Riding the Rails through Wisconsin

Posted on April 29, 2022 Updated on November 29, 2023

By Lillian Pachner

The beginning of the rail age in North America is marked by the construction of the Baltimore & Ohio Railroad in 1827. Quickly, cities across the young country saw the benefit of being connected by rail. In particular, Milwaukee’s city boosters (people whose job it was to essentially “promote” a city to outsiders), immediately recognized that the emerging national network of railroads would provide local farmers, craftsmen, and manufacturers with access to a larger market. If Wisconsin wanted to keep up with the surrounding cities, it would have to build a railroad. 

Wisconsin’s first railroad was the Milwaukee and Mississippi railroad. Construction for this line began in 1847. This railroad was originally called the Milwaukee and Waukesha Railroad. It was the first passenger line to connect Milwaukee with Waukesha. The construction of this railroad was part of the attempt to connect Milwaukee with the Mississippi River. The construction for the second rail line, the Lacrosse and Milwaukee Railroad, began in 1852.

While Milwaukee never became a giant rail-based metropolis like Chicago or St. Louis in the late 1800s, Milwaukee was still able to make its name as a decently large rail-hub. Though the banking crisis of 1857 meant that railroad construction was slow going for a time, banker Alexander Mitchell’s emergence in the industry marked an uptick in Milwaukee’s rail building.

Alexander Mitchell, along with his business partner and mentor George Smith, both Scottish Immigrants, made a large part of their respective fortunes during the Banking Crisis of 1837, twenty years earlier. Mitchell served as secretary for Smith’s company, The Wisconsin Marine and Fire Insurance Company Bank. The company’s insurance charter allowed them to circulate certificates of deposits as if they were currency (these deposit slips were called “George Smith’s Money”), which allowed them to amass a fortune while actual banks were failing. Though the legality of this practice is dubious at best, Mitchell became the wealthiest person in the state by 1860. 

Mitchell’s fortune allowed him to supplement and restructure Milwaukee’s existing railroads. He organized the Milwaukee and St. Paul Railway, and other rail construction projects that connected and renamed some of the existing lines. Mitchell’s work helped Milwaukee grow into a hub for wheat shipment in the Midwest. For a time, it rivaled even Chicago on this front.

The map above, created by Allan Connover in 1887, (the year of Mitchell’s death) shows the major rail lines going through Wisconsin at the time. This is one of several rail maps available for viewing at the American Geographical Society Library (AGSL) in the Golda Meir Library on Campus. Several of these maps may also be viewed online through the AGSL Digital Collection.  

The AGSL is open Monday-Friday, 9 a.m. to 4:30 p.m., on the third floor of the Golda Meir Library at UWM’s campus.

Map Citation:

Connover, D. Allan. Railroad Map of Wisconsin / Prepared for the railroad commissioner by Allan D. Conover C.E. [Map]. 1:760,320. 1 in. = 12 miles. 1887. Link to map on Digital Collection

Sources Cited: 

Campbell, Stephen. “Panic of 1837.” The Economic Historian. November 12, 2020

Grant, Roger H. “Railroads”. Encyclopedia of Milwaukee. 2016.

Harding, Bethany. “Alexander Mitchell.” Encyclopedia of Milwaukee. 2016. 

Leonard, David Blake. A Biography of Alexander Mitchell 1817-1887. Madison, WI: University of Wisconsin, 1951. 

Langill, Ellen. “Banking Industry”, Encyclopedia of Milwaukee. 2016.

Smith, Alice Elizabeth. “George Smith’s Money.” Wisconsin: State Historical Society of Wisconsin, 1966.