Building Infrastructure
Wisconsin Citizen Petition Exhibit
Although new settlers brought business to towns in their formative years, the development of sustainable resources and accessible transportation routes were far more reliable indicators of a town's potential to become a major city. In Wisconsin's early years, community members and citizens involved with trade, manufacturing, and land sales submitted petitions relating to construction projects and land investment.
Citizens submitted petitions asking the legislature to authorize construction of roads, bridges, and ferries. As urban centers grew, so did their populations’ transportation needs. Booming communities proudly declared their needs for mail routes and post offices.
Plank Road petition
Petition for building a road from Beaver Dam to Milwaukee
Citizens of the town of Grafton recognized the neccessity of quickly transporting goods from their village to the Great Lakes, and asked for a turnpike coal-plank-or rail road from Grafton to Lake Michigan. Grafton was home to flour mills and saw mills and a chair and sash factory and an iron foundry.
Residents of Hustisford (then called Hustis Ford) believed they were suffering losses due to their inability to get produce to the lake markets, they requested a plank road from Beaver Dam to Hustis Ford to Milwaukee to solve this issue.
Conflicts over infrastructure improvements also shone a spotlight on class tensions in larger cities. Petitioners from Milwaukee fought over the location of new bridges to be built in following years; low-income remonstrators accused wealthier citizens of building economic inequality into the layout of the city. Dam conflicts also brought into question issues of individual property rights, with particular heat rising over the topic of publicly navigable waters.
Milwaukee and Rock River Canal
Map of the proposed route of the Milwaukee and Rock River Canal. View the original source document: WHI 53818
Some urban centers turned to the new technology of canals as their primary means of moving goods. The Milwaukee and Rock River Canal Company was formed to connect the Rock River to Lake Michigan in 1836, a major improvement that promised the areas increased access to the shipping industry. However, with the emergence of the railroad industry interest in canals faded. Funding for the Milwaukee and Rock River Canal vanished, spurring years-long debate over how to refund citizens who settled the canal lands after the company promised land value inflated by proximity to a major canal. Ultimately, the Milwaukee and Rock River Canal Company would memorialize the legislature in 1844 for authorization to construct a railroad instead of a canal.
After the Milwaukee and Rock River Canal scandal, citizen groups focused on the construction of railroads linking cities to major waterways. Railroads played a crucial role in expanding Wisconsin’s urban centers and agriculture industry.
However, after the farm mortgage scandal and railroad industry’s crash in the Panic of 1857, Wisconsinites turned their attention to policies regulating railroads. Citizens voiced both pro- and anti-regulation sentiments in their petitions to the legislature.
However, after the farm mortgage scandal and railroad industry’s crash in the Panic of 1857, Wisconsinites turned their attention to policies regulating railroads. Citizens voiced both pro- and anti-regulation sentiments in their petitions to the legislature.
Farm Mortgage Certificate
ocument granting a parcel of land to the Wisconsin Railroad Farm Mortgage Land Company View the original source document: WHI 110654
Citizens sought laws forcing railroad companies to pay their farm mortgage indebtedness. While others worried that over regulation would create friction between railroads and businesses, negatively impacting the state’s industry.
A major collision on the Racine and Mississippi Railroad at Delavan, Walworth County was believed to be the result of criminal neglect from the railroad officers, and citizens request laws that would hold railroads more accountable and that would regulate them, as well, so that they are safer.
Milwaukee residents worked to ensure that the lake front remained open to the public and not made inaccessible by railroads.
Wisconsin railroads especially boomed during the Civil War with the closure of the southern sections of the Mississippi River. From 1861 to 1865, Wisconsin’s railroad industry served as the backbone of the Union army in the Midwest. Even after the war ended, Wisconsin’s importance as a railroad hub continued well into the twentieth century.