CHE Environmental Colloquium – Settlement and Development along Wisconsin’s Chicago, Milwaukee, St. Paul, and Pacific Railroad

Speaker: John Canfield, PhD Student, Department of Sociology

Among the first corporations to be created in U.S. history, railroads played a crucial role in the country’s early industrial development, westward expansion, and settler colonial dispossession. Railroads fundamentally transformed the politics, economics, and ecology of the United States. These changes were especially significant in Wisconsin. The government awarded land grants to early speculators who wielded significant political power in transforming the state’s landscape.

Stemming from last year’s focus on the Upham Woods area, this presentation explores the railroad’s role in Wisconsin’s industrial development. Drawing on archival data, it focuses on the development patterns along the Chicago, Milwaukee, St. Paul, and Pacific Railroad, especially the route from Milwaukee to La Crosse. The presentation investigates the different forms of resource-based development along the railroad and examines the development’s impact on the regional landscape.