconsin Historical Society; History of La Crosse County, 499–500. 63. History of La Crosse Country, 617–618. 64. Wisconsin, Annotated Statutes of 1889, 1: 567–568. 65. Wisconsin, Annotated Statutes of 1889, 1: 1073. 66. La Crosse, Wisconsin, Common Council, An Ordinance Relating to Telegraph, Telephone, Electric Light, and Other Poles Carrying Aerial Wires and Providing Condition for the Placing and Keeping of Any Such Wires and the Insulation Thereof, Ordinances and Amendments to Charter of the City of La Crosse, 1891 (La Crosse, Wisc.: Republican and Leader, 1891), 18–19. 67. La Crosse, Wisconsin, Common Council, untitled resolutions, 5 October 1895, 20 November 1895, 23 November 1895, 12 February 1897, series 16, unprocessed box 2, LCPA. 68. Rose, Cities of Light and Heat, 23.

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69. Sanford and Hirsheimer, A History of La Crosse, 187–188. 70. Board of Trade of the City of La Crosse, Wisconsin, Annual Report of the Board of Trade of the City of La Crosse, Wisconsin, Year Ending February 7, 1882 (La Crosse, Wisc.: Republican and Leader , 1882), 34. 71. For an illuminating discussion of the classed nature of public lighting in nineteenth-century American cities, see Peter C. Baldwin, “In the Heart of Darkness: Blackouts and the Social Geography of Lighting in the Gaslight Era,” Journal of Urban History 30, no. 5 (July 2004): 749–768. 72. La Crosse, Wisconsin, Common Council, Amendment to the Underground Wire Ordinance, 25 June 1903, series 11, box 41, folder 4, LCPA. 73. Heath first suggested moving wires underground in the spring of 1903. “Council Has a Busy Session,” La Crosse Morning Chronicle, 9 May 1903, 1. 1905–06: Philippi’s Directory of the City of La Crosse Comprising an Alphabetical List of Names, Business Department, a List of Churches, Schools, Societies, and Organizations, Street and Avenue Guide, Etc. (St. Paul, Minn.: Pioneer Press, 1905), 214. 74. Meyer, “Central Utilities Commissions,” 387. Central Electric switched most of its equipment to alternating current in 1906. Christopher M. Ritter, “The History of a Company: Northern States Power Company—Wisconsin,” American Society of Heating, Refrigerating and Air-Conditioning Engineers, Inc., La Crosse Area Chapter, http:// www.ashraelacrosse.org/Home/Committes/Historical/1992.pdf, 6 (accessed April 6, 2009). 75. “Streets Should Go Unmolested,” La Crosse Morning Chronicle, 24 June 1903, 1. 76. “Council Kills Wire Ordinance,” La Crosse Morning Chronicle, 11 July 1903, 1. 77. The paper claimed an average daily circulation of 4,600 in 1903. “To the Public,” La Crosse Morning Chronicle, 12 July 1903, 4. 78. “A Problem for Mayor Torrance,” La Crosse Morning Chronicle, 1 July 1903, 4. 79. “The People and the Common Council,” La Crosse Morning Chronicle, 2 July 1903, 4. 80. “Our Splendid Streets,” La Crosse Morning Chronicle, 3 July 1903, 4. 81. “‘What I Say Unto You I Say Unto All—Watch!’ ” La Crosse Morning Chronicle, 5 July 1903, 4. 82. “Council Kills Wire Ordinance,” 1. 83. For a discussion of municipal ownership of power companies in Denver during this period, see Rose, Cities of Light and Heat, 35–36, 41–43. Authority to dictate the location of streetlights was part of state law by this time. Wisconsin, Legislature, Wisconsin Statutes of 1898, 1: 565–566, 664–665. Furthermore, Wisconsin’s Supreme Court reinforced the ability of municipalities to pass ordinances that forced companies to take all steps necessary to protect the public and other corporations from fallen power lines. The State Ex Rel. Wisconsin Telephone Company v. Janesville Street Railway Company, 87 Wis. 72, 79 (1894). Generally speaking, municipal ownership and regulation of lighting was a fiercely contentious issue during the late-nineteenth and early-twentieth centuries. For an example of opposition to such public plans, see Alfred Dupont Chandler, Municipal

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Control of Commercial Lighting: “Nationalism” Analyzed (Boston: n.p., 1889). I thank Richard R. John for reference to this citation. 84. La Crosse, Wisconsin, Common Council, Resolution for the Mayor to Appoint a Committee of 5 to Investigate Electric Light Plant with a View to Own It by City, 4 August 1893, series 23, box 1, folder 1, LCPA. 85. La Crosse, Wisconsin, Common Council, Report of Special Comm. in Regard to Establishing a Municipal Electrical Light Plant, 28 June 1894, series 23, box 1, folder 1, LCPA. 86. La Crosse, Wisconsin, Common Council, Resolution in Relation to the Mayor’s Inaugural Address to Ownership of Municipal Electric Light Plant Referred to Committee on Lights, to Confer with Board of Public Works and Jointly Make Report to Council at Regular Meeting in June, 10 May 1895, series 23, box 1, folder 1, LCPA. 87. “Ordinance Sent Back,” La Crosse Morning Chronicle, 15 September 1900, 1; Philippi’s Souvenir Directory of the City of La Crosse Comprising an Alphabetical List of Names, Business Department, Half-Tones of the Representative Men of La Crosse, a List of Churches, Schools, Societies and Organizations, Street and Avenue Directory, Etc. (La Crosse, Wisc.: Walter J. Boycott, 1900), 419; In 1897, one local newspaper spelled Schultze as Schultz. “The Election,” La Crosse Weekly Republican and Leader, 9 April 1897, 5. 88. La Crosse, Wisconsin, Common Council, Resolution Authorizing the Mayor to Appoint a Committee to Investigate the Subject of an Electric Lighting Plant, 14 September 1900; Special Committee on Municipal Lighting Plant, La Crosse, to the Honorable Mayor and Common Council of the City of La Crosse, 14 December 1900, series 23, box 1, folder 1, LCPA. 89. La Crosse, Wisconsin, Common Council, Report of the Committee on Lights, 20 June 1904, series 23, box 1, folder 1, LCPA. 90. “Common Council Kills Rate Bills,” La Crosse Daily Chronicle, 1 March 1905, 1. 91. Henry A. Salzer, quoted in “New Corporation Not to Cut Rates,” La Crosse Daily Chronicle, 24 January 1905, 1. 92. “New Lighting System Is Perfection,” La Crosse Tribune, 16 November 1905, 1. 93. “A Great Day for La Crosse,” La Crosse Tribune, 16 November 1905, 6; “Light Trust ‘Benevolence’ On Trial,” La Crosse Tribune, 24 November 1905, 4. 94. “A Great Plant Its Own Defender,” La Crosse Tribune, 20 November 1905, 4. 95. La Crosse Gas and Electric also consolidated with the Central Electric Company in 1907. Meyer, “Central Utilities Commissions,” 387; Stanley N. Miller, “A History of La Crosse, Wisconsin, 1900–1950” (Ed.D. diss., George Peabody College for Teachers, 1959), 61–62. 96. Charles W. Cheape, Moving the Masses: Urban Public Transit in New York, Boston, and Philadelphia, 1880–1912 (Cambridge, Mass.: Harvard University Press, 1980), 3–5. For a classic study of the development and lasting impact of streetcars on one American city, see Warner, Streetcar Suburbs. 97. Historian Stanley K. Schultz points out that an average, healthy horse produced twenty-two pounds of manure every day. Schultz, Constructing Urban Culture, 118. On

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the use of horses to power mass transit in nineteenth-century urban American history, see Clay McShane and Joel Tarr, The Horse in the City: Living Machines in the Nineteenth Century (Baltimore: Johns Hopkins University Press, 2007), 57–83. On the rise of the sanitation movement in nineteenth-century America, see Melosi, Garbage in the Cities; Melosi, The Sanitary City; Ogle, “Water Supply, Waste Disposal”; and John C. Burnham, How Superstition Won and Science Lost: Popularizing Science and Health in the United States (New Brunswick, N.J.: Rutgers University Press, 1987), 52–56. 98. Cheape, Moving the Masses, 5–9. 99. William J. Novak, The People’s Welfare: Law and Regulation in Nineteenth-Century America (Chapel Hill: University of North Carolina Press, 1996), 115–131. 100. Wisconsin, Legislature, The Revised Statutes of the State of Wisconsin, as Altered and Amended by Subsequent Legislation, Together with the Unrepealed Statutes of a General Nature Passed from the Time of the Revision of 1858 to the Close of the Legislature of 1871; Arranged in the Same Manner as the Statues of 1858, with References, Showing the Time of the Enactment of Each Section, and Also References to Judicial Decisions, in Relation to and Explanatory of the Statutes (St. Louis: W. J. Gilbert, 1871), 1062–1064. 101. Wisconsin’s Supreme Court considered this municipal police power a given in 1884 when it held that the Cream City Railroad Company had a legal obligation to keep its works in repair to avoid injury or damages to property. Fitts v. Cream City Railroad Company, 59 Wis. 323, 326 (1883). State officials continued to reify the relationship between common councils and private streetcar corporations in the decades that followed. In 1888, the Supreme Court of Wisconsin ruled that common councils could raise licensing fees on street railways even if the city and company had agreed to a different rate in the original charter. The State Ex Rel. The Cream City Railway Company v. Hilbert, 72 Wis. 184, 190 (1888). Later that year, the court further bolstered municipal power over streetcar corporations when it decreed that a street railway company would forfeit its franchise unless it obeyed municipal rules and regulations. State Ex Rel. Attorney General v. The Madison Street Railway Company, 72 Wis. 612 (1888). The court continued to buttress municipal power over street railways in the years that followed. In 1890, for example, the justices ruled that private street railroads were liable for their own construction costs when the city changed the grade of streets and forced the company to redo its tracks. The Ashland Street Railway Company v. The City of Ashland, 78 Wis. 271 (1890). In 1897, moreover, the court stressed the iron bond of streetcar franchises when it ruled that a Milwaukee company retained its charter rights even though it had failed to operate cars for more than four years. Wright and Others v. The Milwaukee Electric Railway & Light Company, 95 Wis. 29, 39 (1897). In 1889, lawmakers reinforced this enhanced authority even more when they allowed street railways to extend lines on toll roads, but only with the consent of the common council. Wisconsin, Legislature, Annotated Statutes of Wisconsin, 1889, vol. 2 (Chicago: Callaghan, 1889), 1120. In 1895, moreover, the state legislature ordered that municipal attorneys had authority to prosecute company owners who ran trains in town but who refused to provide “a suitable protection constructed of wood, iron, glass or other material

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sufficient to protect the employees engaged in operating any such cars from exposure to the inclemencies” of Wisconsin’s icy winters. Wisconsin, Legislature, Wisconsin Statutes for 1898, vol. 2 (Chicago: Callaghan, 1898), 1374–1375. By 1906, state legislators and judges had vested common councils in La Crosse and other cities with a host of new police powers, such as the right to bring actions against railway companies that failed to pay municipal licensing fees and authority to prevent them from abandoning routes in town, that further fortified municipal control of privately owned and operated streetcars. Wisconsin, Legislature, Supplement to the Wisconsin Statutes of 1898 Containing all General Laws Enacted at the Regular Sessions of 1899, 1901, 1903, 1905 and the Special Session of 1905, Annotated with Notes of all Wisconsin Cases Through the January, 1906, Term, and Selected Decisions of Other States (Chicago: Callaghan, 1906), 516, 928. For a germinal discussion of public policy and urban transportation in the twentieth century, see Paul Barrett, “Public Policy and Private Choice: Mass Transit and the Automobile in Chicago Between the War,” Business History Review 49, no. 4 (Winter 1975): 473–497. 102. Residents spoke openly about using private, horse-drawn streetcars as a way to tie the growing city together as early as 1876. “The Street Railway,” (La Crosse) Daily and Weekly Republican and Leader, 11 November 1876, 3. 103. “The Council,” (La Crosse) Daily Republican and Leader, 20 November 1878, 4; La Crosse, Wisconsin, Charter and Ordinances of the City of La Crosse with the Rules of the Common Council and an Appendix (La Crosse, Wisc.: The Daily Republican Print, 1883), 147. 104. Benjamin F. Bryant, Memoirs of La Crosse County: From the Earliest Historical Times down to the Present with Special Chapters on Various Subjects, Including Each of the Different Towns, and a Genealogical and Biographical Record of Representative Families in the County, Prepared from Data Obtained from Original Sources of Information (Madison, Wisc.: Western Historical Association, 1907), 75. 105. “First Horse-Drawn Street Cars in La Crosse Operated in ’79; River Bridge Built on Sunday,” La Crosse Tribune and Leader-Press, 3 November 1929, 11. 106. “City Government,” La Crosse (Weekly) Republican and Leader, 11 June 1881, 1; Terry Hicks, “ATU 519 Labor History—‘We Walk,’ ” Western Wisconsin AFL-CIO, http://www.westernwisconsinaflcio.org/history/atu519.htm (accessed 28 July 2007). 107. Sanford and Hirsheimer, A History of La Crosse, 190. 108. “First Horse-Drawn Street Cars,” 11. 109. “The Council,” 11 November 1878, 4. 110. La Crosse, Wisconsin, Common Council, An Ordinance Authorizing and Regulating Street Railways in the City of La Crosse, Charter and Ordinances (La Crosse, Wisc.: Republican and Leader, 1888), 147–152. 111. “The New Street Railway,” La Crosse Republican, 13 June 1881, 2. 112. “First Horse-Drawn Street Cars,” 11. 113. La Crosse, Wisconsin, Common Council, untitled resolutions, 8 November 1895, 15 May 1896, 6 June 1899, series 16, unprocessed box 2, LCPA.

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114. La Crosse, Wisconsin, Common Council, Resolution B. of P. W. to Notify the La Crosse City Street Ry. Co. to Remove All Crossties and Other Material off State Street Bet. 12th and 17th Sts., 8 November 1895, series 11, box 41, folder 8, LCPA. 115. La Crosse, Wisconsin, Common Council, untitled resolution, 15 May 1896, series 16, unprocessed box 2, LCPA. 116. La Crosse, Wisconsin, Common Council, untitled resolution, 27 May 1899, series 16, unprocessed box 2, LCPA. 117. “New Street Car Plans,” La Crosse Morning Chronicle, 17 May 1900, 5. 118. This struggle over track placement continued into the twentieth century. In December 1905, for example, the council voted seventeen to one to make the railway extend its tracks to the city’s Catholic cemetery. “Council Wants Streetcar Company to Extend Line,” La Crosse Tribune, 9 December 1905, 6. 119. “Not Settled Yet,” (La Crosse) Daily Press, 25 April 1896, 1; Portfolio of La Crosse People Past and Present 50, http://murphylibrary.uwlax.edu/digital/lacrosse/LaxPeople/00010001.htm (accessed 15 March 2010); “These Have Won,” La Crosse Daily Republican and Leader, 3 April 1895, 4. 120. “City After the Street Car Men,” La Crosse Morning Chronicle, 12 December 1901, 1. Measuring Worth (accessed 3 October 2009). 121. La Crosse, Wisconsin, Common Council, An Ordinance to Regulate the Operation of Street Cars and to Guard Against the Dangers of Accidents at Railroad Crossings in the City of La Crosse, 27 October 1905, series 11, box 41, folder 8, LCPA. 122. Jill Lepore, A Is for American: Letters and Other Characters in the Newly United States (New York: Vintage Books, 2002), 139–161. 123. For an engaging popular history of the impact of Marconi’s wireless on America and the world, see Erik Larson, Thunderstruck (New York: Crown, 2006). 124. Leslie Cauley, End of the Line: The Rise and Fall of AT&T (New York: Free Press, 2005), 18–21. 125. Ray Monroe Keeler, “History of the City of La Crosse, 1841–1871” (bachelor’s thesis, University of Wisconsin, 1915), 13. 126. Sanford and Hirsheimer, A History of La Crosse, 189. 127. The telephone was such a new technology in the early 1880s that the Wisconsin Supreme Court noted that “even our statutes, as revised in 1878, fail to mention it.” The court also understood that technological novelty could create legal uncertainty. In an 1884 decision, the court held that even though the city of Oshkosh had the legal right to regulate telegraph, telephone, and electric lighting wires and poles, “we do not think that this [section of the 1883 law] was designed as giving to the municipality absolute authority” to compel private telephone companies to pay an extra municipal licensing fee. The Wisconsin Telephone Company v. The City of Oshkosh, 62 Wis. 32, 40 (1884). The court, however, reasserted the authority of municipalities to regulate the placement of telephone poles in 1899. City of Marshfield v. Wisconsin Telephone Company, 102 Wis. 604, 613 (1899). Yet the court did not consider the municipal police power unlimited when it came to telephone regulation. In 1901, the justices, unlike their counterparts

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in states such as Illinois and New York, ruled that a city could not take steps to set telephone rates, confiscate telephone poles, or limit private competition between individual companies. The State Ex Rel. The Wisconsin Telephone Company v. The City of Sheboygan and Others, 111 Wis. 23, 40 (1901). In 1905, moreover, the court ruled that the city of Milwaukee’s police power did not give the Common Council authority to introduce a licensing fee to raise revenue. Wisconsin Telephone Company v. City of Milwaukee, 126 Wis. 1, 13. 128. La Crosse, Wisconsin, Common Council, An Ordinance Granting Permission to Erect and Maintain a System of Telephones, or a Telephone Exchange in the City of La Crosse, Ordinances and Amendments to Charter of the City of La Crosse (La Crosse, Wisc.: Republican and Leader, 1891), 25–26. 129. La Crosse, Wisconsin, Common Council, Contract with Wis. Tel. Co., 13 February 1891, series 16, unprocessed box 1, LCPA. Measuring Worth (accessed 3 October 2009). 130. La Crosse, Wisconsin, Common Council, Additional Telephone City Hall Bldg., 11 March 1892, series 16, unprocessed box 1, LCPA 131. La Crosse, Wisconsin, Common Council, untitled resolution, 28 September 1897, series 16, unprocessed box 2, LCPA. 132. W. F. Goodrich, “Telephone Systems in La Crosse,” in La Crosse County Historical Sketches, series 4 (La Crosse, Wisc.: La Crosse County Historical Society, 1939), 63. 133. La Crosse, Wisconsin, Common Council, An Ordinance Granting Permission to the La Crosse Telephone Company to Erect and Maintain a System of Telephone or Telephone Exchange, in the City of La Crosse, City Charter, 1887, with Amendments, and Appendix of State Laws Pertaining to Cities Under Special Charters: Ordinances, 1871–1899: Rules of the Common Council (La Crosse, Wisc.: n.p., 1899), 389–390. 134. La Crosse Telephone began operations in town in September 1895. Sanford and Hirsheimer, A History of La Crosse, 189. 135. La Crosse, Wisconsin, Common Council, untitled resolution, 16 August 1895, series 16, unprocessed box 2, LCPA. 136. La Crosse, Wisconsin, Common Council, untitled resolutions, 18 October 1895, 28 September 1897, 8 October 1897, 18 February 1898, 13 March 1898, 20 May 1898, series 16, unprocessed box 2, LCPA. 137. Goodrich, “Telephone Systems in La Crosse,” 65. 138. Wisconsin, Legislature, Session Laws, Acts, Resolutions and Memorials, Passed at the Biennial Session of the Legislature, 1911 (Madison, Wisc.: Democrat Printing, 1911), 667–669. 139. Sanford and Hirsheimer, A History of La Crosse, 189. 140. Wisconsin Telephone Company v. Railroad Commission of Wisconsin, 162 Wis. 383 (1916). 141. Sanford and Hirsheimer, A History of La Crosse, 189.

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Chapter 6. From White Beaver to Working Man 1. Soldiers’ and Citizens’ Album of Biographical Record Containing Personal Sketches of Army Men and Citizens Prominent in Loyalty to the Union, Also a Chronological and Statistical History of the Civil War, and A History of the Grand Army of the Republic with Portraits of Soldiers and Prominent Citizens (Chicago: Grand Army Publishing, 1890), 611–613; and “White Beaver, Friend of Buffalo Bill,” Galesville (Wisconsin) Republican, 31 July 1930, 5. 2. For excellent discussions of the challenges that protest parties faced in nineteenthcentury American politics, see James Green, Death in the Haymarket: A Story of Chicago, the First Labor Movement and the Bombing That Divided Gilded Age America (New York: Anchor Books, 2006), 85–101; Michael Kazin, A Godly Hero: The Life of William Jennings Bryan (New York: Anchor Books, 2006), 45–79; and Charles Postel, The Populist Vision (New York: Oxford University Press, 2007), 269–290. 3. For useful introductory surveys of labor organizing during the Gilded Age, see Priscilla Murolo and A. B. Chitty, From the Folks Who Brought You the Weekend: A Short, Illustrated History of Labor in the United States (New York: New Press, 2001), 85–137; and Melvyn Dubofsky and Foster Rhea Dulles, Labor in America: A History, 7th ed. (Wheeling, Ill.: Harlan Davidson, 2004), 87–170. 4. On the transformations in the nature of American work during the Gilded Age, see Alan Trachtenberg, The Incorporation of America: Culture and Society in the Gilded Age (New York: Hill and Wang, 1982), 70–100; and Rebecca Edwards, New Spirits: Americans in the Gilded Age, 1865–1905 (New York: Oxford University Press, 2006), 60–80. 5. Board of Trade of the City of La Crosse, Wisconsin, Annual Report of the Board of Trade, of the City of La Crosse, Wisconsin, Year Ending February 7, 1882 (La Crosse, Wisc.: Republican and Leader, 1882), 43; and Board of Trade of the City of La Crosse, Wisconsin, Annual Report of the Board of Trade of the City of La Crosse, Wisconsin, for the Year 1885 (La Crosse, Wisc.: A. B. Lamborn, 1886), 25. 6. For one example of the harsh working conditions in American factories during the Gilded Age, see David Von Drehle, Triangle: The Fire That Changed America (New York: Grove Press, 2003), 35–54. For a classic contemporary commentary on the horrors of meatpacking plants, see Upton Sinclair, The Jungle (New York: Simon and Schuster, 2004). 7. Injury and death were constant companions on the job in many local factories. Sawmills, in particular, were horribly dangerous places to work in the 1880s. “A Terrible Tragedy,” (La Crosse) Liberal Democrat, 12 September 1876, 4. 8. Board of Trade of the City of La Crosse, Wisconsin, Annual Report of the Board of Trade of the City of La Crosse, Wisconsin, for the Year 1884 (La Crosse, Wisc.: Daily Republican, 1884), 25; Board of Trade, Annual Report for the Year 1885, 25. 9. For a classic examination of emerging social divisions in Rochester during the antebellum period, see Paul E. Johnson, A Shopkeeper’s Millennium: Society and Revivals in Rochester, New York, 1815–1837 (New York: Hill and Wang, 1978), 37–61. For an ex-

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cellent critical overview of the historiography of artisans and class consciousness in the antebellum period, see Richard Stott, “Artisans and Capitalist Development,” in Wages of Independence: Capitalism in the Early American Republic, ed. Paul A. Gilje (Madison, Wisc.: Madison House, 1997), 101–116. 10. Colman recorded these activities in his diary. Charles L. Colman, Copy of Diaries or Memoranda of C. L. Colman, La Crosse, for 1854, 1855, 1856, and 1857, typescript, box 2, Correspondence, Memoranda and Genealogy, Colman Papers, 1880–1894, Wisconsin Historical Society. See entries for 22 August 1854, 1 November 1854, 9 March 1855, 14 April 1855, and 16 March 1857. 11. Albert H. Sanford, “The Beginnings of a Great Industry at La Crosse,” in La Crosse County Historical Sketches: The Lumber Industry, series 3 (La Crosse, Wisc.: La Crosse County Historical Society, 1937), 66–67. 12. Several labor unions were rooted in La Crosse by the middle of the decade, most notably among sawmill hands, artisans in the shoe and boot industry, typographical workers, and skilled cigar makers. Frederick Merk, Economic History of Wisconsin During the Civil War Decade (Madison: State Historical Society of Wisconsin, 1971), 171–172. 13. Albert H. Sanford and H. J. Hirsheimer, A History of La Crosse, Wisconsin, 1841– 1900 (La Crosse, Wisc.: La Crosse County Historical Society, 1951), 212. 14. In recent years, historians have demonstrated that most federal officials had little sympathy for workers and made political choices that limited or undercut the Progressive Era labor movement. Kim Voss suggests that the structure of national politics placed obstacles in front of labor parties that were difficult to overcome in the late nineteenth century. Kim Voss, The Making of American Exceptionalism: The Knights of Labor and Class Formation in the Nineteenth Century (Ithaca, N.Y.: Cornell University Press, 1993), 245–246; Building on Morton J. Horwitz’s insight that decisions of antebellum courts “had major consequences for the distribution of wealth and power in American society” during the antebellum period, Christopher Tomlins argues that state and federal courts consistently favored capital at the expense of labor from 1790 to 1850. Morton J. Horwitz, The Transformation of American Law, 1780–1860 (Cambridge, Mass.: Harvard University Press, 1977), xv; Christopher Tomlins, The State and the Unions: Labor Relations, Law, and the Organized Labor Movement in America, 1880–1960 (New York: Cambridge University Press, 1985); and Christopher Tomlins, Law, Labor, and Ideology in the Early American Republic (New York: Cambridge University Press, 1993). Victoria Hattam highlights how the unusual power of American judges to undermine collective action and overrule labor legislation hampered the utopian dreams of nineteenth-century workers and forced them to embrace more conservative trade unionism. Victoria C. Hattam, Labor Visions and State Power: The Origins of Business Unionism in the United States (Princeton, N.J.: Princeton University Press, 1993). William Forbath shows us that hostile courts regularly issued injunctions that weakened organized labor in the nineteenth and twentieth centuries. William E. Forbath, Law and the Shaping of the American Labor Movement (Cambridge, Mass.: Harvard University Press, 1996).

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Richard Bensel points out that federal regulation of wages and working conditions was poorly enforced between 1877 and 1900. Richard Franklin Bensel, The Political Economy of American Industrialization, 1877–1900 (New York: Cambridge University Press, 2000), 208. Melvyn Dubofsky offers a notable exception to this scholarly trend, at least in the twentieth century. Dubofsky contends that the federal government, beginning in the 1890s, helped advance unionization and the cause of organized labor on numerous occasions. Melvyn Dubofsky, The State and Labor in Modern America (Chapel Hill: University of North Carolina Press, 1994), xvi–xvii. 15. For a general history of the Great Railroad Strike, see David O. Stowell, Streets, Railroads, and the Great Strike of 1877 (Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 1999). 16. Dubofsky, The State and Labor, 8–13. 17. Dubofsky and Dulles, Labor in America, 108–109; and Murolo and Chitty, From the Folks Who Brought You the Weekend, 104–109. 18. Robert W. Ozanne, The Labor Movement in Wisconsin: A History (Madison: State Historical Society of Wisconsin, 1984), 14–16. 19. Gordon M. Hafferbecker, Wisconsin Labor Laws (Madison: University of Wisconsin Press, 1958), 18–20, 34–38, 69–71, 86–91, 98–101, 112, 122–127. 20. Merk, Economic History of Wisconsin, 178–186. 21. Hafferbecker, Wisconsin Labor Laws, 5–6. 22. Many scholars explore the impact of municipal government on nineteenthcentury labor organizing, but typically focus on the nation’s largest industrial cities. See, for example, Thomas W. Gavett, Development of the Labor Movement in Milwaukee (Madison: University of Wisconsin Press, 1965); Gerd Korman, Industrialization, Immigrants and Americanizers: The View from Milwaukee, 1866–1921 (Madison: State Historical Society of Wisconsin, 1967); Oliver Zunz, The Changing Face of Inequality: Urbanization, Industrial Development and Immigrants in Detroit, 1880–1920 (Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 1982); Bruce Laurie, Working People of Philadelphia, 1800–1850 (Philadelphia: Temple University Press, 1983); Charles G. Steffen, The Mechanics of Baltimore: Workers and Politics in the Age of Revolution, 1763–1812 (Urbana: University of Illinois Press, 1984); Leon Fink, Workingmen’s Democracy: The Knights of Labor and American Politics (Urbana: University of Illinois Press, 1985), 178–218; Steven J. Ross, Workers on the Edge: Work, Leisure, and Politics in Industrializing Cincinnati, 1788–1890 (New York: Columbia University Press, 1985); Richard Jules Oestreicher, Solidarity and Fragmentation: Working People and Class Consciousness in Detroit, 1875–1900 (Urbana: University of Illinois Press, 1986); Sean Wilentz, Chants Democratic: New York City and the Rise of the American Working Class, 1788–1850 (New York: Oxford University Press, 1986); James R. Barrett, Work and Community in the Jungle: Chicago’s Packing House Workers, 1894–1922 (Urbana: University of Illinois Press, 1987); Mary Lethert Wingerd, Claiming the City: Politics, Faith, and the Power of Place in St. Paul (Ithaca, N.Y.: Cornell University Press, 2001); and Green, Death in the Haymarket. When scholars do investigate smaller cities, they usually concentrate on communities in the industrial Northeast. Alan Dawley, Class and Community: The

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Industrial Revolution in Lynn (Cambridge, Mass.: Harvard University Press, 1976); Daniel J. Walkowitz, Worker City, Company Towns: Iron and Cotton Worker Protest in Troy and Cohoes, New York, 1855–84 (Urbana: University of Illinois Press, 1978); John T. Cumbler, Working-Class Community in Industrial America: Work, Leisure, and Struggle in Two Industrial Cities, 1880–1930 (Westport, Conn.: Greenwood Press, 1979); Roy Rosenzweig, Eight Hours for What We Will: Workers and Leisure in an Industrial City, 1870–1920 (New York: Cambridge University Press, 1983); and Jonathan Prude, The Coming of Industrial Order: Town and Factory Life in Rural Massachusetts: 1810–1860 (New York: Cambridge University Press, 1985). 23. Benjamin F. Bryant, Memoirs of La Crosse County: From the Earliest Historical Times Down to the Present With Special Chapters on Various Subjects, Including Each of the Different Towns, and a Genealogical and Biographical Record of Representative Families in the County, Prepared From Data Obtained From Original Sources of Information (Madison, Wisc.: Western Historical Association, 1907), 200–201. 24. History of La Crosse County, Wisconsin, Containing an Account of its Settlement, Growth, Development and Resources; an Extensive and Minute Sketch of its Cities, Towns and Villages—Their Improvements, Industries, Manufactories, Churches, Schools and Societies; its War Record, Biographical Sketches, Portraits of Prominent Men and Early Settlers; the Whole Preceded by a History of Wisconsin, Statistics of the State; and an Abstract of its Laws and Constitution and of the Constitution of the United States (Chicago: Western Historical, 1881), 498–501. 25. Richard Oestreicher, “Terence Powderly, the Knights of Labor, and Artisanal Politics,” in Labor Leaders in America, ed. Melvyn Dubofsky and Warren Van Tyne (Champaign: University of Illinois Press, 1987), 39–41. 26. Sanford and Hirsheimer, A History of La Crosse, 214–216. 27. Bruce L. Mouser, “The Wisconsin Labor Advocate of La Crosse, The Knights of Labor, and George Edwin Taylor,” Past, Present, and Future: The Newsletter of the La Crosse County Historical Society 20, no. 3 (May/June 1998): 3. For a history of Powell’s life, his connection to Buffalo Bill Cody, and his embrace of his Indian ancestry, see Eric V. Sorg, Doctor, Lawyer, Indian Chief: The Life of White Beaver Powell, Buffalo Bill’s Blood Brother (Austin, Tex.: Eakin Press, 2002). On Cody’s colorful life and impact on the American West and the nation, see Joy S. Kasson, Buffalo Bill’s Wild West: Celebrity, Memory, and Popular History (New York: Hill and Wang, 2000); and Louis S. Warren, Buffalo Bill’s America: William Cody and the Wild West Show (New York: Vintage Books, 2005). 28. “The Mayorality Question,” La Crosse News, 28 March 1885, 2. 29. “This Is a ‘Bird’,” La Crosse News, 11 April 1885, 2. 30. “The Election,” La Crosse Morning Chronicle, 9 April 1885, 4. 31. “No One . . . ,” La Crosse News, 11 April 1885, 2. 32. “The Local Election,” La Crosse (Weekly) Republican and Leader, 11 April 1885, 2. 33. “Mayor Powell,” La Crosse News, 18 April 1885, 2.

242

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34. “The Beaver Buried!” La Crosse (Weekly) Republican and Leader, 6 November 1886, 2; “False Representations,” La Crosse (Weekly) Republican and Leader, 20 February 1886, 3; “Inquiries and Information,” La Crosse (Weekly) Republican and Leader, 27 March 1886, 2; “The Telephone Candidate,” La Crosse Morning Chronicle, 1 April 1886, 4. 35. “The Local Election,” 2. 36. “Mayor Powell,” 2. 37. According to historian Leon Fink, workers in two hundred American cities rallied behind labor parties such as the Workingmen between 1885 and 1888. Fink, Workingmen’s Democracy, xii–xiv. 38. “Address,” La Crosse News, 6 March 1886, 2. 39. “The Labor Ticket,” La Crosse (Weekly) Republican and Leader, 20 March 1886, 3. 40. Board of Trade of the City of La Crosse, Wisconsin, Annual Report of the Board of Trade of the City of La Crosse, Wisconsin, for the Year 1886 (La Crosse, Wisc.: Republican and Leader, 1887), 8. 41. “While Holding Mr. Lienlokken . . . ,” La Crosse News, 27 March 1886, 2. 42. “Inquiries and Information,” 2. 43. “The Election,” (La Crosse) Weekly Chronicle, 8 April 1886, 8. 44. “Eight Hours,” La Crosse News, 1 May 1886, 2. 45. “Eight hours, Instead of Ten . . . ,” La Crosse News, 8 May 1886, 2. 46. “Our Position,” La Crosse News, 26 June 1886, 2. 47. “Bouck Repudiated,” La Crosse (Weekly) Republican and Leader, 31 July 1886, 2; “The Labor Convention,” La Crosse (Weekly) Republican and Leader, 25 September 1886, 4. 48. “The Labor Convention,” 4. 49. “The Labor Party,” La Crosse (Weekly) Republican and Leader, 9 October 1886, 3. 50. “The County Did Well,” La Crosse (Weekly) Republican and Leader, 6 November 1886, 2. 51. “The Defeat of the Labor Party, in La Crosse,” (La Crosse) Wisconsin Labor Advocate, 29 April 1887, 4. 52. “The Platform of the Union Labor Party,” (La Crosse) Wisconsin Labor Advocate, 29 April 1887, 1. 53. “Down with the Labor Party,” (La Crosse) Wisconsin Labor Advocate, 8 April 1887, 4. 54. “The Only Way,” La Crosse (Weekly) Republican and Leader, 3 April 1886, 2. 55. “The City Conventions,” La Crosse (Weekly) Republican and Leader, 16 April 1887, 3. 56. “The Defeat of the Labor Party, in La Crosse,” 4. 57. “The Result,” La Crosse News, 23 April 1887, 3. 58. “Well Done,” (La Crosse) Weekly Chronicle, 21 April 1887, 8.

Notes to pages 150–153

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59. “Well Done,” 8; “The City Election,” La Crosse (Weekly) Republican and Leader, 23 April 1887, 2. 60. “Geo. Powell Nominations,” La Crosse Daily Republican and Leader, 28 March 1889, 1; “Democrats Routed,” La Crosse Daily Republican and Leader, 3 April 1889, 1. 61. Robert C. McMath, Jr., American Populism: A Social History, 1877–1898 (New York: Hill and Wang, 1992), 167–168. For revealing studies of Populism in the late nineteenth century, see Lawrence Goodwyn, Democratic Promise: The Populist Movement in America (New York: Oxford University Press, 1976); Steven Hahn, The Roots of Southern Populism: Yeoman Farmers and the Transformation of the Georgia Upcountry , 1850– 1890 (New York: Oxford University Press, 1983); and Postel, The Populist Vision. On the populist impulse in American history more generally, see Michael Kazin, The Populist Persuasion: An American History (Ithaca, N.Y.: Cornell University Press, 1998). 62. “Result of the Election,” La Crosse (Weekly) Republican and Leader, 8 April 1893, 3; and “Powell Is Mayor,” (La Crosse) Daily Press, 3 April 1895, 1. 63. Powell never gave up entirely his dream of winning state office as a third-party candidate. In 1892, he failed in his attempt to win a congressional seat running as a Populist. State of Wisconsin, The Blue Book of the State of Wisconsin, 1893 (Madison, Wisc.: Thomas J. Cunningham, Secretary of State, 1893), 280. In 1894, he ran for governor on the People’s ticket. Although he finished a distant third behind his major party rivals, Powell won more than twenty-five thousand votes statewide and captured nearly fifteen hundred votes in his home city. State of Wisconsin, The Blue Book of the State of Wisconsin, 1895 (Madison, Wisc.: Henry Casson, Secretary of State, 1895), 236. 64. “Beaver Hunting Great Sport,” La Crosse Morning Chronicle, 5 April 1893, 1; “Powell Is Mayor,” 1. La Crosse voters began electing mayors to two-year terms in 1887. 65. David P. Thelen, The New Citizenship: Origins of Progressivism in Wisconsin, 1885–1900 (Columbia: University of Missouri Press, 1972), 137. Measuring Worth, http://www.measuringworth.com/calculators/uscompare/result.php (accessed 3 October 2009). 66. “Eight Hour Day,” (La Crosse) Daily Press, 29 April 1893, 1. 67. “Limits and Provisos,” La Crosse Morning Chronicle, 14 September 1895, 1. 68. “Safety of Workers,” (La Crosse) Daily Press, 1 March 1895, 1. 69. “An Era of Strikes . . . ,” La Crosse Morning Chronicle, 29 April 1881, 2. 70. “A Word to Workingmen,” La Crosse Daily Republican and Leader, 31 March 1884, 2. 71. Edwards, New Spirits, 16–22. 72. “The Workingmen Getting Attention,” La Crosse (Weekly) Republican and Leader, 4 December 1886, 2. 73. “Our Ticket,” La Crosse (Weekly) Republican and Leader, 16 April 1887, 2. 74. “Well Done,” 8. 75. “For the Benefit of Labor,” La Crosse Daily Republican and Leader, 27 May 1885, 2.

244

Notes to pages 153–156

76. “Look Out for the Laborer,” La Crosse Daily Republican and Leader, 16 June 1885, 2. 77. “The Street Railway,” La Crosse Morning Chronicle, 5 March 1895, 2. 78. The city’s Grand Labor Council, an organization that represented organized labor during the 1890s, made this demand clear in 1895. “Half Fares,” La Crosse Morning Chronicle, 15 September 1895; “A Plan For Street Railway Extensions,” La Crosse Morning Chronicle, 11 January 1895, 1. 79. “Not Settled Yet,” (La Crosse) Daily Press, 25 April 1896, 1. 80. “Don’t Lose Sight of the Issue,” La Crosse Morning Chronicle, 17 September 1895, 2. 81. “Half Fares on the Street Cars,” La Crosse Daily Republican and Leader, 21 September 1895, 4. 82. Nancy C. Unger, Fighting Bob La Follette: The Righteous Reformer (Chapel Hill: University of North Carolina Press, 2000), 84–119. 83. State of Wisconsin, The Blue Book of the State of Wisconsin, 1901 (Milwaukee, Wisc.: Northwestern Litho, 1901), 293–294. 84. Elizabeth Faue, Writing the Wrongs: Eva Valesh and the Rise of Labor Journalism (Ithaca, N.Y.: Cornell University Press, 2002), 16. On the importance of the Yiddish press to socialism in New York City in the late nineteenth and early twentieth centuries, see Tony Michels, A Fire in Their Hearts: Yiddish Socialists in New York (Cambridge, Mass.: Harvard University Press, 2005), 91–114. 85. During this time, two other papers, the La Crosse Free Press and the La Crosse Evening Star, claimed to be the voice of labor in La Crosse. Neither newspaper, however, was as closely aligned with the Knights of Labor as the News. The Free Press, for example, was, first and foremost, a temperance paper. Yet the willingness of both newspapers to claim to represent the laboring classes suggests how central labor had become to the political, economic, and cultural life of the city by century’s end. Mouser, “The Wisconsin Labor Advocate,” 3. 86. “In the Lead,” La Crosse News, 29 May 1886, 2; “Ten Lumber Shovers,” La Crosse News, 4 May 1886, 2; “The Milwaukee K. of L.,” La Crosse News, 4 May 1886, 2; and “Should There Be Any Trouble in La Crosse,” La Crosse News, 8 May 1886, 2. 87. Pat Moore, “1st Black to Run for President Was Local Man,” La Crosse Tribune, 15 March 1984, 17. 88. “Salutatory,” (La Crosse) Wisconsin Labor Advocate, 20 August 1886, 2. 89. In Iowa, Taylor remained active in politics. He served as a justice of the peace, and, as candidate of the National Liberty Party in 1904, became the first African American to run for president of the United States. Moore, “1st Black to Run for President,” 17. 90. Copies of The Voice of the People no longer exist, but rival papers mentioned it constantly in editorials and articles related to Powell and his political positions. See, for example, “Mayor Powell on Trial,” La Crosse Morning Chronicle, 2 September 1895, 2.

Notes to pages 157–160

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91. “Eight Hour Day,” 1; “In Statu Quo,” (La Crosse) Daily Press, 5 May 1893, 1; “Still in Committee,” (La Crosse) Daily Press, 13 May 1893, 1; “Tangled Up Solons,” (La Crosse) Daily Press, 16 June 1893, 1. 92. “A Crooked Organ of a Crooked Mayor,” La Crosse Morning Chronicle, 29 September 1895, 1. 93. Mouser, “The Wisconsin Labor Advocate,” 3, 4. 94. These locals never reported their membership and it remains difficult to know how many workers in the city took part in their activities. Some neighboring communities along the Upper Mississippi, however, kept careful track of their membership and provide a benchmark for estimating total La Crosse members. In 1885, for example, two of three locals in Davenport, Iowa, a thriving river city south of La Crosse, claimed 158 total members; the two locals in Alton, Illinois, just across the Mississippi from St. Louis, had 108 members; and the chapter located in Eau Claire, Wisconsin, a lumber community north of La Crosse, reported 71 total members. These figures suggest that the three local assemblies of the Knights in La Crosse would have included a few hundred members by the late 1880s. Jonathan Garlock, Guide to the Local Assemblies of the Knights of Labor (Westport, Conn.: Greenwood Press, 1982), 82, 126, 543, 544, 633, 646, 649, 659, 667; Fink, Workingmen’s Democracy, 7. 95. “The Fourth in La Crosse,” La Crosse Daily Republican and Leader, 6 July 1886, 1. 96. “Labor’s Holiday,” La Crosse Morning Chronicle, 6 September 1892, 1. For an excellent discussion of Labor Day as a political celebration that has changed over time to suit the needs of American workers, see Michael Kazin and Steven J. Ross, “America’s Labor Day: The Dilemma of a Workers’ Celebration,” Journal of American History 78, no. 3 (December 1991): 1294–1323. 97. “Brewery Hands on a Strike,” La Crosse Daily Republican and Leader, 2 March 1892, 1; “Carpenters’ Strike,” La Crosse Morning Chronicle, 7 April 1892, 1. 98. “A Big Strike On,” La Crosse Daily Republican and Leader, 22 April 1892, 1; “Labor Troubles,” La Crosse Morning Chronicle, 23 April 1892, 3; “Labor Matters,” La Crosse Morning Chronicle, 26 April 1892, 1; “The Expected Result,” La Crosse Daily Republican and Leader, 27 April 1892, 1; and “The Mill Strike Was No Mistake,” La Crosse Morning Chronicle, 27 April 1892, 1. 99. “The Strike at an End,” La Crosse Morning Chronicle, 10 May 1892, 1; and “Running Smoothly and Satisfactorily,” La Crosse Daily Republican and Leader, 11 May 1892, 4. 100. For a discussion of labor activism in La Crosse between 1900 and 1950, see Barbara Jane Lindner, “Working-Class Culture and Unionization in North La Crosse, Wisconsin” (Ph.D. diss., Bowling Green State University, 1983), 57–282. Chapter 7. Fredericka’s World 1. History of Northern Wisconsin: Containing an Account of the Settlement, Growth, Development and Resources; an Extensive Sketch of its Counties, Cities, Towns and Vil-

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lages, Their Improvements, Industries, Manufactories; Biographical Sketches, Portraits of Prominent Men and Early Settlers; Views of County Seats, Etc. (Chicago: Western Historical, 1881), 470–471; “Oldest Citizen Is with Majority,” La Crosse Tribune, 21 April 1910, 1–2. 2. Fredericka Augusta Levy, “A History of La Crosse” (ca. 1904), 79, La Crosse SC4, La Crosse Area Research Center, La Crosse, Wisconsin. 3. She was apparently not alone when it came to the allegedly masculine world of commerce. In 1849, Fredericka recalled that a “French woman came to town, to do some trading.” Fredericka also noted that her visitor’s maternal concerns apparently did not stop at her doorstep: having “nobody at home to take care of her children” she “had to bring them to town with her.” Levy, “A History of La Crosse,” 14, 27, 80–81, 83. 4. Levy, “A History of La Crosse,” 27, 56. 5. Such explicit gender disparities in public affairs were nothing new in, or germane to, La Crosse. European and American women had long wrestled across space and time with gendered legal systems that typically favored men at their expense well before the first Anglo and European settlers made their way to the banks of the Mississippi. As British colonists prepared to fight a war for their independence, for example, the law in colonial New England prevented patriotic women from voting in elections or holding office. Sara M. Evans, Born for Liberty: A History of Women in America (New York: Simon & Schuster, 1997), 21–43. For excellent discussions of legal discrimination against colonial American women, see Laurel Thatcher Ulrich, Good Wives: Image and Reality in the Lives of Women in Northern New England, 1650–1750 (New York: Alfred A. Knopf, 1982); Carol F. Karlsen, The Devil in the Shape of a Woman: Witchcraft in Colonial New England (New York: W. W. Norton, 1987); and Mary Beth Norton, Founding Mothers and Fathers: Gendered Power and the Forming of American Society (New York: Alfred A. Knopf, 1996). Even as American women played a crucial role boosting the Revolution, enforcing nonimportation agreements against the hated British, and supporting their fathers, brothers, husbands, and sons in battle, elite men such as John Adams and Thomas Jefferson forged a national government that reinforced women’s legal disabilities. Evans, Born for Liberty, 45–66. For helpful discussions of women’s legal rights during the Revolutionary era, see Linda Kerber, Women of the Republic: Intellect and Ideology in Revolutionary America (Chapel Hill: University of North Carolina Press, 1980); Mary Beth Norton, Liberty’s Daughters: The Revolutionary Experience of American Women, 1750–1800 (Boston: Little, Brown, 1980); Carol Berkin, Revolutionary Mothers: Women in the Struggle for America’s Independence (New York: Alfred A. Knopf, 2005), 148–161; and Cornelia Hughes Dayton, Women Before the Bar: Gender, Law, and Society in Connecticut, 1639–1789 (Chapel Hill: University of North Carolina Press, 1995). Moreover, while many white, middle-class women joined a range of antebellum social reform movements, from temperance reform to abolition, they did not enjoy the same rights as men under the law. Evans, Born for Liberty, 67–118. For excellent studies that highlight the legal disabilities of women in the antebellum United States, see Michael Grossberg, Governing the Hearth: Law and the Family in Nineteenth-Century America

Notes to page 163

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(Chapel Hill: University of North Carolina Press, 1985); Lori D. Ginzberg, Women and the Work of Benevolence: Morality, Politics, and Class in the 19th-Century United States (New Haven, Conn.: Yale University Press, 1990); Jeanne Boydston, Home and Work: Housework, Wages, and the Ideology of Labor in the Early Republic (New York: Oxford University Press, 1994); and Nancy Isenberg, Sex and Citizenship in Antebellum America (Chapel Hill: University of North Carolina Press, 1998). 6. For an excellent survey of American women at work during this period, see Alice Kessler-Harris, Out to Work: A History of Wage Earning Women in the United States, 20th anniversary ed. (New York: Oxford University Press, 2003), 75–214. 7. Consider, for example, the story of Addie Tripp, a young, single woman who kept house for a family in Onalaska, a city north of La Crosse, in 1864. Addie Tripp, Diary (1864), 28, 30, 33, 66, 69, 73, Wisconsin Historical Society, online facsimile at: http:// www.wisconsinhistory.org/turningpoints/search.asp?id=1332 (accessed 8 May 2008). 8. Mary Chandler, for example, and her husband owned and operated a boarding house in La Crosse at midcentury. On her story, see Alice Jolivette, “Pioneer La Crosse Woman Recalls Founding of Two Methodist Churches in Early Days,” La Crosse Tribune and Leader-Press, 3 November 1935, 8. Kate Colton and her husband ran a school in their house after they arrived in town. Ida Elwell Tilson, “A Pioneer Honeymoon,” (n.d.), 3, Ida Elwell Tilson Papers, 1864–1915 and undated, La Crosse SC6, La Crosse Area Research Center. Gertrude Moore, a woman who married Daniel Webster and moved to La Crosse in the 1860s, worked as both a school teacher and store clerk before she arrived in town. On her adventures in employment, see Daniel Webster to Gertrude Moore, 3 August 1859, 13 October 1859, and 12 July 1860, folder 55, Correspondence, Daniel Webster Letters, 1859–1861, Wisconsin Historical Society, Madison, Wisconsin. 9. On the special challenges facing women entering business in the Gilded Age and early twentieth century, see Angel Kwolek-Folland, Incorporating Women: A History of Women and Business in the United States (New York: Palgrave, 1998), 46–127. 10. Minnie Agnes Knight, “The Industrial Growth of La Crosse 1841–1870” (bachelor’s thesis, University of Wisconsin, 1915), 17–27. 11. In 1866, for example, men owned every one of the city’s twenty-five grocery and provisioning establishments in La Crosse. A. Bailey’s La Crosse Directory, For 1866–1867: Comprising a Complete List of all Residents of the City; City and County Officers, Churches, Public Schools, Benevolent Associations; Besides Other Miscellaneous Information: To Which Is Added a Classified Business Directory (La Crosse, Wisc.: A. Bailey, 1866), 111. In 1900, the city directory included the names of just two married women among the seventy-nine grocers in town. Philippi’s Souvenir Directory of the City of La Crosse Comprising an Alphabetical List of Names, Business Department, Half-Tones of the Representative Men of La Crosse, A List of Churches, Schools, Societies and Organizations, Street and Avenue Directory, Etc. (La Crosse, Wisc.: Walter J. Boycott, 1900), 553–555. The city business directory did not include a female physician until 1880, a woman surgeon until 1890, or a woman dentist until 1900. Morrissey & Bunn’s La Crosse City Directory. 1880–81: Comprising an Alphabetical List of Citizens, a Classified Business Direc-

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Notes to page 164

tory, Lists of City and County Officers, Churches, Schools, Societies, Streets and Wards (La Crosse, Wisc.: Morrissey & Bunn, 1880), 192; Spicer and Buschman’s La Crosse Directory 1890, Comprising an Alphabetical List of Names, a Complete Business Directory, a List of Churches, Schools, Societies and Organizations, Street Directory, Ward Boundaries, Etc. (La Crosse, Wisc.: Spicer and Buschman, 1890), 320; Philippi’s Souvenir Directory for 1900, 543–544. 12. The Industries of La Crosse, Wis., 1888 (La Crosse, Wisc.: Spicer & Bushman, 1888), 21–25. 13. Minutes of Stockholders’ Meeting of the La Crosse City Railway Company, 16 February 1903, folder L73, box 427; Articles of Association of the La Crosse Brush Electric Light and Power Co. of La Crosse, Wisconsin, 20 October 1881, folder L35, box 426; Articles of Association for Edison Light & Power Co. of La Crosse, 25 February 1887, folder E123, box 217, Incorporation Papers: Domestic Corporations, 1848–1945, Corporation Division, Secretary of State, Wisconsin Historical Society. 14. For studies of specific American businesses largely dominated by women during the nineteenth century, see Wendy Gamber, The Female Economy: The Millinery and Dressmaking Trades, 1860–1930 (Urbana: University of Illinois Press, 1997); and Wendy Gamber, The Boardinghouse in Nineteenth-Century America (Baltimore: Johns Hopkins University Press, 2007). 15. A. Bailey’s Directory for 1866–67, 108, 109–110, 114. 16. Women well may have been all of the dressmakers in town. The 1900 city directory, however, includes one proprietor without a feminine title of either Miss or Mrs. Philippi’s Souvenir Directory for 1900, 533, 544–547, 567. 17. A. Bailey’s Directory for 1866–67, 114; A. Brainerd, La Crosse City Directory, and Business Advertiser, for 1870–71, Containing the Name and Residence of every Male Citizen, a Business Directory and Sketch of the City, with information in relation to its various Societies and Institutions, City, County and other Public Officers (La Crosse, Wisc.: Democrat Book and Job Printing Office, 1870), 144, 159; Pryor & Co.’s La Crosse City Directory 1876–7: Comprising An Alphabetical List of Citizens, a Classified Business Directory, Lists of City and County Officers, Churches, Schools, Societies, Streets and Wards (La Crosse, Wisc.: Pryor & Co., 1876), 148, 157; Morrissey & Bunn’s Directory for 1880–81, 182, 190; Urban Publishing Company’s La Crosse City Directory, for the Years 1885–1886, Comprising an Alphabetical List of Names, Historical, Editorial and Business Department; List of Churches, Schools, Societies and Organizations, Map of the City, Street Directory, Population, Etc. (La Crosse, Wisc.: A. B. Lamborn, 1885), 361. 18. With a few exceptions, men controlled most retail trades in town before 1800. An 1870 La Crosse business directory, for example, listed wives as proprietors of one of the city’s six bakeries and just one of the city’s seventeen grocery and provisions stores. A. Brainerd, Directory for 1870–71, 136–137, 149. An 1876 directory noted that married women operated just one of La Crosse’s fifty-one retail groceries and one of the city’s seven photographic studios. Pryor & Co.’s Directory for 1876–7, 151–152, 158.

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19. Morrissey & Bunn’s Directory for 1880–81, 181–182. 20. Philippi’s Souvenir Directory for 1900, 541–542. 21. Spicer and Buschman’s Directory for 1890, 284–285, 314, 324–325. 22. Philippi’s Souvenir Directory 1900, 534, 537, 539. 23. Spicer and Buschman’s Directory for 1890, 284–285, 298, 318; 1895 Philippi’s La Crosse City and County Directory: Comprising an Alphabetical List of Names, Business and County Department, a List of Churches, Schools, Societies and Organizations, City Map, Etc. (La Crosse, Wisc.: Walter J. Boycott, 1895), 423–425, 449, 451, 474. 24. Spencer Carr, A Brief Sketch of La Crosse, Wisc’n, Showing the Location of the Place, Its Surrounding Scenery, Commercial Advantages, Early History, and the Social, Moral, Literary, and Religious Character of the Inhabitants; and Various Other Interesting Items (La Crosse, Wisc.: W. C. Rogers, 1854), 19–28. 25. For intriguing tales about the lives of working women in other industrial American cities, see Thomas Dublin, Women at Work: The Transformation of Work and Community in Lowell, Massachusetts, 1826–1860 (New York: Columbia University Press, 1979); Elizabeth Ewen, Immigrant Women in the Land of Dollars: Life and Culture on the Lower East Side, 1890–1925 (New York: Monthly Review Press, 1985); Kathy Peiss, Cheap Amusements: Working Women and Leisure in Turn-of-the-Century New York (Philadelphia: Temple University Press, 1986); and Nan Enstad, Ladies of Labor, Girls of Adventure: Working Women, Popular Culture, and Labor Politics at the Turn of the Twentieth Century (New York: Columbia University Press, 1999). 26. Wisconsin, Secretary of State, Census Office, Tabular Statements of the Census Enumeration and the Agricultural, Dairying and Manufacturing Interests of the State of Wisconsin. Also Alphabetical List of the Soldiers and Sailors of the Civil War Residing in the State June 1, 1905 (Madison, Wisc.: Democrat Printing, 1906), 408–413, 564. 27. Spicer and Bushman’s Directory for 1890, 318; Philippi’s Souvenir Directory for 1900, 569. On the history of midwives in the United States, see Judith Walzer Leavitt, Brought to Bed: Childbearing in America, 1750–1950 (New York: Oxford University Press, 1986), 36–63, 87–115; and Laurel Thatcher Ulrich, A Midwife’s Tale: The Life of Martha Ballard, Based on Her Diary, 1785–1812 (New York: Vintage, 1991). For a history of American nursing, see Susan M. Reverby, Ordered to Care: The Dilemma of American Nursing, 1850–1945 (New York: Cambridge University Press, 1987). 28. For a more detailed discussion of these economic changes and their impact on the lives of American women, see Kwolek-Folland, Incorporating Women, 46–83. 29. Nancy F. Cott, Public Vows: A History of Marriage and the Nation (Cambridge, Mass.: Harvard University Press, 2000), 11–12. 30. Catherine B. Cleary, “Married Women’s Property Rights in Wisconsin, 1846– 1872,” Wisconsin Magazine of History 78, no. 2 (Winter 1994–1995): 112–113. 31. Wisconsin, Legislature, The Revised Statutes of the State of Wisconsin, as Altered and Amended by Subsequent Legislation, Together with the Unrepealed Statutes of a General Nature Passed from the Time of the Revision of 1858 to the Close of the Legislature of 1871; Arranged in the Same Manner as the Statutes of 1858, with References, Showing the

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Time of the Enactment of Each Section, and Also References to Judicial Decisions, in Relations to the Explanatory of the Statutes (St. Louis: W. J. Gilbert, 1871), 1195–1196. 32. Bennett Wooster, Plaintiff in Error, v. Harson Northrup and Sally C. Northrup, his wife; Joseph R. Marshall and Martha A. Marshall, his wife; Stiles S. Northrup and Marshall A. Northrup, Defendants in Error, 5 Wis. 245, 256 (1856). 33. Botkin v. Earl and another, 6 Wis. 393, 397 (1857). 34. Conway v. Smith and wife, 13 Wis. 125, 136 (1860). 35. Leonard v. Rogan, impleaded with another, 20 Wis. 540, 542 (1866) 36. Heath v. Van Cott and others, and Van Cott v. Heath, 9 Wis. 516, 529 (1859); Rogers v. Weil and others, 12 Wis. 664, 665 (1860). 37. Todd v. Lydia and Francis C. Lee. Wright and others v. The Same. Jaffray and others v. The Same. Taylor and another v. The Same. Faries v. The Same, 15 Wis. 365, 386 (1862); Todd v. Lee and another, 16 Wis. 480, 485 (1863). 38. McVey v. The Green Bay & Minnesota Railway Company, 42 Wis. 532, 537 (1877). 39. Krouskop v. Shontz and husband, 51 Wis. 204, 217 (1881). 40. Boos v. Gomber, 23 Wis. 284, 286, 287 (1868). See also Feller v. Alden, 23 Wis. 301 (1868). 41. Hamilton v. City of Fond du Lac and another, Second Appeal, 25 Wis. 496, 497 (1870). 42. Fuller & Fuller Company, Appellant, v. McHenry, Respondent, 83 Wis. 573, 580 (1892). 43. Mayers, Receiver, Appellant v. Kaiser and others, Respondents, 85 Wis. 382, 397 (1893). 44. In 1854, the court decreed that Bridget Connors, a Milwaukee county domestic worker, had no legal claim to land she had purchased with her wages on the grounds that a wife’s earnings belonged to her husband. Connors, by next friend, v. Connors and others, 4 Wis. 112, 118 (1854). The court upheld this precedent in 1863 when it ruled that a wife who earned wages as a music teacher could not make binding agreements with her husband to pay back money she had loaned him because her income was legally his. Some uneasy questions, however, lingered on the bench. According to Chief Justice Luther S. Dixon, who authored the opinion, “It is somewhat remarkable, among the many beneficent changes recently effected by legislation for the welfare and protection of married women, that the legislature should have omitted to secure to the wife the rewards of her individual skill and labor. . . . It seems harsh and unreasonable that she should not have the same rights now, but by law we are constrained to say that she has not.” Elliott, Receiver, v. Bently and others, 17 Wis. 591, 594, 595 (1863). Even with such doubts in mind, the court undermined a married woman’s legal claim to her wages in 1866 when it held that “poverty, sickness, intellectual inferiority or physical inability of the husband, without being caused by vice, are not sufficient to enable the wife” to win sole control of her wages. Edson v. Hayden, 20 Wis. 682, 684 (1866).

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45. For more on this legislation, see Cleary, “Married Women’s Property,” 130–134. For the text of the 1872 law, see Wisconsin, Legislature, Revised Statutes of the State of Wisconsin, Passed at the Extra Session of the Legislature, Commencing June 4, 1878, and Approved June 7, 1878; to Which are Prefixed the Constitutions of the United States and the State of Wisconsin; with an Appendix Containing Certain Acts of Congress Required to be Published Therein (Madison, Wisc.: David Atwood, 1878), 660. 46. On the origins and evolution of the “cult of domesticity” in the United States, see Nancy Cott, Bonds of Womanhood: “Woman’s Sphere” in New England, 1780–1835 (New Haven, Conn.: Yale University Press, 1977); Christine Stansell, City of Women: Sex and Class in New York, 1789–1860 (New York: Alfred A. Knopf, 1982); Ulrich, Good Wives; Jeanne Boydston, Mary Kelley, and Anne Margolis, The Limits of Sisterhood: The Beecher Sisters on Women’s Rights and Woman’s Sphere (Chapel Hill: University of North Carolina Press, 1988); and Sally G. McMillen, Seneca Falls and the Origins of the Women’s Rights Movement (New York: Oxford University Press, 2008), 9–34. 47. Evans, Born for Liberty, 95–101; Gail Collins, America’s Women: 400 Years of Dolls, Drudges, Helpmates, and Heroines (New York: William Morrow, 2003), 96–98. 48. For overviews of the history of women’s suffrage during the nineteenth century, see Ellen Carol Dubois, Woman Suffrage and Women’s Rights (New York: New York University Press, 1998); and Alexander Keyssar, The Right to Vote: The Contested History of Democracy in the United States (New York: Basic Books, 2000), 172–202. For a more specific, yet equally enlightening, microhistory of women’s suffrage in New York state, see Lori D. Ginzberg, Untidy Origins: A Story of Woman’s Rights in Antebellum New York (Chapel Hill: University of North Carolina Press, 2005). 49. On the origins and immediate impact of the Seneca Falls meeting on the nineteenth-century women’s rights movement, see McMillen, Seneca Falls, 71–103. 50. Wisconsin, Secretary of State, Constitution of the State of Wisconsin with a Brief History of the Admission of Wisconsin to the Union (Madison, Wisc.: Democrat Printing, 1906), 6; “The Question Box: Negro Suffrage and Woman’s Rights in the Convention of 1846,” Wisconsin Magazine of History 3, no. 2 (December 1919): 230. 51. Benjamin F. Bryant, Memoirs of La Crosse County from the Earliest Historical Times Down to the Present with Special Chapters on Various Subjects, Including Each of the Different Towns, and a Genealogical and Biographical Record of Representative Families in the County, Prepared from Date Obtained from Original Sources of Information (Madison, Wisc.: Western Historical Association, 1907), 19, 55, 62–64, 200–201. 52. McMillen, Seneca Falls, 200–203. For a fascinating discussion of woman suffrage speakers and the business of lecture tours, see Lisa Tetrault, “Social Activism as SelfSufficiency: Woman Suffrage, Earning, and Entrepreneurialism,” paper presented at the Business History Conference, Cleveland, Ohio, June 2, 2007. 53. Wisconsin, Legislature, An Act Relating to the Exercise of the Right of Suffrage by Women upon School Matters, The Laws of Wisconsin, Except City Charters and Their Amendments, Passed at the Biennial Session of the Legislature of 1885, Together

252

Notes to pages 172–174

with Joint Resolutions and Memorials, vol. 1 (Madison, Wisc.: Democrat Printing, 1885): 184–185. 54. Robert C. Nesbit, The History of Wisconsin, vol. 3, Urbanization and Industrialization, 1873–1893 (Madison: State Historical Society of Wisconsin, 1985), 463–467. One local paper reported that the final tally was 43,427 in favor of the referendum and 38,884 against. “The Vote . . ., ” La Crosse Chronicle, 25 November 1886, 4. 55. By 1886, Brown was one of the movement’s most accomplished members. In the 1850s and 1860s, she had earned an undergraduate degree from Antioch College in Ohio, studied divinity at St. Lawrence University in upstate New York, and become one of the first women ordained in the United States. During this time, she toured the nation with Anthony and emerged as a significant figure in the national suffrage movement. In 1878 Brown took a critical step that made her one of the most important women in the state: she accepted an offer to fill a Universalist pulpit in Racine, Wisconsin, where she ministered to her flock, helped organize the Wisconsin Women’s Suffrage Association, and defended women’s equality into the twentieth century. Genevieve G. McBride, “Theodora Winton Youmans and the Wisconsin Woman Movement,” Wisconsin Magazine of History 71, no. 4 (Summer 1988): 245–246. 56. Charlotte Coté, Olympia Brown: The Battle for Equality (Racine, Wisc.: Mother Courage Press, 1988), 117–134; Genevieve G. McBride, On Wisconsin Women: Working for Their Rights from Settlement to Suffrage (Madison: University of Wisconsin Press, 1993), 100–133. 57. Nesbit, The History of Wisconsin, 467–468. 58. “Woman’s Suffrage Meeting,” La Crosse Morning Chronicle, 25 November 1886, 5. For more on Colby and her impact on suffrage, see Olympia Brown, ed. Democratic Ideals: Sketch of Clara Bewick Colby (n.p.: Federal Suffrage Association, 1917); Eleanor Claire Jerry, “Clara Bewick Colby and the ‘Woman’s Tribune’: Strategies of a Free Lance Movement Leader” (Ph.D. diss., University of Kansas, 1987). 59. “Mrs. Olympia Brown’s Sermon,” La Crosse Morning Chronicle, 2 December 1886, 2. 60. On Anthony’s career, see Jean H. Baker, Sisters: The Lives of America’s Suffragists (New York: Hill and Wang, 2005), 55–92. 61. “Susan B. Anthony’s Lecture,” La Crosse Morning Chronicle, 2 December 1886, 2. 62. One reporter, at least, was more than impressed with Anthony and believed “in the future children will wonder . . . how for years and years all the voting was done by men and all the laws were made by men, and how poor women, hedged in on every side, worked for half pay and married women owned nothing, and all women were politically subordinate until the woman suffrage associations, with Susan B. Anthony at their head, came and roused up the people and taught the lesson of equal rights for all.” “The Meetings To-Day,” La Crosse Morning Chronicle, 25 November 1886, 5. 63. “Women’s Suffrage,” La Crosse Morning Chronicle, 6 April 1887, 1. 64. “Woman Voting,” La Crosse Morning Chronicle, 6 April 1887, 4.

Notes to pages 174–176

253

65. Marilyn Grant, “The 1912 Suffrage Referendum: An Exercise in Political Action,” Wisconsin Magazine of History 64, no. 2 (Winter 1980–1981): 107–108. 66. Brown v. Phillips and others, 71 Wis. 239, 247 (1888). 67. Nesbit, The History of Wisconsin, 468. 68. Laura Wheeler Demmon, “Woman Suffrage in La Crosse,” letter to the editor, La Crosse Sunday Press, 17 February 1895, 9. 69. Philippi’s Souvenir Directory for 1900, 108. 70. “What the Women’s Clubs Are Doing,” La Crosse Morning Chronicle, 10 October 1897, 2, 4. 71. Local women continued to lobby for women’s suffrage well into the twentieth century. Stanley N. Miller, “A History of La Crosse, Wisconsin, 1900–1950” (master’s thesis, George Peabody College for Teachers, 1959), 106. 72. For a general discussion of prohibition during the nineteenth century, see Catherine Gilbert Murdock, Domesticating Drink: Women, Men, and Alcohol in America, 1870–1940 (Baltimore: Johns Hopkins University Press, 1998), 3–69. On the origins of temperance during the antebellum era, see Steven Mintz, Moralists and Modernizers: America’s Pre-Civil War Reformers (Baltimore: Johns Hopkins University Press, 1995), 72–76. 73. McMillen, Seneca Falls, 52–54. 74. Joseph Schafer, “Prohibition in Early Wisconsin,” Wisconsin Magazine of History 8, no. 3 (March 1925): 281–283, 290–293. 75. Between 1882 and 1884, the number of Women’s Christian Temperance Union chapters in the state increased from eleven to nineteen. By 1887, moreover, the Good Templars, a less militant prohibition organization that appealed to middle-class men, included more than twelve thousand members in Wisconsin. Protestant ministers across the state also increasingly railed against the corrosive influence of intoxicating spirits. David P. Thelen, “La Follette and the Temperance Crusade,” Wisconsin Magazine of History 47, no. 4 (Summer 1964): 291–292. 76. Thelen, “La Follette and the Temperance Crusade,” 292. 77. La Crosse, Wisconsin, Office of the City Clerk, Licenses Issued by the La Crosse City Clerk, 1856–1955, 94–103, Series 50, box 2, folder 2, La Crosse Public Library Archives, La Crosse, Wisconsin. 78. Steven Baier, “A History of the Brewing Industry in La Crosse,” (unpublished manuscript, 1976), 2, Special Collections Rare Books, Murphy Library Research Center, University of Wisconsin–La Crosse. 79. Board of Trade of the City of La Crosse, Wisconsin, Thirty-third Anniversary of the Board of Trade of the City of La Crosse Wis. and Annual Report for the Year 1900 (La Crosse, Wisc.: Republican and Leader, 1900), 27, 28. 80. History of La Crosse County, Wisconsin, Containing an Account of Its Settlement, growth, Development and Resources; an Extensive and Minute Sketch of Its Cities, Towns and Villages—Their Improvements, Industries, Manufactories, Churches, Schools and Societies; Its War Records, Biographical Sketches, Portraits of Prominent Men and Early Set-

254

Notes to pages 176–178

tlers; the Whole Preceded by a History of Wisconsin, Statistics of the State, and an Abstract of Its Laws and Constitution and of the Constitution of the United States (Chicago: Western Historical, 1881), 661–663. 81. History of La Crosse County, 663. 82. On Willard’s efforts to build the WCTU, see Ruth Bordin, Frances Willard: A Biography (Chapel Hill: University of North Carolina Press, 1986), 65–111, 129–154, 175–189. 83. Mrs. R. E. Osborne, “Women and Temperance,” letter to the editor, La Crosse Sunday Press, 17 February 1895, 8. 84. The female Mendota leaders whose names appeared in either the 1870 or 1880 federal census included Adelaide Dudley, Lillian Howel, Adeleade Jarvis, Sarah Farnam (Farnum), Synthie A. Smith, and Elizabeth Barber. History of La Crosse County, 662–663; Bureau of the Census, Ninth Census of the United States, 1870, population schedule, La Crosse, La Crosse County, Wisconsin, National Archives microfilm publication M593, roll 1721, 130, digital image, Ancestry.com, http://www.ancestry.com (accessed 1 March 2009); Bureau of the Census, Tenth Census of the United States, 1880, population schedule, La Crosse, La Crosse County, Wisconsin, National Archives microfilm publication T9, roll 1432, 130.1000, 461.1000, 461.1000, 466.4000, 589.2000, digital image, Wisconsin Historical Society, http://www.wisconsinhistory.org/whlba_images/024/02400682. gif (accessed 20 October 2009). 85. These eight women included Ruth A. Hayhurst, Ada F. Brigham, Martha Irish, Mary A. De Forest, Louise Osborne, Sophia Smith, Catherine Irish, and Charlotta McMaster. Bryant, Memoirs of La Crosse, 157; United States, Tenth Census, 1880, 486.3000, 541.300, 543.3000, 547.3000, 569.1000, 573.1000, 592.4000, 599.1000, digital image (accessed 1 March 2009). 86. These women included Elizabeth B. Benton, Virginia E. Miller, and Sarah B. Winter. Jones and Kroeger’s La Crosse City Directory Comprising an Alphabetical List of Citizens, Their Occupations, Place of Business and Residence; a Classified Business Directory; List of State, County and City Officers; Churches, Societies and Organizations; Complete Street Directory, Ward Boundaries and Map of the City (Winona, Minn.: Jones & Kroeger, 1891), 42; 1895 Philippi’s Directory, 41; Bureau of the Census, Twelfth Census of the United States, 1900, population schedule, La Crosse, Ward 4, La Crosse County, Wisconsin, National Archives microfilm publication T623, roll 1795, Enumerations District 71, page 1A, Enumeration District 79, 6A, Enumeration District 83, page 4A, digital image, Ancestry.com, http://www.ancestry.com (accessed 1 March 2009). 87. For a listing of the women involved in the project, see “Editorial Staff,” La Crosse Sunday Press, 17 February 1895, 4; and “How They Did It,” La Crosse Sunday Press, 17 February 1895, 1. 88. “The Aim of the Kindergarten,” La Crosse Sunday Press, 17 February 1895, 2; Demmon, “Woman Suffrage in La Crosse,”8; and Osborne, “Women and Temperance,” 9. 89. Elizabeth D. Leonard, Yankee Women: Gender Battles in the Civil War (New York: W. W. Norton, 1994); Charles McCool Snyder, Dr. Mary Walker: The Little Lady in Pants

Notes to pages 178–189

255

(New York: Arno Press, 1974); Barbara Goldsmith, Other Powers: The Age of Suffrage, Spiritualism, and the Scandalous Victoria Woodhull (New York: Alfred A. Knopf, 1998). 90. “All the Work of This Issue . . . ,” La Crosse Sunday Press, 17 February 1895, 4. 91. “How They Did It,” 1. 92. “What They Think of It,” La Crosse Daily Press, 23 February 1875, 2. 93. McMillen, Seneca Falls, 222–224. 94. Louise Osborne, wife of Rockwell E. Osborne, a well-to-do lumberman in La Crosse, served as secretary and vice president of the WCTU between 1880 and 1891. Biographical History of La Crosse, Monroe and Juneau Counties, Wisconsin: Containing Portraits of All the Presidents of the United States, with Accompanying Biographies of Each; Engravings of Prominent Citizens of the Counties, with Personal Histories of Many of the Early Settlers and Leading Families (Chicago: Lewis, 1892), 244–245. Conclusion 1. Benjamin F. Bryant, Memoirs of La Crosse County: from the Earliest Historical Times down to the Present with Special Chapters on Various Subjects, Including each of the Different Towns, and a Genealogical and Biographical Record of Representative Families in the County, Prepared from Data Obtained from Original Sources of Information (Madison, Wisc.: Western Historical Association, 1907), 118. 2. “Ellis B. Usher, Former La Crosse Editor, Dies in Milwaukee, Aged 78,” La Crosse Tribune, 22 April 1931, 1. 3. History of La Crosse County, Wisconsin, Containing an Account of Its Settlement, Growth, Development and Resources; an Extensive and Minute Sketch of its Cities, Towns and Villages—Their Improvements, Industries, Manufactories, Churches, Schools and Societies; Its War Record, Biographical Sketches, Portraits of Prominent Men and Early Settlers; the Whole Preceded by a History of Wisconsin, Statistics of the State; and an Abstract of Its Laws and Constitution and of the Constitution of the United States (Chicago: Western Historical, 1881), 556. 4. “Ellis B. Usher,” 1, 6. 5. Ellis B. Usher quoted in Bryant, Memoirs of La Crosse, 118, 160, 202. 6. “Our Early History,” Glenwood (Wisconsin) Gleaner, 2 March 1907, digital image, Ancestry.com, http://www.ancestry.com (accessed 1 March 2009). 7. Ellis B. Usher, “La Crosse,” Milwaukee Sentinel, 5 November 1905, article reprinted in pamphlet form and held at the Wisconsin Historical Society Library Pamphlet Collection, Wisconsin Historical Society, Madison, Wisconsin. 8. Usher, “La Crosse.” 9. Usher, “La Crosse.” 10. For works that have helped define this paradigm of urbanization and economic transformation in the Middle West, see William Cronon, Nature’s Metropolis: Chicago and the Great West (New York: W. W. Norton, 1991); and Timothy R. Mahoney, River Towns in the Great West: The Structures of Provincial Urbanization in the American Midwest, 1820–1870 (New York: Cambridge University Press, 1990).

256

Notes to page 190

11. For commentary on modern urban problems, see James Howard Kunstler, The Geography of Nowhere: The Rise and Decline of America’s Man Made Landscape (New York: Touchstone, 1993); Thomas J. Sugrue, The Origins of the Urban Crisis (Princeton, N.J.: Princeton University Press, 1996); Andres Duany, Elizabeth Plater-Zyberk, and Jeff Speck, Suburban Nation: The Rise of Sprawl and the Decline of the American Dream (New York: North Point Press, 2000); Robert Bruegmann, Sprawl: A Compact History (Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 2006); Douglas Farr, Sustainable Urbanism: Urban Design With Nature (Hoboken, N.J.: John Wiley & Sons, 2007); Kevin M. Kruse, White Flight: Atlanta and the Making of Modern Conservatism (Princeton, N.J.: Princeton University Press, 2007).

Index

Page numbers in italics refer to illustrations in the text. Abbott, Carl, 192–93n13 Abert, John J., 27 Adams, Charles Francis, 95 Adams, Herbert Baxter, 191n4 Adler, Jeffrey S., 194n15 Alexander Stewart Lumber Company, 66 Allis, E. P., 113–14 American Fur Company, 34, 35, 36, 50 American Historical Association, ix–xvi American Philosophical Society, 22 American Revolution, 12, 13, 246n5 American Telephone and Telegraph, 129 Amherst, Jeffrey, 8 Anderson, Mons, 124 Anderson, Wendell A., 171 Anthony, Susan B., 171–74, 252n62 Astor, John Jacob, 15, 50, 199n42 Atkinson, Gen. Henry, 18 Austin, David, 62, 149–50 Balch, John, 55, 208n30, 209n31 Baltimore, Maryland, 115, 141 Baltimore and Ohio Railroad, 217n27 Bank of the United States, 83 Barbour, James, 27 Barron’s Island, 35 Battle of Bad Axe, 19 Battle of Fallen Timbers, 13 Beecher, Catharine, 179 Belknap, William W., 102 Bell, Alexander Graham, 127 Bender, Herman, 116 Bensel, Richard, 239–40n14 Benton, Thomas Hart, 43 Black Hawk’s uprising, 5, 18–19, 207n10 Black River Improvement Company, 69–71, 214n100 Bliss, Henry I., 110 bonding and contracting powers: and public works, 108–14, 228n24; and railroad projects, 85–87, 217nn29–30, 218nn31–36 Boston, Massachusetts: and Carver, 11; municipal

water system, 109; public works, 109, 122, 130; streetcar system, 122 Boston and Western Land Company, 62 Boston Chronicle, 11 Brayton, Aaron M., 119 Brisbois, Michael, 15–17 Brown, A. Theodore, 192–93n13 Brown, Olympia, 172–74, 252n55 Brunson, Ira, 44, 206n60 Brush Electric Light and Power Company, 116–18, 120, 164 Bunnell, Lafayette, 45 Burns, Timothy, 163 Burr, Aaron, 20 C. H. Nichols Lumber Company, 58 C. L. Colman Lumber Company, 58 Calhoun, John C., 14–15, 24, 37 Cameron, Angus, 70–71, 164 Cameron, Peter, 46 Campbell, Helen, 191n1 Carr, Spencer, 48, 165 Carver, Jonathan, 9–11 Cary, L. H., 70–71 Cass, Lewis, 15, 24, 41, 59 Cassoday, John B., 174 Catskill Turnpike, 40 Cauley, Leslie, 127 Central Electric Company, 118–19 Champlain, Samuel de, 7–8 Chicago, Burlington and Northern Rail Road, 96–98, 223n77 Chicago, Burlington and Quincy Railroad, 98 Chicago, Illinois: Myrick’s travels, 34, 41; streetcar system, 122; as thriving frontier city, xi, 81, 192n13 Chicago, Milwaukee and St. Paul ordinance, 97, 98, 99 Chicago and Northwestern Railroad, 96–97, 113, 222n74 Civil War: postwar debates over municipal investments in private railroad corporations, 86; and Wisconsin’s lumber industry, 54; women and antebellum social reform movements, 246n5

258

Index

Clark, William, 19 Clinton, DeWitt, 39 Cody, William “Buffalo Bill,” 135, 138, 144, 146 Colby, Clara Bewick, 172, 173 Colman, Charles L., 48–49, 49, 53–56, 58, 63, 67, 71–73, 131, 141, 163, 187–88; and costs of lumber industry, 53; fires and rebuilding lumber mills, 53–54; incorporation, 58; lumber partnerships, 55–56, 208n30, 209n31 Columbia County, Wisconsin, 85–86 Common Council, La Crosse’s: bonding and contracting powers to build a waterworks, 108–14, 228n24; city contracts with private corporations (public-private contracts), 107–8, 111, 115–18, 130; and city lighting, 115–22; and great Milwaukee and St. Paul bridge war, 100–101; and lumber industry, 143; railroad funding debates, 88–90, 220n48, 222n72; railroad ordinances and regulation, 95–100, 104–5, 222n68, 222n72, 222n74, 223n77; and streetcar fares/laying of new track, 126, 151, 153–54; and telephone system, 127–30; and water supply, 108–14, 227n14, 228n24; and workers’ concerns, 145 Congress, U.S.: federal land system and squatters’ rights, 43–46; geological and scientific surveys, 27–28; and labor unrest, 141–42; and the Milwaukee and St. Paul bridge war, 102 Copeland, Frederick Allen, 33, 117, 214n101 Corps of Discovery, 19 coverture, 166–67, 169–70, 183 Crawford, William, 15, 22 Cream City Railroad Company, 234n101 Cronon, William, xi, 192–93n13 Crosby, William W., 61 Dakota Indians, 59, 205n44 Davidson, P. S., 58, 123–24 Davidson Lumber Company, 58 Denver, Colorado, 115, 118, 130 Dibble, O. H., 52 Dickinson, Robert, 14 Dowsman, H. L., 46 Dubofsky, Melvyn, 239–40n14 Dudley, Nellie, 177 E. P. Allis Company, 113 Eaton, John Henry, 27 Eau Claire, Wisconsin, 142 Edison, Thomas, 115 Edison Electric Illuminating Company, 115 Edison Light and Power Company, 116–17, 164 Edwards, George, 62 Edwards, T. B., 89 Eight Hour League for Wisconsin, 143 eight-hour workday campaigns, 135, 147, 151 Einhorn, Robin L., 216n15 electric lighting, 114–22; building a municipal electricity plant (city-owned light works), 119–20; and commercial districts, 118; debates

over placement of lines and streetlights, 118–22, 232n83; fostering competition to reduce costs, 121; Heath’s ordinance, 118–19; legislation and regulation, 117–18, 120–21; municipal debates over electricity rates, 119–22; municipal regulation of lighting businesses, 117–18; municipal street lighting contracts, 116–18; public-private partnerships, 115–18 Ely, Richard T., 191n1 Erie Canal, 27, 31–32, 37–41, 203n28, 204n35; decisions about terminus, 39–40; and settlers’ migration patterns, 37, 40–41 factory system, 15–17, 42 Faragher, John Mack, 192–93n13 Farnam, George, 163 federal government: and early labor organizing in La Crosse, 136–39, 141–43, 239n14; land distribution policy and lumber industry, 58–63; land system and squatters/settlers, 32, 43–46, 206n60; and settlement in southwestern Wisconsin, 31–47; and transportation infrastructure, 31–32, 37–39, 216n13; treaties and territorial control, 17–18, 41; treaty system and Indians/traders, 32, 41–43 Federalists, 77 Finch, W. R., 143 Fink, Leon, 242n37 Fond du Lac, Wisconsin, 55, 70 Forbath, William, 239n14 Fort Crawford, 15–17, 16, 22, 26, 35, 199n42 Fort Madison, 13–14 Fort Snelling, 52 Fox, William H., 216n19 Fox Indians, 8, 17, 18, 25 Franciscan missionaries, 7 French and Indian War, 8–9 frontier cities of the nineteenth-century Midwest: economic imperatives and local entrepreneurs, xi; geographic location, xi, 192–93n13; historians on, xi–xii, 192n13, 193n14, 194n15; roles of government institutions and policies, xi–xii, 193–94n14, 194–95n15 Gagnier, Registre, 3 Gale, George, 83–84, 216n15 Galena and Chicago Union Railroad, 81 Gallatin, Albert, 37 Gelatt, R. B., 118–19 gender: the gendered economy and male dominance in La Crosse businesses/government, 163–65, 171, 247n11, 248n18; history of gender disparities in American public affairs, 246n5; women’s movement culture and gender norms challenged, 170–83. See also women in La Crosse General Land Office, 27–28 Genesse County, New York, 77 Giddings, David, 171

Index Gile, Abner, x, 54, 56, 68 Glaab, Charles N., 192–93n13 Granger, Harris W., 55–56 Great Britain: Carver’s expedition and mapping of southwestern Wisconsin, 9–11; fur trade and southwestern Wisconsin, 8–9; Prairie du Chien and American Revolution, 12, 13; War of 1812 and Ho-Chunk Indians, 3 Great Railroad Strike (1877), 141, 142 Green Bay and Minnesota Railway Company, 89–90, 222n72 Green Bay and Western Rail Road, 97 Green Bay and Winona Rail Road, 97 Gund, George F., 124 Hatch, Charles, 34 Hatch, Edwin, 33–34, 36 Hattam, Victoria, 239n14 Hayes, Rutherford B., 141 Heath, George, 107–8, 118–21 Hennepin, Louis, 7 Henry A. Salzer Lumber Company, 58 Henry R. Worthington Company, 112–13 Hirsch, Arnold R., 194–95n15 Hixon, Frank P., 66 Hixon, Gideon C.: investments in La Crosse economy, 72, 164; and La Crosse lumber industry, 56–58, 61, 64–69, 212n80; and La Crosse’s banks/financial institutions, 164; and La Crosse Street Railway, 123–24 Hixon & Company, 58 Ho-Chunk Indians, 3–7, 29–30; competition with other tribes, 6–7; and Long’s scientific expeditions, 23; name of, 196n7; Prairie du Chien settlement, 23; Red Bird’s insurrection/uprising, 3–6, 4, 17–18; treaties ceding their territory, 17, 41, 42, 59, 205n44; War of 1812 and attack on Americans, 13–14 Holley Manufacturing, 114 Holway, N. B., 54, 56, 57, 62–63, 68 Horowitz, Morton J., 239n14 House Committee on Military Affairs, 27 Hurst, James Willard, 210n53 Independent Order of Good Templars, 176, 253n75 Indiana, 18, 84 Indian policy and U.S. military, 5–6, 12–19; Calhoun’s frontier policy, 14–15; Fort Crawford, 15–17, 16, 22, 26, 35, 199n42; Ohio Valley, 13, 18; treaties and territorial control of southwestern Wisconsin, 17–18, 41; and uprisings/ insurrections, 5–6, 17–19; and War of 1812, 3, 5, 13–14 Indians of southwestern Wisconsin, 3–9; EuropeanIndian cultural differences, 12; Fort Crawford trading post and factory system, 15–17; HoChunk, 3–7, 13–14, 17–18; intermarriage and multiethnic populations, 20–21, 23–25; and traders, 32, 35–37, 42–43; treaties ceding their

259

territory, 17–18, 41, 42, 59, 205n44; uprisings/ insurrections, 3–6, 17–19; U.S. military policy of Indian pacification and forced removal, 5–6, 12–19; War of 1812 and fighting alongside British, 13–14 Iowa Geological Survey, 62 Jackson, Andrew: and federal investment in transportation projects, 39, 83, 84, 216n13; the frontier and Jacksonian Democracy, ix–x Jackson, Kenneth T., 194–95n15 Jacobs, Mrs. P. H., 164 Jacobs, Philip, 36 Jefferson, Thomas, 14, 21–22, 29 Jesuit missionaries, 7, 196n9 Johnson, William, 8 Kansas City, Missouri, 115, 118, 192–93n13 Kilbourn, Byron, 85, 217n26 Knights of Labor, 139, 144, 157, 245n94 labor organizing. See organized labor and La Crosse municipal government labor press in La Crosse, 156–57, 244n85 La Crosse, Vernon, Richland and Mineral Point Rail Road Company, 224n95 La Crosse, Viroqua and Mineral Point Rail Road Company, 100–101, 224n95 La Crosse, Wisconsin: in the 1850s, 38; lumber industry, x, 48–73; municipal government and organized labor, 135–59; municipal leaders and public works, 106–31; origin stories of self-reliant pioneers, x; population growth, 90, 92, 108; railroads and municipal government, 77–105; as representative city for study, xii–xiii; settlement and federal/state initiatives, 31–47; women’s opportunities, 159, 160–83 La Crosse and Milwaukee Rail Road Company, 82, 85, 86, 87, 88, 217n30, 219n37 La Crosse Board of Public Works, 113–14 La Crosse Board of Trade: and city lighting, 118; and lumber barons, 72, 214n101; male leadership, 164; and municipal water system, 110–12; and railroads, 90 La Crosse Chronicle, 141, 149–50, 153, 173 La Crosse City Railway, 124, 126; and 1878 railway ordinance, 124; and 1895 railway ordinance, 151, 153–54; male shareholders and operation of, 164 La Crosse County Historical Society, 184 La Crosse County Labor Party, 148 La Crosse Daily Democrat, 100–101 La Crosse Daily Press, 156–57 La Crosse Daily Republican and Leader, 89, 110, 116, 125, 146, 149–50, 152–54, 184 La Crosse Democrat, 87 La Crosse Evening Star, 244n85 La Crosse Free Press, 244n85 La Crosse Fuel Company, 113

260

Index

La Crosse Gas and Electric Company, 116–22 La Crosse Gas Works, 115–18 La Crosse Illuminating Company, 116 La Crosse Liberal Democrat, 184 La Crosse Lumber Company, 57, 62 La Crosse Morning Chronicle, 119, 125, 147, 152, 154, 156–57, 184 La Crosse News, 144, 156, 222n74 La Crosse Press, x; special women’s edition, 177–78, 179–82 La Crosse Street Railway, 123–25, 151, 153–54 La Crosse Telephone, 128–30 La Crosse Transit Railway, 102 La Crosse Tribune, 121 La Follette, Robert M., 143, 155 Land Act of 1820, 59 Land Ordinance of 1785, 43, 58–59 Latter-Day Saints (Mormons), 44–45 Law, David, 123–24 Levy, Fredericka, 160–63, 161, 166, 170, 183, 188, 246n3 Levy, John, x, 45, 46, 160–62 Lewis, Meriwether, 19 Lienlokken, John, 146–47 lighting. See electric lighting Lincoln, Abraham, 54 Lipcap, Solomon, 3 Little Turtle (Ohio chief), 13 Lohmiller, William, 113–14 Long, Stephen H., 5, 22–24 Losey, J. W., 107–8, 111, 124 Luce, W. W., 178 lumber industry, La Crosse’s, x, 48–73; the challenges of the industry, 52–55; and Colman, 48, 53–54, 58, 63, 67, 71–73, 131, 141, 163, 187–88; and contracts, 63–67, 212nn79–80; and control of Common Council and mayorship, 143; costliness and expenditures, 53; courts and contract disputes, 66–67, 211n68; deforestation and cycle of purchase, logging, and default, 60, 210n53; and early fur trading and mining, 50; and federal land distribution policy, 58–63; formation of corporations under state law, 55–58; formation of lumbermen’s franchise, 68–71, 212n87, 213n89; formation of private partnerships, 55–56, 61, 62; growth of, 63–67, 65; and interest rates, 51–52; and labor organizing, 140–42, 157, 158; and La Crosse’s first railroad, 52; and land distribution problems, 60, 210n53; male control of, 163; and Myrick, 52–55, 63, 207n18; origins of (1850s), 49–52; record-keeping challenges, 63–64; safety issues/hazardous work and sawmills, 140; and state aid to counter Black River competition, 67–71, 212n87, 213n89; and state charters, 56–58, 69–70; and state legislature, 51–52, 67–71, 212n87, 213n89; and streetcars, 123–24; susceptibility to regional/national economic crises, 54; trespassing and theft, 60; unpredictability and risks, 53–54; and white pine, 50, 207n8; and

Wisconsin’s natural waterways, 50–51, 67–68; and Wisconsin’s timberlands, 50, 207n7 Madison, James, 14 Madison and Indianapolis Railroad Company, 84 Magone, James, 171 Mahoney, Timothy R., 192–93n13 Marconi, Guglielmo, 127 Marcy, William, 27 Marquette, Jacques, 7 Maryland, 217n27 Maysville Road, 39, 216n13 McDonald, Donald A., 96, 145 McKenney, Thomas L., 41 McMillan, David D., 164 McMillan, George, 119 Medary, John S., 96, 222n74 Mendotas (temperance society), 176, 177, 253n75 Merrill, S. S., 101 Miami Indians, 13 Michel, Charles, 110, 117 Michigan, 26 Michilimackinac (British fort), 10 Middle Western Telephone, 129 Miller, H. J. B., 34–37, 44–46, 52–55 Milwaukee, Wisconsin, 186 Milwaukee and St. Paul Railway (and great bridge war), 100–103, 105 Milwaukee and Watertown Railroad Company, 86, 217n30 Milwaukee Journal, 178 Milwaukee Sentinel, 186 Mineral Point, Wisconsin, 62 Minneapolis, Minnesota: labor press, 156; railroad networks, 79, 85, 87 Mississippi River: and lumber industry, 67–68; Pike’s search for source of, 19–22; and strategic potential of southwestern Wisconsin, 6, 10, 19–22, 80, 104 Monroe, James, 14 Montague, G. R., 117 Monthly Anthology, 22 Morse, Samuel, 127 Murray, James B., 126, 128 Myrick, Barnabas, 33–34, 37, 202n3 Myrick, Nathan, 31–47, 131, 160; decision to leave eastern New York and head west, 31–34, 40–41; exploration of southwestern Wisconsin, 35; father, Barnabas, 33–34, 37, 202n3; and federal land system (squatters’ rights), 32, 43–46; Indian trading post at Prairie La Crosse, 35–37; and La Crosse land titles, 44–46; and La Crosse lumber industry, 52–55, 207n18; and Miller, 34–37, 44–46, 52–55; and Prairie du Chien, 31, 34–35, 41; and Prairie La Crosse, 31–32, 35–37, 44–46; settlement story, 31–37, 32, 39–47, 186–87 Naigle, John and Charles, 45 National Intelligencer, 22

Index National Labor Union, 143 National Road, 37–40 National Woman Suffrage Association (NWSA), 173–75 Neenah, Wisconsin, 148 Nesbit, Robert C., 217n26 Nevins, S. L., 68 New France, 7–8, 196n9 New Haven, Connecticut, 127 New York City streetcar system, 122 New York Daily Tribune, 51 New York state transportation projects, 31–32, 37–41, 203n28 Nicollet, Joseph N., 11, 27 Noble, Morgan L., 55–56 North Carolina, 26 Northwestern Globe Gas Light, 116 Northwestern Labor Union (Minneapolis), 156 Oakland, California, 109 Ohio River Valley, 13, 18 Ojibwa Indians, 6, 18, 41, 59 Old Settlers Association, 184 Onalaska, Wisconsin, 36 organized labor and La Crosse municipal government, 135–59; Common Council and workers’ concerns, 145; Common Council’s regulation of streetcars, 126, 151, 153–54; early labor organizing in La Crosse, 139–43, 239n12; eight-hour workday campaigns, 135, 147, 151; 1885 mayoral election, 135–36, 144–45; 1886 mayoral election, 146–47; 1887 mayoral election, 148–50, 152–53; 1893 mayoral election, 151–52; federal and state officials’ suspicion of labor, 136–39, 141–43, 239n14; and the labor press, 156–57, 244n85; and La Follette’s political evolution, 155; and lumber industry, 140–42, 157, 158; and partisan local newspapers, 143, 146–47, 149–50, 152–54; and Populist Party, 113, 150–57; Powell and mayoral elections, 135–36, 144–47, 150–53; Powell as mayor, 113, 135–40, 145, 147–48, 151–53, 155–59; Powell’s effect on local politics, 139, 150–55, 158–59; safety issues and sawmills, 140; splintered labor politics, 148–49; state legislators’ resistance to labor demands, 142; strikes by lumber workers/sawmill workers, 142, 157, 158; two-party system and mayoral elections, 144–47, 149–50; two-party system and Powell’s electoral successes, 139, 147, 152–54; wave of unionization/union activism, 157–58; and Workingmen, 113, 146–48 Osborne, Mrs. A. R., 164 Osborne, Louise, 180–81 Ottawa Indians, 18, 41 Owen, David Dale, 5, 27–29, 62 Panic of 1837, 57, 167 Panic of 1857, 54, 88

261

Panic of 1873, 54 Panic of 1893, 151 Paul, John, 110 Perrot, Nicolas, 8, 12 Pettibone, A. W., 61, 64, 72 Pike, Zebulon, 5, 11, 19–22, 200n68 Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania, 141, 192n13 Pittsburgh Gazette, 22 Pontiac’s War, 9 Populist Party, 113, 150–57 Potawatomie Indians, 6–7, 13, 18, 41 Powderly, Terrence V., 144 Powell, David Frank, 113, 135–59, 136, 137, 138, 188; and brother’s campaign as ULP candidate, 148– 49; 1885 mayoral election, 135–36, 144–45; 1886 mayoral election, 146–47; 1893 mayoral election, 151–52; failed attempts to earn state office, 148, 243n63; first term obstacles, 145; lasting effects of electoral successes, 139, 150–59; mobilizing Common Council to address workers’ concerns, 145; and water system, 113; and Wild West image, 137, 144; and Workingmen, 113, 146–48 Powell, George, 148–50 Prairie du Chien: and American Revolution, 12, 13; and Carver’s journal, 10–11; factory system, 15–17, 42; frontier Indian policy, 14–15, 17–18; Ho-Chunk settlement, 23; intermarriage and multiethnic populations, 20–21, 23–25; and Myrick, 31, 34–35, 41; Pike’s scientific expeditions, 20–21; War of 1812 and Indians fighting alongside British, 13–14 Prairie du Chien and La Crosse Rail Road Company, 224n95 Prairie La Crosse: Indian trading post, 35–37; Myrick and settlement in, 31–32, 35–37, 44–46; Pike’s scientific expeditions, 21 Preemption Act of 1841, 43–46, 59 Progressive Party, 155 prohibition and temperance movement, 175–77, 180–83, 253n75 public works and municipal leaders, 105–31; Common Council and regulation, 117–18, 120–21, 151, 153–54; electrical lighting, 114–22; and Losey, 107–8, 111, 124; municipal bonding and contracting powers, 108–14, 228n24; municipal leaders’ roles in diagnosing urban problems and providing solutions, 107–8, 130–31; public health, 106–8, 130; public-private contracts, 107–8, 111, 115–18, 123, 130, 234n101; public transportation, 122–27; and state constitution barring state investment in internal improvements, 83–87, 216n15, 216n19; telephone system, 127–30; water supply, 108–14; and Wisconsin Supreme Court, 129, 232n83, 234n101, 236n127 Quebec (New France), 7–8, 196n9 Racine, Wisconsin, 172, 174, 252n55 railroads and municipal government, 77–105;

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railroads and municipal government, (cont’d) boosters and railroad funding debates, 79–81, 87–94, 219n39, 220n48; and city charter, 95–96; and city ties with larger railroad networks/markets, 90, 91, 104, 220n57; and Common Council, 79, 89–90, 100–101, 220n48, 222n72; economic/ social costs of railroads, 81–83, 89, 94–95; first railroad (1858), 52; granting of railroad ordinances, 96–97, 222n72, 222n74, 223n77; the great bridge war, 100–103, 105, 224n95; La Crosse and Milwaukee Rail Road Company, 82, 85–88, 217n30, 219n37; and La Crosse’s commercial growth, 90–94, 91, 92, 93; and La Crosse’s geographical location, 80, 104, 215n5; and lumber industry, 52; and midwestern railroad boosters, 79–81, 82; municipal regulation, 79, 94–100, 104–5, 222n68, 222n72, 222n74, 223n77; new depots and property negotiations, 96–97, 101; and property values, 98–99; and railroad companies’ legal obligations, 86, 217n30; responding to citizens’ petitions and complaints, 97–99; safety issues for railway workers and pedestrians, 94–95, 99; Southern Minnesota Railroad, 77–79, 88–89, 102, 103, 187, 220nn47–48; state legislature and local investment of public money in railroads, 81–87, 216n15, 216n19, 217n26, 217nn29–30, 218nn31–36; states and regulation, 95; and Stoddard, 77–80, 88–90, 99, 102, 103, 187, 188 Read, George M., 156 Red Bird’s insurrection/failed uprising, 3–6, 4, 17–18 regulation: municipal regulation of railroads, 79, 94–100, 104–5, 222n68, 222n72, 222n74, 223n77; and public works, 117–18, 120–21, 151, 153–54; states and railroad regulation, 95 Renggly, John A., 106–8, 130, 188 Reynolds, John, 18 Rice, Henry M., 36–37 Robert Ross Tub and Pail Factory sawmill, 56 Robertson, Thomas Bolling, 39 Rodolf, Theodore, 88 Rogers, Robert, 9–10 Roosevelt, Theodore, 184 Root, William C., 68 Salzer, Henry A., 121 Sauk Indians: Black Hawk’s uprising, 5, 18–19, 207n10; Ho-Chunk competition with, 7; and territorial treaties, 17, 18; War of 1812 and attack on Americans, 13–14 Scharpf, George, 146–47 Schoolcraft, Henry, 5, 11, 24–26 Schultze, Robert, 120 scientific expeditions to map southwestern Wisconsin, 5, 19–29, 200n58, 200n68 Scott, Robert A., 145 Scott, T. B., 61 Scranton, Pennsylvania, 144

Seneca Falls convention (1848), 171 Seneca Indians, 77 settlement in southwestern Wisconsin, 31–47. See also southwestern Wisconsin Seven Years’ War, 9 Shepardson, J. R., 57 Sheridan, Charles L., 66 Sherman, Ellen Ewing, 179 Sioux Indians, 8, 12, 41 Smith, William E., 142 Snaugh, Dr., 44, 46 Socialist Labor Party, 143 Sons of Temperance, 176 Southern Minnesota Railroad, 77–79, 88–89, 102, 103, 187, 220nn47–48 southwestern Wisconsin, 3–30, 31–47; Carver’s journal and mapping of Old Northwest, 9–11; Erie Canal, 31–32, 37–41, 203n28, 204n35; factory system, 15–17, 42; federal land system and squatters, 32, 43–46; federal role in building transportation infrastructure, 31–32, 37–39, 216n13; federal treaty system and American traders, 32, 41–43; first Europeans, 6–12; Fort Crawford, 15–17, 16, 22, 26, 35, 199n42; fur trade, 7–9; government land surveys, 43–46, 206n60; and Ho-Chunk Indians, 3–7, 23, 29–30; Indian pacification and forced removal policies, 5–6, 12–19; Indian peoples, 3–9; intermarriage and multiethnic populations, 20–21, 23–25; migration patterns, 37, 40–41; Mississippi River, 6, 10, 19–22; Myrick’s settlement story, 31–37, 32, 39–47, 186–87; New France, 7–8; Prairie du Chien, 3, 8, 10–15, 17–18, 20– 21, 23–24, 31, 34–35, 41; Prairie La Crosse, 21, 31–32, 35–37, 44; Red Bird’s insurrection/failed uprising, 3–6, 4, 17–18; scientific expeditions to map territory, 5, 19–29, 200n58, 200n68; settlement in, 31–47; strategic advantages of the region, 6, 10, 19–22, 80, 104, 215n5; treaties and territorial control, 17–18, 41; and War of 1812, 3, 5, 12–15, 17 Spanish conquistadors, 7 squatters’ rights and federal land system, 32, 43–46; Congress and 1841 land act, 43–46, 59; and government land surveys, 43–46, 206n60; Myrick and Miller’s acquisition of La Crosse land titles, 44–46 St. Louis, Missouri: as frontier city, xi, 192n13, 194–95n15; Great Railroad Strike, 141; Panic of 1873 and effect on lumber prices, 54; and western Indian policymaking in the 1820s, 17 St. Paul, Minnesota, 36–37 Stanton, Elizabeth Cady, 173 state legislature, Wisconsin’s: corporate charters, 56–58, 69–70; and investment in railroads, 81–87, 216n15, 216n19, 217n26, 217nn29–30, 218nn31–36; and lumber industry, 55–58, 67–71, 212n87, 213n89; and married women’s property rights and wages, 162–63, 166–70, 183,

Index 250n44; and women’s commercial power/access to formal politics, 162–63, 170–75, 181–83 Steffens, Lincoln, 119 Stewart, Alexander, 66 Stich, George F., 96 Stoddard, Richard, 77 Stoddard, Thomas Benton, 77–80, 78, 88–90, 99, 102, 103, 131, 187; as La Crosse mayor, 77, 171; organizing of La Crosse County, 77; and Southern Minnesota Railroad, 77–79, 88–89, 103, 187 Stombs, J. H., 147 Stone, Lucy, 171 streetcars, 122–26, 151, 153–54; fares, 126, 151, 153–54; and lumber industry, 123–24; municipal regulation of, 124, 151, 153–54; and public safety, 126; track building, 124–26, 151, 154, 236n118 Strong, Josiah, 184–85 Sugar Creek, Illinois, 192–93n13 T. B. Scott Lumber Company, 64, 66, 72, 212n79 Taylor, George Edwin, 156, 244n89 Teaford, Jon C., 192–93n13 Tecumseh (Shawnee chief), 18 telephone system, 127–30, 236n127 temperance movement, 175–77, 180–83, 253n75 Tenskwatawa (Shawnee Indian), 18 Toeller, Frank J., 99 Tomlins, Christopher, 239n14 Topographical Corps, 22, 27 Torrance, William, 119 traders, 6–12; federal treaty system and Indians, 32, 41–43; fur trade, 7–9, 50; Great Britain, 8–9; and Indian tribes, 7–9, 32, 36, 42–43; Myrick’s trading post at Prairie La Crosse, 36, 42–43; New France, 7–8 transportation, public, 122–27; Common Council’s regulation of, 124, 151, 153–54; electrified transit technologies, 122–23; horse power and its problems, 122, 233n97; and lumber industry, 123–24; and public safety, 126; state legislators’ granting local authority over private streetcar corporations, 123, 234n101; streetcar companies and track building, 124–26, 151, 154, 236n118; streetcar fares, 126, 151, 153–54 transportation infrastructure and federal government: construction of the National Road, 37–39; federal role in national transit network, 31–32, 37–39, 216n13; and New York state’s Erie Canal project, 31–32, 37–41, 203n28, 204n35. See also railroads Trask, Kerry A., 19 Trempealeau, Wisconsin, 8 Turner, Frederick Jackson, ix–x, 29, 46–47, 71, 103, 131, 159, 183; on the frontier and Jacksonian Democracy, ix–x; La Crosse lectures (1895), ix–x, xv–xvi, 191n1; popularity as lecturer, ix,

263 191n1, 191n4; “The Significance of the Frontier in American History,” ix

Union Labor Party (ULP) and 1886 La Crosse mayoral election, 148–50 United States Magazine and Democratic Review, 28–29 United States Topographical Bureau, 27 University of Wisconsin: Turner’s La Crosse lectures (1895), ix–x, xv–xvi, 191n1; women’s suffrage speeches, 172 U.S. Supreme Court and railroad regulation, 95 Usher, Ellis B., 143, 184–87, 185 Van Buren, Martin, 39 Van Steenwyk, Gysbert, 164 The Voice of the People (Populist newspaper), 156–57 Voss, Kim, 239n14 Wabash and Erie Canal, 84 Wade, Richard, xi, 192–93n13 Walker, Mary Edwards, 178, 179 War of 1812, 3, 5, 12–15, 17, 22 Washburn, Cadwallader C., 56, 57, 62, 72, 102, 214n101 Washington, George, 15 water supply, 108–14; and Common Council, 108–14, 227n14, 228n24; early municipal attempts to produce uninterrupted water supply, 110, 227n14; and 1856 municipal charter, 108–9; and mayor Powell, 113–14; municipal bonding and contracting powers to build a waterworks, 108–14, 228n24; and population growth, 108; Renggly’s 1882 report on water pollution, 108 Watertown, Wisconsin, 218n35 waterways, Wisconsin’s: and La Crosse’s strategic location, 6, 80, 104, 215n5; and lumber markets, 50–51, 67–68; Mississippi River, 6, 10, 19–22, 80, 104; population growth and strains on natural water sources, 108 Watrous, J. A., 69–71, 213n94 Wayne, Gen. Anthony, 13 Weld, Eben, 35–36, 52 Weston, J. H., 57 Weston, Ruel, 54, 62 Westport, New York, 33–34, 37, 202n3 Whitcomb, James, 27–28 Wilkinson, James, 19–22 Willard, Frances, 176 Winona, Minnesota, 77, 111 Winslow, John B., 174 Wisconsin Labor Advocate, 156 Wisconsin Light and Power, 121 Wisconsin Railroad Commissioner, 87, 218n36 Wisconsin’s constitution (1848) and public financing of public works projects, 83–85, 86–87, 109, 216n15, 216n19

264

Index

Wisconsin Supreme Court: and early telephone technology, 129, 236n127; granting municipalities/aldermen authority over private streetcar corporations, 234n101; and married women’s property rights and wages, 169, 250n44; and municipal regulation of lighting, 232n83; and women’s suffrage, 174 Wisconsin Telephone, 127–30 Withee, Niran H., 56, 61 Woman’s Anti-Suffrage Association, 179–80 women in La Crosse, 159–83; and coverture, 166–67, 169–70, 183; entrance into the commercial world, 163–66, 247nn7–8; Fredericka Levy’s story, 160–63, 161, 166, 170, 183, 188, 246n3; the gendered economy and male dominance in La Crosse businesses/government, 163–65, 171, 247n11, 248n18; and history of gender disparities in American public affairs, 246n5; married women’s businesses, 164–65, 248n18; married women’s property rights and wages, 162–63, 166–70, 183, 250n44; new opportunities to find

paid work (after 1850), 165–66; and nursing profession, 165–66; prohibition and temperance movement, 175–77, 180–83, 253n75; and special edition of the La Crosse Press, 177–78, 179–82; state lawmakers and courts, 162–63, 166–75, 181–83; suffrage movement, 171–75, 181–83; and traditional conceptions of domestic roles, 160, 170; women’s movement culture and challenged gender norms (1890s), 170–83 Women’s Christian Temperance Union (WCTU), 176–77, 253n75 women’s suffrage, 171–75, 181–83; local NWSA branch, 174–75; speeches and activism in La Crosse, 172–74; and state referendum regarding elections pertaining to public education, 172–74 Woodbury, Levi, 27 Woodhull, Victoria C., 178, 179 Woodman, Cyrus, 56, 62 Workingmen’s Party, 113, 242n37; and Powell, 113, 146, 148

acknowledgments

Although this book focuses on a single community, it took shape in numerous cities scattered far and wide across the country. The historical adventures that would culminate in this project began at the University of Wisconsin–Madison where I learned from some of the best. I owe a great deal to Colleen Dunlavy, my advisor at the time (and a fellow middle westerner), who challenged me to think about why this all matters. Arnold Alanen, William Cronon, and Stanley Schultz offered sharp feedback on this project early on. I save special thanks for Jeanne Boydston, who encouraged me at every stage and showed me how to be a historian. I miss her every day. For intellectual insights, good fellowship, sparkling conversation, shoulders to cry on, beers on the Terrace, and much more, I thank Sean Adams, Thea Browder, David Chang, Sarah Costello, Tracey Deutsch, Sarah Fatherly, Dan Graff, Maggie Hogan, Natasha Larimer, Brandy Morser, Monica Najar, Bill Philpott, Andy Rieser, and Greg Summers. The path to this book also wound through other places. My colleagues at Shippensburg University, especially Steve Berg, Catherine Dibello, David Godshalk, Susan Rimby, and Mark Spicka, welcomed me to my first teaching position. At the University of New Mexico, I had the amazingly good fortune to work with a cohort of inspirational teachers and scholars who shared advice, wisdom, good times, green chili lunch dates, movie nights, and the occasional mojito. I owe particular thanks to Cathleen Cahill, Enrique Sanabria, Andrew Sandoval-Strausz, Virginia Scharff, Jane Slaughter, and Sam Truett. Colleagues and friends in the Department of History at the University of Florida, most notably Sean Adams, Juliana Barr, Mike Bowen, Jessica Harland-Jacobs, Matt Jacobs, Howard Louthan, Steve Noll, Julian Pleasants, Simon Rabinovitch, Jon Sensbach, Joe Spillane, and Bob Zieger shared their insights, encouragement, and hardy cheer at a time when Floridians seemed ever less committed to public education. Mates at my new (and hopefully long-term) home, Skidmore College, have been welcoming and supportive. I extend warm thanks to Beau Breslin, Catherine Chang, Jennifer Delton, Erica Bastress-Dukehart, Jordana Dym, Matt Hockenos, Heather Hurst, Karen Kellogg, Sue Mattrazo, Tillman Nechtman, and Mark Rye. Whether these sterling folks know it or not, a piece of this book belongs to each of them.

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Acknowledgments

I owe extraordinary gratitude to the archivists and librarians who helped make this book possible. First and foremost, I offer a humble bow to Anita Doering, the marvelous archivist at the La Crosse Public Library Archives. As I traveled the country and finished the manuscript, Anita answered sundry questions, mailed me photocopies of critical public records, verified the smallest facts, and offered constant encouragement. She and her heroic staff deserve their kudos. The equally fantastic cohort at the Wisconsin Historical Society, especially Lori Bessler (the czar of the microfilm room), Michael Edmonds, Laura Hemming, Lisa Marine, Harry Miller, and Keith Rabiola helped me track down books, citations, images, and other material that allowed me to tell my story. At the La Crosse Special Collection and Area Research Center, Paul Beck and Linda Sondreal gave me permission to use some of their excellent visual materials in the book. At the Wisconsin State Law Library, Connie Von Der Heide unearthed arcane statutes and law reviews for me from afar. Phil Neppl, my excellent research assistant, tracked down a key source for me in the Wisconsin Historical Society. Without these talented and devoted people, I might still be scouring Wisconsin for sources. I have also benefited from the generosity of extraordinary editors who believed in this book from the beginning and who helped shepherd it to completion. I thank my lucky stars for the day that Richard John read a conference paper and encouraged me to write a book proposal. Richard has been a fantastic critic: insightful, probing, and engaged in a way that should be a model for young scholars. Mark Rose has been a terrific and tireless advocate who (still) amazes me with his preternatural ability to offer the right words of advice at just the right time. Pam Laird read my manuscript with care and offered inspired insights that have led to a better book. I also thank Bob Lockhart, my editor at Penn, who championed this project in its earliest stages, helped me sharpen my thinking and writing, offered sage child-care advice, and encouraged me to speak to a broad audience. I wish that all authors had such passionate and committed editors in their corner. I also thank the talented editors and readers at Business and Economic History On-Line, Enterprise and Society, and the Journal of Urban History for publishing earlier versions of Chapters 4 and 6. Finally, I owe bottomless thanks to four people who continue to inspire me in my work and life. My mom, Karen Erickson, not only warmed my heart with great phone conversations but also reminded me that the best historians try hard to tell the most alluring stories. My dad, John, the first Professor Morser, maintained his constant faith in me (even when I had almost lost it) and lifted my spirits with his constant optimism. Angela Ellis, my partner and better half, has trekked with me across the country, awed me with her talents as a scholar and teacher, and kept me grounded with her wit and wonder. Finally, Nicholas inspires me with hope for the future and excitement about the fun he and I will have exploring the world together in the years to come. I dedicate this book to them.