Ben Kinney, JD
California, New York, and… Wisconsin?
The Midwest powerhouse that never was thanks to an Illinois lawyer.
With the Illinois bicentennial this year, it is appropriate to think what Wisconsin could have been had not Michigan annexed the Upper Peninsula and Illinois taken the southern part of Lake Michigan. Chicago may have developed in Wisconsin. In the Midwest, Wisconsin would have been a super-state to rival both coasts.
Two hundred years ago Illinois territory’s delegate convinced Congress to redraw the proposed state boundary between Illinois and Wisconsin. Originally, Illinois’ northern border was to be directly west of the southernmost tip of Lake Michigan, 51 miles south of where it currently is.
Nathaniel Pope, the forward-thinking Illinois lawyer at the center of the plan to set the northern boundary at its 42 degrees, 30 minutes latitude, ensured that Illinois would have lake shore property. It would also be connected to New York and New England by the Great Lakes Channel making it an economic juggernaut at the port that would become Chicago. The move also allowed Illinois to capture the necessary 40,000 person population required to become the 21st state in 1818 and set Wisconsin back by 30 years, not becoming a state until 1848.
Imagine what would have been. Wisconsin would have been the gateway to the Mississippi River, skyrocketing its economic development and forever hamstringing that of Illinois. Whether the consequence of the altered border is good or bad is up for debate and may depend on your individual state allegiance – this writer was raised in Wisconsin. But at least we can all agree that the lawyer, Nathaniel Pope, saved us all from the Chicago Packers.
