Ladysmith news-budget. [volume] (Ladysmith, Rusk County, Wis.) 1907-1927, 1915-06-18
THE PAPER INDUSTRY USES ONE
HUNDRED AND TEN THOUS-
AND HORSEPOWER.
OTHER GREAT INDUSTRIES
OF STATE ALSO OPERATED
Results of the Period of Development
Before Water Falls Were Har-
messed and Made to Pro-
duce Electricity.

In an earlier article of this series
the promise was given that showing
would be made of the effect of the
water-powers of Wisconsin on the for
nation of permanent industries in the
state, before the beginning of the
time when water-power came to be
converted into electric energy.
In the first days of water-power de
velopment the power had to be ap
piled to industries located at the falls
where the powers were located, or al
least so near to them that the water
would be conveyed by fumes and
canals. In the latter days, with the
electrical art developed to the per
lection which it has now reached 1t is
possible to generate electric current
at the power sites and send the power
thus created over copper wires for
many miles to the convenient places
for it's use. When this art was I'M
developed the industry had to go to
the power. Under those conditions a
great deal of good work was done in
the foundations of industries OF great
Importance to the state and Of much
permanency.
About the earliest of these enter
prises was established on the Fox riv'
er, done before the Chicago drainage
canal was built, and before the birth
of the idea of making water way
between Lake Michigan and the Mis-
sissippi River across the State of IL
linois, there was enterprise enough in
Wisconsin to conceive similar idea.
Before 1853 the state had received
the grant of a large area of land to
provide for the cost of making direct
waterway from Lake Michigan to the
Mississippi River, by way of the Fox
and the Wisconsin rivers. Those who
are familiar with the history of the
great public improvements of the ear
lier days will recall that land was
the currency with which most of these
ambitious enterprises was financed.
There was just little more land than
there was of anything else, and the
fact that the land was covered with
valuable forests didn't seem to en-
nance it's value very much, either. AS
the dream of the infant states was the
reduction of the land to the purposes
of agriculture, and as the great de-
mand for timber and it's products had
not manifested itself yet in the west,
the presence of the forests was looked
upon rather as hindrance to the
eventual use of the land than as an
addition to it's value.
At any rate, the state took the land
grant and proceeded to "blow in"
about 100000 of it's good money in an
attempt to make navigable water
way between the Fox and the Wiscon,
sin, through which the small schoon.
ers and barges of that day and genera
ton might thread their way from Lake
Michigan to the Father of the Waters.
and thence northward or southwark
as the destinations of their cargoes
led them. The state made a poor fist
of the job of making the canal, and in
1853, it turned the whole project over.
lock, stock and barrel, to a private
company. This corporation, the Fox
and Wisconsin improvement Company,
got the land grant and the 100000
worth of work which was already
done, whatever may have been it's va
lue, and took up the work of making
the waterway with renewed vigor.
It's original capital was soon ex
pended and with it the proceeds OF
an issue of bonds, which was secured
by the franchises and the lands of the
improvement Company. This did not
happen, however, until the Improve,
ment Company had actually accomp
lished it's purpose, and sent steam
boat over the cut between the two
rivers.
The canal was actually completed
and in 1856 steamboat was put
through it from the Mississippi River
to Green Bay. But the enterprising
canal builders soon learned that man
proposes and God disposes, for the
railroads came along to do the work
of the new waterway, the usefulness
of the canal was deprecated, the tolls
were too small to pay the interest on
the bonds, and the mortgage was fore.
closed in 1866. This time a new com,
pany, the Green Bay and Mississippi
Canal company, organized for the pur.
pose, bought in the enterprise, and
with it it's franchises, its wealth Of
land and its enormity of water-power
rights. In 1870 it unloaded it's duty
of maintaining canals, dams and locks
on the United States Government,
which took them off it's hands for
$145,O0O, leaving the Green Bay and
Mississippi Canal company with a fine
lot of assets and no serious amount OF
public duties.
The right of this company to the
use Of all the surplus water after the
needs of navigation were satisfied was