Few People Know Wisconsin’s Borders Almost Looked Very Different
There’s a good-natured rivalry between Wisconsin and Illinois, between Milwaukee and Chicago. The two biggest cities in these two states have so much in common and are separated by just about 90 miles, but sometimes it feels like that corridor may as well be four times bigger. But what if I told you that it was only a last-minute decision that placed Chicago in Illinois, not Wisconsin? Illinois became a state 30 years before Wisconsin did, and therein lies quite the story.
The Wisconsin we know and love today looked very different at the beginning of the 19th century. Still nearly 50 years away from statehood, our population was spread out, with many folks along the Mississippi River and up along Green Bay. Our territory was decided in part by an ordinance in 1787 that followed the Revolution, when this land was given to the US. Surveyors went out on foot to lay out townships and create the maps that were used to shape our state as we know it today.
In Illinois, they were preparing for statehood. Chicago was still 20 years from even being founded as a city. Most of the population of the state was focused in the southern part and many of those residents were transplants from nearby Kentucky and Tennessee, meaning they had Southern sensibilities and tended to support slavery.
Many state borders came from obvious physical landmarks. Illinois' other three borders are formed by rivers. But the border that forms the top of Illinois and Indiana was initially just a straight line that started at Lake Erie in what is essentially Cleveland and cut across the southern tip of Lake Michigan. It seemed as good a deciding line as any. Illinois Territory was below that line. Wisconsin territory was above.
As Illinois prepared to apply for statehood, Mississippi joined the Union in 1817. There was an ongoing power struggle between free Northern states and slave-owning Southern states for control, especially in Congress. That meant every time a Southern state was admitted to the new United States, the North worked to enter their own state to ensure equal representation in Congress.
The problem with Illinois as a Northern response to Mississippi is that no one was sure that the state would actually stay slave-free and align with the North. With most of the population down South and sympathetic, Northern government officials were hesitant to allow Illinois in.
Stories about exactly how this went down differ, most likely depending on if it's an Illinoisan or a Wisconsinite writing the story, but Nathaniel Pope was secretary of the Illinois territory and he changed the course of history for both these two states. Just before Congress voted on Illinois' statehood, the resolution was amended and the Northern border of the state was moved 50 miles north.
The idea was that if Illinois had a port on Lake Michigan, it could develop ties to other Northern (slave-free) states and draw industry and businessmen to the area, thus boosting the population in the Northern part of the state. Construction had recently started on the Erie Canal, so now Illinois was connected to New York and New England and there was also talk of a canal connecting the southern part of Lake Michigan with the Illinois River. The area was now primed to be a major player in the way goods were moved in the US.
There was also forethought on the possibility of a war over slavery, and Congress was looking for alternative ways to access the Great Lakes and the Mississippi River if the Ohio River route became contested. So Pope's petition moved the Northern border and Wisconsin, with its much smaller population, couldn't do much about it. Northern Illinois also wasn't thrilled and a group looked to secede from the state in 1840, but not enough support was garnered.
Chicago, Rockford, Galena and about 5.5 million acres of farmland became a part of Illinois. Galena was rich in lead and obviously, we know the rest of the story. That port proved to be very important and lucrative indeed, as Chicago boomed and became the third-largest city in the United States. But were it not for looming tensions over slave vs. Northern states and the pushiness of Nathaniel Pope, Wisconsin and Illinois would look very different than we're used to.
Had you ever heard this fascinating bit about Wisconsin history?
Looking for more little-known Wisconsin history? Check out this list of things you might not have known about the history of our great state.
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