Ladysmith news. [volume] (Ladysmith, Wis.) 1906-1907, 1906-10-13
SOME STATE HISTORY
Points on Territory Gained aud Lost
by Wisconsin and How It
HaDDened

The New York Evening Post expires
ses the opipion that if there had not
been a struggle in the early days
for more territory for states then or
ganizing the divisions would have been
made so that Wisconsin would now
have within its borders Chicago, St.
Paul, Minneapolis and Duluth. The
Post gives its reasons as follows:
"The recently advanced claim that
some 800 square miles of territory in
northern Wisconsin really belongs to
Michigan calls attention to the fact
that there is perhaps no state in the
union that has suff cred Sd severely as
Wisconsin by having. its territory cut
down to add to the area of its neigh
.bors. The state suffered by being the
last state to be carved out of the old
Northwest territory. The provisions Of
the ordinance of 1887 limiting the
number of states which could be erec'
ed from it to five compelled the fifth
state to be satisfied with whatever was
left over after the other four had been
admitted. The first looping off oc-
Cured in 1918, when Illinois was drawn
from the southern apex of Lake Mich
igan directly west to the Mississippi.
The northern boundary of the new
state of Illinois was, however, fixed
many miles north of the proposed line,
and large plot of territory thus ir
retrievably cut off from Wisconsin.
The people of the annexed region,
however, preferred to continue political
relations with their neighbors in the
northern country, and even as late as
1886, when Wisconsin territory was or
ganized, they met in convention and
petitioned to be cut off from Illinois,
and included in the new common
wealth. Naturally the new territory
would have included what is now the
northern. peninsula of Michigan, and
so the ordinance of 1887 intended. But
meanwhile the controversy known as
the Toledo war was being waged be-
tween Ohio and Michigan, and when
the latter was erected into state, in
compensation for the loss of the mar
row strip on the south which was ad-
judged to Ohio, the northern penin-
sula was cut from its natural associ-
alton with Wisconsin and added to the
new state. When, in 1848, Wisconsin
was finally admitted to the union, in
direct violation of the provisions of
the ordinance, the nOrthermost part
of the territory was withheld from the
new state, and thus the nuclus of
Minnesota territory was land that by
right belonged to Wisconsin. There is,
of course, no danger that at this late
day Michigan's S new claim, which pur-
ports to be based on faulty survey,
will be pressed. But dreamers in the
busy Badger state may, if they choose,
obtain no little satisfaction albeit
mixed with disappointment, by con-
juring up picture of the great inland
commonwealth that Wisconsin would
be today had it not been despoiled to
increase the size and wealth of its
neighbOrs. A state that contained
within its limits Chicago, Milwauk 5e,
st. Paul, Duluth, and part of Mime
apolis would probably be second to
New York only in population, end with
the wealth of the Michigan copper
regions and the Mesaba and Vermilion
iron ranges it would certainly stand
at the head of the mineral producing
states.