Fond du Lac's Railroads and Economic Development 1851-1876
by Laura Knueppel

St. Paul Depot and East Branch of the Fond du Lac River

On July 10, 1851, according to the Fond du Lac Journal, thousands of people congregated near the corner of West Division and Brooke streets, the site of the formal celebration inaugurating the Rock River Valley Union Railroad. According to the author of this article, many people of Fond du Lac were dubious about the proposed route of the railroad, but on this particular day those skeptical views were forgotten.

Businesses closed their shops and the lumber mills closed by noon on this important weekday. The railroad delegates were received with booming cannons, waving flags, and cheering people. There was a parade through the village, and the procession stopped at the site where the construction was scheduled to begin. The Honorable Mason C. Darling was the leader of the celebration and gave the opening address. ¹ Darling, Fond du Lac’s first mayor, first physician, and a prominent land speculator and politician, had moved to Fond du Lac in 1838 and became a Wisconsin Congressman in 1848. ² As one of Fond du Lac’s first pioneers, he had been part of the history of Fond du Lac from its first permanent settlement in 1836 to that day. ³

Darling introduced Abraham Hyatt Smith, the President of the Rock River Valley Union Railroad. Smith, a lawyer, businessman, politician, and land speculator, had moved to Janesville, Wisconsin in 1842. He was a promoter of waterpower, plank roads, and railroad construction in the state and served as mayor of Janesville and later served as the United States Assessor of Internal Revenue in President Andrew Johnson’s administration. ⁴ As Smith lifted the first shovelful of sod the audience cheered, cannons roared, and the band played on. ⁵

The festivities continued into the evening as Edward S. Bragg served as the toastmaster at the celebratory dinner. Bragg was another important Fond du Lac figure at this time. He and his family had moved to Fond du Lac from New York in 1850. He later became a Fond du Lac District Attorney, in 1854, and also served as a general in the Union Army during the Civil War. ⁶ As Bragg toasted the audience he stated:

Walworth County--Though last on the line of the road in Wisconsin, may she be first in her contributions for the great enterprise of the state.
Rock County---Like the rock that Moses smote, it contains in its bosom a fountain that shall refresh a thirsty people.
Jefferson County--Not unlike the illustrious statesman after whom she was christened, she loves freedom and is bound to pursue it with an iron horse.
Dodge County--Her iron ore, the Valley road the magic wand that turns it into gold.
Fond du Lac County--She cannot wait to go east by water. ⁷

These words were intended to suggest what the railroads in Wisconsin could do and what they would do for Fond du Lac County. The Rock River Valley Union was a way to bind the counties of Central Wisconsin together and make possible their industrial development.

Existing forms of transportation did not meet the needs of the settlers in Fond du Lac County as they began to move beyond subsistence farming. When people began settling in the Fond du Lac area, one of the first necessities was roads. These first roads, no more than dirt paths, were difficult to traverse when bad weather occurred, so a new, more secure form of road construction was developed. These second-generation roads were plank roads. The old dirt tracks were covered with heavy wooden planks. But these new roads also became impassible because of decay and lack of proper maintenance by their owners, for they were privately financed and maintained. Water transportation was also available for the Fond du Lac area. Lake Winnebago, the Fox River, and the Wolf River were the keys to regional water transportation, for they could link Fond du Lac to points to the south and to the Great Lakes. ⁸ Railroads, however, were the most practical of transportation improvements available. They were faster than roads and were passable in almost all climatic conditions. They didn’t freeze in winter or lose necessary depth to accommodate boats in the summer, like lakes, canals, and rivers, and they were not blocked by topography such as the rapids that made the Lower Fox River impassable to any craft larger than a canoe. Railroads would ensure Fond du Lac County’s economic growth, their promoters claimed, although most people, both locally and statewide, could hardly understand just how important railroads would become.

In 1847 the average railroad line in the United States was only nineteen miles long, and the idea that railways would one day link distant locations and enhance economic growth was envisioned by only a few. Railroads in the early days signified a mode of transportation that was only local in nature. People merely saw railroads as a method to connect a port to an interior destination that was in reality only a few miles away. At a cost of $20,000 to $25,000 per mile, the price of construction alone was seen as prohibitive, even to the visionaries. ⁹ Manpower, resources, and lack of honest leadership made Wisconsin’s first attempts at railway growth a disappointing venture for many.

Additionally, although many of Fond du Lac’s pioneers had immigrated from the East at a time when the railroads were first becoming popular in America, they were suspicious of the new invention. Some thought that the huge expense of building a railroad would make it impractical. It was difficult for them to envision the economic consequences that railroads were to have for the city and state of Wisconsin. ¹⁰

On June 5, 1848, Nelson Dewey, the first governor of Wisconsin, a lawyer and land speculator, delivered his first message to the new legislature of a state that was less than a week old. Dewey alluded to the possible advantages of new forms of transportation when he stated, “Wisconsin possesses the natural elements, fostered by the judicious system of legislation, to become one of the most populous and prosperous States of the American Union.” It would only be a matter of time until Wisconsin joined the many other states which were developing railroads for economic purposes. He also stated that Wisconsin possessed a unique geographical destiny. According to Dewey, to achieve this destiny Wisconsin could not solely rely on its waterways for transportation. At the time during which Wisconsin became a state, American railroads had been under construction and operating for more than twenty years, and Dewey clearly was signaling the interest of the state government in fostering their development. ¹¹

Early Wisconsin political leaders believed that railroads were essential in the development of Wisconsin and its industries. Railroads were generally welcomed in Wisconsin, but not by all its citizens. Advocates considered railroads as the prime means of making natural resources available to people in both Wisconsin and around America. On the other hand, skeptics were afraid of the financial burden that railroad construction would place on such a new and relatively underpopulated state. Construction costs were very high when railroad construction began in Wisconsin, partly because many of the contractors and their engineers were unfamiliar with the products.

Corruption was also a problem. Some railroad contractors were company officials, and they padded their own pay. Wisconsin railroad entrepreneurs thought that by bringing in experienced contractors the costs would decline, but instead they continued to climb. For example, the Kilbourn and La Crosse Company initially charged Wisconsin $7,000 per mile for railroad construction and later raised its price to as much as $21,875. The company was able to do this because railroads were in such high demand, and there were few who could carry out the work.

Despite the inflated costs, Wisconsin entrepreneurs stayed with the experienced contractors, because they believed that the faster they built the railroads, the faster they would be in business. Wisconsin railroad construction was also plagued by contractors’ financial irresponsibility in dealing with their own employees. The workers were generally newly-arrived immigrants or farmers who lived along the route of the planned construction. The laborers’ starting pay was usually seventy-five cents a day, but this pay wasn’t always guaranteed. In 1855, a Wisconsin state law made railroad companies responsible for all labor on railroad construction projects and required contractors to put up bonds that were high enough to guarantee payment of laborers’ wages. ¹²

The first railroad constructed in Wisconsin was the Milwaukee and Waukesha line. On September 12, 1850, workmen spiked down the first rails laid in Wisconsin. This railroad was later renamed Milwaukee and Mississippi Railroad Company in order to reflect company plans for expansion westward beyond the state of Wisconsin. Between 1850 and 1860, railroad mileage in Wisconsin increased from twenty to 922.5 miles. ¹³ Due to a temporary national financial crisis and the threat of impending Civil War, the year 1860 saw a hiatus in railroad construction. By 1867, only 130 additional miles of track had been laid. ¹⁴

Fond du Lac played a role in the first boom in construction of railroads in Wisconsin. By 1836, the city of Fond du Lac was beginning to be settled, and by 1850 Fond du Lac had 1,940 residents. ¹⁵ Fond du Lac County had a population of 14,510 in that year, and this meant that Fond du Lac ranked eleventh among the thirty-two Wisconsin counties. ¹⁶ Fond du Lac County also ranked in the upper one-half to one-third among Wisconsin counties with respect to wealth and economic development, even though geographic location gave other counties natural advantages over Fond du Lac, due to their better access to markets and to water transportation routes. However, these geographic disadvantages disappeared as the railroads replaced waterways as the primary mode of transportation. Railroads soon did for Fond du Lac what waterways had done for other counties, much to Fond du Lac’s competitive advantage. ¹⁷

Thus the Rock River Valley Union Railroad was a key to Fond du Lac’s economic development. The Rock River Valley Union Railroad was an outgrowth of the Madison and Beloit Railroad. This company had been chartered by the Wisconsin State legislature on July 3, 1849, and the charter also authorized extending the railroad from Janesville, Wisconsin to Fond du Lac. Nevertheless, no railroad tracks were built between Janesville and Fond du Lac under this charter. ¹⁸ On February 9, 1850 the Wisconsin Legislature changed the name of the Madison and Beloit Railroad to the Rock River Valley Union Railroad, and it was this company that laid the first rails in Fond du Lac. ¹⁹

The credit for bringing the first railroad to Fond du Lac belongs to three men: The first, A. Hyatt Smith from Janesville, was the President of the Rock River Valley Union Railroad. The other two were John B. Macy, a real estate promoter, and Timothy L. Gillett, a promoter and future Rock River Valley Union Railroad director. Both Macy and Gillett were Fond du Lac residents. ²⁰ Most sources agree that Macy was the most influential figure in bringing the railroad to Fond du Lac, because he was the most vocal of the three. Macy, a real estate promoter, had settled in Fond du Lac in 1845. ²¹ After his arrival, the promotion of the city became Macy’s main concern. One historian wrote “perhaps no man did so much for Fond du Lac in the way of advertising the location, wealth, health, and future prospects of the place as John B. Macy.” ²² Macy was a tireless promoter of the Rock River Valley Union Railroad. He believed that, once it was completed, the railroad would mean as much to Wisconsin as the Erie Canal had meant to New York. ²³

Timothy Gillett opened up stock subscription books in Fond du Lac on December 19, 1850. He aimed to capitalize the venture by inviting those people who wanted to secure stock in the new company to participate at its outset. Five per cent of the investment was to be paid in advance, and the balance paid in quarterly installments, making stocks accessible to small investors. The majority of this stock was subscribed by local sympathizers in the city and by farmers.

Construction of the Rock River Valley Union line began slowly. Bradley and Company of Burlington, Vermont were given the contract to construct a portion of the railroad. T.F. Strong Sr., a member of the contracting company, went over the route of construction by riding all the way from Chicago to Fond du Lac on horseback. Early in 1851, members of Bradley and Company moved to Fond du Lac with 160 horses, shovels, picks, and wheelbarrows. After seeing the progress of construction on the Rock River Valley Union Railroad, the previously hesitant citizens of Fond du Lac began to regard the idea of the new railroad more positively. ²⁴ However, the miserable conditions of the ordinary roads in the area caused delays in construction and contributed to higher costs than had been originally anticipated. One major expense was simply getting the rails to the construction site, because they had to be hauled overland from Green Bay. By 1853, the track had been completed fifteen miles from Fond du Lac towards Chester. ²⁵

The railroad’s first engine was named the Winnebago. It had arrived in 1852, after being transported by boat across Lake Michigan to Sheboygan and then hauled by teams over the plank roads to Fond du Lac. It took workers six weeks to move the fifteen-ton Winnebago from Sheboygan to Fond du Lac, with fourteen teams of horses pulling the engine. ²⁶

The second engine arrived in 1853 and was named the Fountain City. This engine was also brought from Sheboygan to Fond du Lac over plank roads. ²⁷ Soon after the arrival of these engines, the Rock River Valley Union Railroad began to conduct business.

The main business of the railroad throughout its period of operation was lumber haulage. Logs from the plentiful forests of the Fox-Wolf basin were floated down the Wolf River, rafted across Lake Winnebago, loaded on rail cars at Fond du Lac, and then carried to Chester. The lumber was then rafted down the Rock River to the lumber mills at Horicon, Watertown, Fort Atkinson, Janesville, and points farther south. Before the Rock River Valley Union came to Fond du Lac, the lumber industry had been limited to supplying only local end users of timber products located in the Fond du Lac area. With the addition of the 15-mile long railroad connecting the Wolf and Fox Rivers to the Rock River System, Fond du Lac’s lumber industry became more than just a local operation. ²⁸

Paralleling the growth of the railroad, the city of Fond du Lac continued to expand. Between 1851 and 1854 real estate increased in value, property holders became less anxious to sell, business became livelier, and new settlers arrived weekly. ²⁹ During the middle of the nineteenth century, Fond du Lac became home to many important industries. Lumbering was increasingly the most important of these. Timber was cut in northern Wisconsin and floated down the rivers and lake to the Fond du Lac city sawmills. Once the lumbering industry became established in Fond du Lac, other related industries followed. ³⁰ These included various finished wood product enterprises, including carriage, sash, door, and blind manufacturing. By 1868, the factory of C.J.L. Meyer in Fond du Lac was ranked as the largest sash, door, and blind factory in the world. ³¹ Other firms included distilleries, a brewery, a tannery, and soap and candle factories. ³² In 1866, Fond du Lac also became the home of the Chicago and Northwestern Railroad car works. Annually, 500 to 600 boxcars, flat cars, and coaches were built there. ³³ The railroad gave these industries an outlet to distant markets, and the railroad itself became a major industry. Railroads increased land values and led other businesses to move to Fond du Lac in order to obtain the advantages accruing from improved transportation. ³⁴

Agriculture in the area had grown significantly during the decade preceding the development of the railroad. Fond du Lac County increased its acreage of farmland from 43,712 acres to 225,299 acres. The value of county farms rose from $1,249,590 to $6,803,384, while the value of farming implements and machinery increased from $52,698 to $268,322. ³⁵ The total value of the county’s livestock jumped form $200,945 to $888,448. In 1850, Fond du Lac was ranked in the second quartile of Wisconsin’s thirty-two counties in most categories of agricultural production. Compared to the rest of Wisconsin’s fifty-eight counties in 1860, Fond du Lac ranked fourth in improved farmland, fifth in cash value of farms and value of farming implements and machinery and fifth in total value of livestock. Eight years after the Rock River Valley Union Railroad Company began construction, six years after the road reached Chester, and three years after the Chicago, St. Paul, and Fond du Lac Railroad reached Milwaukee, providing Fond du Lac with rail connections to Chicago, the agricultural production of Fond du Lac County had risen from the middle ranks of Wisconsin counties to a position in the top ten per cent. ³⁶

Population figures for the city of Fond du Lac also show the impact the railroads had on Fond du Lac. The city’s population had more than doubled between 1850 and 1860. The 5,447 people living in Fond du Lac in 1860 made it the sixth largest city in the state, larger than Milwaukee, Racine, Janesville, Madison, and Oshkosh. Yet the railroad had a down side. As early as 1860, Fond du Lac’s tax rates, which had risen because of the city’s obligation to meet its railroad bond issues, had caused one group of citizens to leave for Colorado, tempted as well by the gold rush of 1858. ³⁷

The Rock River Valley Union Railroad soon faced financial difficulties. The railroad was taking in money, but limited supplies and outlets made it impossible to increase its haulage of lumber rapidly enough to cover costs, including debt services. ³⁸ In order to solve this problem, the railroad line needed to expand. The First Annual Report of the Wisconsin Railway Commissioners stated that “the Rock River Valley Union Railroad Company of Wisconsin have become seriously embarrassed in their affairs and are unable to pay their present current liabilities on the interest coupons upon their mortgage bonds, many of which have matured and are now past due.” To help bring the railroad out of its financial difficulties, the Fond du Lac company applied for assistance from the Wisconsin legislature in 1855, only four years after initial construction began. The railroad stated that it needed a law authorizing it to consolidate with the Illinois and Wisconsin Railroad Company in order to survive. ³⁹ On March 10, 1855, the legislature approved the request for consolidation. The two lines merged under the name of the Chicago, St. Paul, and Fond du Lac Railroad Company on March 31, 1855. To aid in this consolidation, the city of Fond du Lac voted to issue $350,000 in bonds. These bonds were needed to finance upgrading of facilities, because the railroad did not meet the standard advertised by its promoters, largely because the rails used for initial construction had been mainly strap iron rails on wooden cross-ties. Indeed, the cars were sometimes even operated on wooden rail sleepers used instead of iron rails, because of the lack of funds to buy the more expensive metal rails. ⁴⁰

The objective of the new company was stated in an early report given by the directors. Their goal for the Chicago, St. Paul, and Fond du Lac Railroad Company was to extend the line from Janesville northwestward through Madison and LaCrosse to St. Paul, from Janesville northward along the valley of the Rock River to Fond du Lac and northward to the great iron and copper regions of Lake Superior. ⁴¹ In trying to reach its goal, the Chicago, St. Paul, and Fond du Lac Railroad Company also consolidated with the Wisconsin and Superior Railroad Company, the Ontonagon and State Line Railroad Company, and the Marquette and State Line Railroad Company. These consolidations all took place in March 1857. ⁴²

In its early operations, the Chicago, St. Paul and Fond du Lac Railroad Company experienced success. In 1855, the line was extended from Cary, Illinois to Janesville, Wisconsin, a distance of approximately fifty miles. This gave businesses in Janesville a route into Chicago. By February 1856, the Fond du Lac line had been extended from Fond du Lac southward to Minnesota Junction, where connections could be made to Milwaukee. ⁴³

The editor of the Fond du Lac Union, M. J. Thomas, wrote enthusiastically that “the beneficial effects of this connection upon the growth, prosperity and business interests of our city cannot be over estimated nor will be fully realized until the tide of emigration, which invariably flows through these iron channels, shall have fairly set in upon us during the coming season.” ⁴⁴ Thomas believed that, with Fond du Lac tied by rail to Chicago and Green Bay through the new connections, a larger market would increase the economic benefits to the growing city of Fond du Lac. ⁴⁵ He reasoned that the lumber business and other businesses would continue to follow a route from Fond du Lac to southern Wisconsin and northern Illinois. He calculated that it would be cheaper for farmers north of Janesville to transport their grain to Buffalo by way of Fond du Lac and Green Bay. The Chicago, St. Paul and Fond du Lac Railroad would haul logs southward and grain northward, with Fond du Lac in the middle of both of the business exchanges. Unfortunately, the short-term outcome for the railroad was quite different from Thomas’ rosy projections.

Economic growth at this time simply did not move fast enough to help save the Chicago, St. Paul, and Fond du Lac Railroad from bankruptcy. The railroad began to struggle, due to lack of funds, workers, and supplies. ⁴⁶ Just when finances were beginning to look positive for the railroad, the Panic of 1857 occurred. Because of this depression, for two to three years coin and banknotes both became very scarce, a condition described at the time as a “money famine.” Merchants and manufacturers had to use a barter system in order to stay in business. The owner of a sash and door business, for example might exchange his products for hay, ham, town lots, horses, and cows.

The depression also set back industrial development in Wisconsin. Large-scale manufacturing companies with reserve funds were able to stay in business, but they were not able to expand. Small businesses, with only a minimal amount of money invested and with little or no machinery, were often forced out of business. Overall, medium-sized industries, with thousands of dollars invested, were hit the hardest.

Lumber and flour milling plants were the two main industrial concerns in Fond du Lac at the time of the 1857 panic. Both these industries relied heavily on the railroads for haulage. Railroad rate policy also caused problems for industries during the panic. Hitherto, farmers had been supporters of the railroads, because of their expectation that railroads would help to lower the cost of marketing crops. When the depression occurred, the railroads reduced their prices in areas of the state where competing lines existed, but they made up for these price reductions by means of raising prices in areas where competing lines were not a factor.

Despite their efforts to profit at the expense of farmers and other shippers, no Wisconsin enterprise suffered more from the depression than did the railroads. One railroad after another went bankrupt. The bankrupt railroads were then controlled by receiverships. In turn, the railroad bankruptcies threatened the future of thousands of farmers, because these farmers had helped to build the railroads by mortgaging their farms in order to purchase railroad stock both as an investment and to support railroad construction. Farmers had expected to gain a profit from their shares of stock, over and above the amount they needed to cover the interest due on their mortgages. The mortgages were now in the hands of the railroad bondholders, and if the bondholders foreclosed, the mortgages would have to be repaid, or the farmers would lose their land. Farmers who had viewed railroads as their best friend now saw them as their worst enemy. ⁴⁷

Among the railroads that suffered from the panic, the Chicago, St. Paul, and Fond du Lac Railroad Company defaulted on interest payments on its bonds and was forced to file a bankruptcy petition. ⁴⁸ In February 1859, the Illinois state legislature authorized sale and reorganization of the company. The reorganized line was sold at Janesville on June 2, 1859, for $10,849,938. ⁴⁹ A new company was established, named the Chicago and Northwestern Railroad, on June 6, 1859. ⁵⁰ The President of this new railroad was William Butler Ogden. Ogden, the first mayor of Chicago and a railroad promoter, wanted control of the Fond du Lac rails, because he considered them “one of the foundation stones that would turn his dreams of a great northwestern railway system into a reality.” ⁵¹ That same year, the Chicago and Northwestern completed a line from Oshkosh to Chicago through Fond du Lac and Janesville, a distance of 194 miles. ⁵²

But the Chicago and Northwestern Railroad Company experienced financial problems in its turn. In April 1861, the railroad’s bondholders held a meeting in New York City. A committee was appointed to determine the best way out of the firm’s financial embarrassments. Expansion was seen as a necessity for the development of the system, but the committee did not recommend expansion from Appleton to Green Bay and from Neenah to Waupaca. Ogden, who disagreed with the committee, went directly to the people of Brown County and offered $49,500 worth of Chicago and Northwestern stock to them in return for financial help in expanding the Chicago and Northwestern Railroad route to Green Bay. His motto for this campaign was “faith in the future.” The Wisconsin state legislature then authorized the Chicago and Northwestern Railroad to locate a line by way of Green Bay to the Menominee River. Construction was completed as far as Green Bay in the fall of 1862. ⁵³

Despite the economic woes of the Panic of 1857, according to the census of 1860, Fond du Lac and Fond du Lac County had continued to grow dramatically. During the 1860s, as railroad construction was put on hold because of the lack of resources, building railway cars became a priority in the industry, partly due to the transport requirements of Civil War armies. Fond du Lac become a prime location for such construction because of its abundant lumber, skilled workforce, and its a central location at a point where several railroads met. ⁵⁴ The Chicago and Northwestern car shop, located in Fond du Lac, initially consisted of a blacksmith’s shop and a carpenter’s shop. The car shop was situated on the west bank of the Fond du Lac River. By 1866, the car shop had expanded to become a major facility, producing four railroad cars a day. In 1866, it employed from 250 to 300 men continuously. The Chicago and Northwestern Railroad also owned and operated a sawmill at the shop to provide lumber for cars. ⁵⁵ These facilities were known as the “Van Brunt” works. Both passenger and freight cars were built at the “Van Brunt” factory, including some sleeping and drawing room cars, which were claimed to be “without exception the finest cars ever made in western states.” Not only was the Chicago and Northwestern Railroad Company providing transportation, it was also one of the largest employers in the Fond du Lac area between 1851 and 1876. ⁵⁶

In 1870, Fond du Lac County boasted an estimated 46,273 citizens. The city of Fond du Lac had a population of 12,764, which ranked it second among Wisconsin cities, smaller only than Milwaukee. Fond du Lac County ranked fourth in population among Wisconsin’s fifty-eight counties. ⁵⁷ The county’s 300 manufacturers ranked third in total employment, capital invested, money spent on materials, and the value of their products. Most of these principal manufacturers were located in the city of Fond du Lac. ⁵⁸ Wood products and lumber businesses remained the major industries, both supported by the Chicago and Northwestern Railway Company. ⁵⁹

The Chicago and Northwestern remained Fond du Lac’s sole railroad until 1869, when the Sheboygan and Fond du Lac Railroad began to operate between those two cities. In 1873, the two railways were joined by the Northwestern Union, known as the “Air Line” to Milwaukee. The following year, the Fond du Lac, Amboy, and Peoria Railroad was chartered, with construction beginning in 1875. For years, railroad construction remained a huge factor in the growth of Fond du Lac. ⁶⁰

In 1873, the Chicago and Northwestern’s car shops employed over 400 men. ⁶¹ Fond du Lac’s eighteen lumber and shingle mills also continued to flourish, and they created 830 jobs for Fond du Lac County residents. By 1875 the population of the city of Fond du Lac had grown to 15,308. Local industrialists, businessmen, and farmers continued to be the beneficiaries of the economic gains which had been fairly constant since the coming of the Rock River Valley Union Railroad to Fond du Lac in 1851. ⁶²

However, Wisconsin’s “Second City” was about to enter a severe economic downturn, the depression of 1873, which slowed growth for more than twenty years. ⁶³ Other reasons made this shift in the city’s economic fortunes a lasting one. Even though Fond du Lac businesses still flourished in the early 1870s, they were no longer growing steadily. There were several reasons for this stagnation. The Chicago and Northwestern Railroad pushed northward, closer to the remaining sources of timber. The railroad reached Oshkosh in 1851, Appleton in 1861, and the Green Bay in 1862. Fond du Lac’s unique position as the terminus for a railway line tapping a vast timber resource disappeared as Wisconsin railroad development continued northward. ⁶⁴

Fond du Lac had also lost some of the important men who had helped make the city prosperous. John B. Macy, the man who helped secure the railroad for Fond du Lac, died in a boating accident in Sheboygan in 1855. ⁶⁵ Timothy Gillett was tragically killed in a Northwestern train wreck October 12, 1859. That day was supposed to be a day of celebration, but ended in sorrow. People from Chicago, Janesville, and Watertown were visiting Fond du Lac to celebrate the completion of the Chicago and Northwestern Railroad line from Chicago to Fond du Lac. As the train returned southward down the Chicago and Northwestern line, eight miles outside Watertown, a grazing ox wandered onto the tracks. The train, traveling at ten miles an hour, hit the ox, which then became wedged under the engine’s cowcatcher. This mishap threw the engine and its five cars, carrying two hundred passengers, off the tracks. Fourteen people perished in this accident, and Gillett was one these. ⁶⁶ In 1866, death also claimed Mason C. Darling, physician, land speculator, politician, Congressman, and member of the Board of Directors of the Chicago and Northwestern Railroad. ⁶⁷ All three of these men had been progressive forces in Fond du Lac, and their absence was felt through a decline in the vision of the new city leadership.

Certain Fond du Lac investors who had been important to its growth also left to speculate in the oil business in Kentucky and in Colorado, removing money and energy that otherwise might have been used to develop Fond du Lac’s economy. But perhaps the major reason for Fond du Lac’s decline in the 1870s was the rise of its northern neighbor, Oshkosh. ⁶⁸ According to the 1870 census, Oshkosh already outstripped Fond du Lac as a lumber and shingle producer. Between 1870 and 1880, the population of Oshkosh increased by nearly forty per cent, whereas from 1875 to 1880 the population of Fond du Lac declined from 15,308 to 13,091 citizens. ⁶⁹

Part of Fond du Lac’s population decline can be traced to the withdrawal of the Chicago and Northwestern car shops from the city in 1876. In the early 1870s, the Chicago and Northwestern had purchased 240 acres outside Chicago, planning to consolidate its car building facilities on this particular site due to financial reasons. Despite efforts by Fond du Lac officials who had hoped to keep the shops in Fond du Lac, on July 6, 1876, the whistle at the Chicago and Northwestern Fond du Lac car shops blew for the last time, bringing to a close twenty-five years of continuous constructive activity. ⁷⁰ When the Chicago and Northwestern car shops were removed, the lumber industry in Fond du Lac also began to decline. The lumber industry had been sustained partly because of the railroad industry, and its decline can be traced directly to the loss of the car shops. Fond du Lac’s economic revival in the 1890s only occured after the Wisconsin Central Railroad Company and the Chicago and Northwestern relocated railway car shops once again in North Fond du Lac. ⁷¹

Railroads in Fond du Lac encountered many difficulties during the period 1851-1876. Delays in construction, negativity from some local people, limited facilities, consolidation, financial crises, and reorganization all complicated the process of railroad construction and operation. Paradoxically, at the same time that individual railroads were struggling, they triggered an economic boom in Fond du Lac. By 1853 the Rock River Valley Union Railroad was hauling lumber to Chester. In 1856 the Chicago, St. Paul, and

Chicago and North Western Directors’ Private Railcar (late 1800s)

Fond du Lac created an outlet from Fond du Lac to Milwaukee. By 1859 the Chicago and Northwestern had completed a line from Fond du Lac to Janesville, Chicago, and the world. The overall result of all these achievements was the tremendous physical and economic growth of the city of Fond du Lac. ⁷²

The railroads played a decisive role in shaping and molding Fond du Lac during its early years. Without the Rock River Valley Union Railroad, the Chicago, St. Paul and Fond du Lac, and the Chicago and Northwestern, Fond du Lac’s economic growth between 1851 and 1876 could not have occurred.

1 - Fond du Lac Journal, July 17, 1851. return

2 - Dictionary of Wisconsin Biography, (Madison: The State Historical Society of Wisconsin, 1960), 95. return

3 - Cindy Barden, Foot of the Lake: An Early History of Fond du Lac Wisconsin, (Fond du Lac: Fond du Lac Public Library, 1998), 15, 18-19. return

4 - Dictionary of Wisconsin Biography, 330. return

5 - Fond du Lac Journal, July 17, 1851. return

6 - Barden, 24. return

7 - Maurice McKenna, Fond du Lac County Wisconsin Past and Present, (Chicago: The S.J. Clarke Publishing, 1912), 187. return

8 - McKenna,183. return

9 - Robert C. Nesbit, Wisconsin a History, (Madison: The State Historical Society of Wisconsin, 1989), 203. return

10 - Nesbit, 204. return

11 - Richard Current, The History of Wisconsin, v. II: The Civil War Era, 1848-1873, (Madison: The State Historical Society, 1976), 1-3. return

12 - Current, 35-36. return

13 - Current, 30. return

14 - Frederick Merk, Economic History of Wisconsin During the Civil War, (Madison: The State Historical Society of Wisconsin, 1916), 277. return

15 - Barden, 60. return

16 - Fountain City Herald, March 7, 1854. return

17 - Ruth Shaw Worthing, The History of Fond du Lac County as Told by its Place-Names, (Fond du Lac: The Fond du Lac County Historical Society, 1976), 81. return

18 - W. H. Stennett, Yesterday and Today, A History of the Chicago and Northwestern Railway System, (Chicago: Chicago Chapter, Railway and Locomotive Historical Society, 1910), 49. return

19 - First Annual Report of the Railroad Commissioners of the State of Wisconsin, (Madison: Atwood and Culver, 1874), 282. return

20 - McKenna, 471. return

21 - Dictionary of Wisconsin Biography, 236. return

22 - McKenna, 471. return

23 - Fond du Lac Journal, June 26, 1851. return

24 - McKenna, 185. return

25 - McKenna, 187. return

26 - Worthing, 81. return

27 - McKenna, 187. return

28 - Joseph Schafer, The Winnebago-Horicon Basin, (Madison: The State Historical Society of Wisconsin, 1937), 196-197. return

29 - Fountain City Herald, March 14, 1854. return

30 - Barden, 34. return

31 - Merk, 147. return

32 - Schafer, 270. return

33 - Stuart M. Rich, “Railroad Shops and Car Building in Fond du Lac,” Railroad History, CXXXV, (1975), 10. return

34 - William Clark, Railroads and Rivers, the Story of Inland Transportation, (L.C. Page and Company, 1930), 158. return

35 - Joseph Kennedy, Agriculture of the United States in 1860, 8th Census, (Washington, Government Printing Office, 1864), 3-13. return

36 - Kennedy, 167-168. return

37 - Schafer, 272. return

38 - Fond du Lac Union, August, 23, 1855. return

39 - Stennett, 54. return

40 - McKenna, 187. return

41 - Stennett, 54. return

42 - The First Annual Report of the Wisconsin Railway Commissioners,127. return

43 - Robert Casey, Pioneer Railroad, (New York: McGraw-Hill Book Company, 1948), 79. return

44 - The Fond du Lac Union, February 21, 1856. return

45 - The Fond du Lac Union, February 1, 1856. return

46 - Casey, 77, 79-80. return

47 - Current, 237-244. return

48 - Casey, 77, 79-80. return

49 - Stennett, 37. return

50 - The First Annual Report of the Wisconsin Railway Commissioners, 285. return

51 - Casey, 76. return

52 - Stennett, 38. return

53 - Casey, 81. return

54 - Rich, 9-10. return

55 - Fond du Lac Weekly Commonwealth, November 14, 1866. return

56 - Rich, 9-11. return

57 - Francis Walker, The Ninth Census, A Compendium, (Washington: Government Printing Office, 1872), 104. return

58 - Walker, 792-793, 840. return

59 - Schafer, 274. return

60 - Rich, 6. return

61 - Fond du Lac Daily Commonwealth, February 14, 1873. return

62 - McKenna, 328-329. return

63 - Current, 452. return

64 - McKenna, 328. return

65 - Dictionary of Wisconsin Biography, 236. return

66 - McKenna, 190. return

67 - Dictionary of Wisconsin Biography, 95. return

68 - Schafer, 279-280. return

69 - McKenna, 329. return

70 - Rich, 13. return

71 - McKenna, 329. return

72 - Casey and Douglas, 79-80. return

Copyright Clarence B. Davis 2005. Marian College Press, Fond du Lac, Wisconsin 2005.
Electronic publication by Fond du Lac Public Library has been approved by Clarence B. Davis.

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