Wisconsin, Like Galena, Just Doesn’t Matter Any More
With apologies to Buddy Holly …
A little history lesson is appropriate here, relating the railroad era to today’s “fiber highways of commerce.”
The city of Galena was once the largest and richest city in Illinois. The city was home to Illinois’ largest banks, and hosted both state political leaders and presidential aspirants such as Lincoln and Grant. It relied on the river barge traffic to move ore and cargo to the Mississippi River. In the late 19th century, the rail companies, representing the new steam technology, approached the city to install a railhead there. They encountered stiff resistance by the entrenched bureaucracy, expressed primarily through massive inertia. For the city fathers of the time, it was not obvious that railroads run east and west as well as north and south, as does the Mississippi River. In addition, all the decision makers were heavy investors in the river barge companies. As a result, Dubuque became the railhead, whereupon a line was immediately established to the aggressive new port city of Chicago. And, as they say, we know the rest of the story.
Galena today, as will be Wisconsin’s major cities tomorrow, is a nostalgic little town, but it no longer hosts the politically powerful, or the economically influential. On the national stage, the city just doesn’t matter any more. One wonders what might have been.
July 15th, 2008 at 1:17 pm
“There you’re goin’ baby, here am I, a’ well you left me here so I can sit and cry a’ well golly gee what have you done to me … but you don’t matter any more! Bumpatee bump de bump bump de dum dum.”