In the second half of the nineteenth century, railroads remade the geography of the Midwest. In an era when roads were often muddy filled with holes, the railroad made it faster to travel from Superior to Milwaukee by rail than from Superior…
In the second half of the nineteenth century, railroads remade the geography of the Midwest. In an era when roads were often muddy filled with holes, the railroad made it faster to travel from Superior to Milwaukee by rail than from Superior to Ashland by wagon. In Wisconsin, the Chicago and Northwestern, The Milwaukee Road,…
Tanning in Taylor County In early 1890, members of a wealthy Boston-based family, the Shaws, visited Wisconsin to find new sources for the tannic acid needed to produced leather for horse harnesses and boots. The Shaw Family operated tanneries in Maine, Massachusetts,…
The bark spud is an iron tool used to remove bark from cut timber. Most bark spuds have a steel head with a hard wooden handle. The head is rounded or dish-shaped and has one cutting edge. The sharp wedge on the end of the bark spud slides between bark and wood on a log…
In the 1890s, mass-produced safety bicycles sparked a bicycle craze across Wisconsin. However, despite the lowered costs associated with mass production, not everyone could afford this new luxury. Walter Atkinson of Ellenboro, Wisconsin, was not going to let a $100 price tag deter him from experiencing the liberating power of bicycle transportation. Tapping into the…
Galena, the official state mineral of Wisconsin, is the raw material used to produce lead. During the Wisconsin “lead rush” of the 1820s-40s, lead was more valuable than gold. That is because just about everybody, rich or poor, used objects made of lead in their daily lives – products that ranged from plumbing to toothpaste!…