Of the great Lake Superior iron-producing district shared by Minnesota, Wisconsin and Michigan, Wisconsin possesses the smallest part. Two producing ranges extend into north Wisconsin, but the richer portions of each are in the upper peninsula of Michigan. The Wisconsin portion of the Penokee-Gogebic range is in Iron county, where most of the ore is mined, though one small mine operates in Dodge county. Production in 1935 amounted to 788,483 gross tons and in 1936 to 969,522, the por tion from Iron county in the latter year being 969,196 tons. The chief mineral output of Wisconsin is building and ornamental stone, the value of which was $4,590,528 in 1923 and $3,117,196 in 1935. Granite of many different colours is quarried. The lime product of 1935 was valued at $347,656. At hundreds of places in the State clay deposits suitable for making brick and tile are to be found, and produces of this industry in 1924 were valued at $1,063,164. In 1933 the value of clay products fell to
but it rose to $2,286,144 in 1935. Another important resource of the State is its mineral waters. Fuel briquets, how ever, lead in value with a total of $4,178,981 for 1936, 59% of the value of the country's entire output.
Originally all of Wisconsin, except a few thousand square miles of prairie region in the south, was covered with forests, the heavier timber being in the northern half of the State. Wisconsin's many rivers, fairly even topography and nearness to the Great Lakes and Mississippi river, favoured the rapid exploitation of these forests, and unrestricted and wasteful cutting went on apace. The most valuable original tim ber, the white pine, is now almost exhausted as a result. The great age of lumbering in Wisconsin was from 1890 to 1905, for the last five years of which Wisconsin was the leading lumber producing State of the United States. The value of rough lumber reached nearly $70,000,000 annually. In 1934 Wisconsin ranked fifteenth in the production of lumber, with a cut of 265,000,000 board feet besides 22,372 squares of shingles (800 shingles to the square) and 15,154 thousand laths. In wood pulp manufac ture the State came third after Maine and Washington, its out put for 1934 being 494,300 tons. Its timber resources, however, are by no means exhausted. Its remaining stand is estimated at 2,000,000 million board feet, much of which is protected in national and State forests. In 1936 the area of national forests within its boundaries was 724,473 acres while State forests cov ered 164,780 acres. Of the standing timber, the most plentiful variety is hemlock, the other principal woods being maple, birch, basswood, pine and elm.
In Lake Superior, Lake Michi gan and the Mississippi river Wisconsin is supplied upon three sides by unusual facilities for water shipping. In addition to their actual commerce these waterways are of great importance because of the continual check they supply upon land transport rates.
Since pioneer days and the building of east-west railways the Mississippi has lost its importance as an actual carrier, but the Great Lakes have not. In 1934 the chief lake ports were as follows : In addition Wisconsin shared in the business of the great Duluth Superior port which in 1934 registered receipts of 9,228,000 short tons and shipments of 16,322,000 short tons.
The first railway in the State was constructed from Milwaukee westward in 1851 and completed to the Mississippi river at Prairie du Chien in 1857. The first railways were built east and west
with the idea of connecting the waterways as quickly as possible, but as the railways grew more independent the main lines were built in a general north-west and south-east direction so as to connect Chicago and Milwaukee with the cities of St. Paul and Minneapolis by lines as direct as possible. Other lines run from Milwaukee north-west to Ashland, Superior and Duluth. The railway mileage in the State amounted to 6,904m. in 1934 as compared with 7,638m. in 1915. The largest systems are the Chicago and North Western, the Chicago, Milwaukee, St. Paul and Pacific and the Minneapolis, St. Paul and Sault Ste. Marie. For passenger service, railway lines have been supplemented since 1923 by an increasing network of motor-bus lines running over the principal highways and connecting the chief cities.
There were in 1930, 81,784m. of rural roads of which 29,632m. were surfaced. Of the 10,106m. in the State highway system in 1934,
were surfaced, 4,439 of high type surface and 5,092 of low type. State expenditures on highways in 1935-36 amounted to $28,367,367. Motor vehicle registrations numbered 782,562 in 1930 and 754,037 in
The region comprising the present State of Wisconsin was first explored by the French, who in their eagerness to find a "North west Passage" rapidly penetrated the Great Lakes waterways.
Jean Nicolet came in
having been sent by Samuel Champlain, then governor-general of New France to investigate rumours of a distant race called the "People of the Sea" who, it was hoped, might be Asiatics. Nicolet landed at a point in Green bay and made a treaty of alliance with the "People of the Sea" whom he found were merely the populous tribe of Winnebago Indians then living in the neigh bourhood. Champlain died shortly after Nicolet's return and no further explorations in the West were undertaken for 20 years. In 1654 Pierre Esprit, Sieur de Radisson and Medard Chouart, Sieur des Groseilliers, two French traders, visited Green bay and explored the country west and south. The vagueness of Radisson's journal leaves the interpretation of their itinerary much in doubt. Some scholars are disposed, from certain phases, to accord them the hopour of having entirely crossed Wisconsin and discovered the Mississippi river, but this, while possible, is doubtful. The same explorers undertook a second voyage into the west in 1658-60 in which they were the first to skirt the Lake Superior shore of Wisconsin. On Chequamegon bay they built a log hut— the first white habitation, so far as is known, in the State—and the following winter made a long inland trip to the Ottawa villages in northern Wisconsin. In 166o seven traders, accompanied by the Jesuit, Father Rene Menard, the first missionary in Wisconsin, wintered at Chequamegon bay on Lake Superior; and Menard, the next summer, perished while trying to reach the Huron villages near the sources of the Black river. In 1665 other traders came into Lake Superior and with them came Father Claude Allouez who, on the shores of Chequamegon bay, established the first permanent mission in Wisconsin. In 1668 Jean Pere began a three-year exploration of Lake Superior and its northward con nections, and among other things located copper upon its shores.