Railroad proposal01

 

THE OSHKOSH NORTHWESTERN

January 27, 1870

 

WAUPACA RAILROAD

 

            The newspapers are vigorously discussing the practicability of constructing a railroad with wooden rails and many contend that such a road can be built at a trifling cost.  Wooden railroads are now in operation in Europe, in New York and in Pennsylvania.  They form a very important substitute for the ordinary railroad, and their value in opening up and developing a country is inestimable.  The people of Appleton propose to build a line of road between that place and New London to be laid with wooden rails.  Green Bay is anxiously awaiting the time when she can commence the work on the Green Bay and Lake Pepin road across the northern and unsettled portion of the state.  The people of Berlin want a wooden railroad to run north into the “Indian Land” to Stevens’ Point and Waupaca.  Everywhere the subject is receiving attention, and the comparatively trifling cost of construction and the great importance of such a road as a means of communication makes it highly probably that one of these roads will be built and that within a short time.  The Berlin Courant in urging the building of a wooden railway from that point north, says:

            “The wealth of Waupaca, Portage and Marathon counties has just begun to be developed. The railroad that first reaches in that direction secures the flush of their carrying trade.  If this project is taken hold of at once, it may easily be the first to be in operation, and with proper management may always take the precedence in the carrying trade, for it will be built, owned and operated at home. The people will not be asked to make large donations toward an expensive road (more than enough to build this one), as is the case everywhere at present, and then be at the mercy of a foreign corporation, but they will own the road they build, operate it for their own benefit, and consequently will patronize it in preference to that of any foreign competing company.”

            Do the people of Oshkosh understand that there is now laid out a line of road between this city and Waupaca, more than two thirds of which is graded and ready for the track?  The old Oshkosh & Wausau road upon which a large amount of money was expended was graded, a greater portion of the distance between this city and Waupaca six or eight years ago.  Moreover at a railroad meeting in Waupaca two years since, the business men of that place pledged themselves to raise $100,000 to build a wooden railway between Fremont and Waupaca.  Cannot this line of road be secured from the Northwestern company, the real owners of the Oshkosh and Wausau franchises, a wooden roadway laid down, and the whole line put in operation at once?  The cost of building a wooden railroad is very slight, the construction of this road would bring to us a large amount of business which we now lose, and it would also ensure to us the permanent line which sooner or later must be built from some point on the Northwestern to Stevens’ Point and Lake Superior.

 

OSHKOSH NORTHWESTERN

February 10, 1870

 

            The railroad survey between Weyauwega and Stevens Point, under direction of George Reed, President of the Portage, Winnebago & Lake Superior Railroad Company, has been completed.