The Wisconsin Territory
Some families and individuals did travel north through the Louisiana territory to set up homes as far north as Wisconsin. Since its founding, Wisconsin has been ethnically heterogeneous, with Yankees being among the first to arrive from New York and New England. Many Yankees migrated from New England and settled the northern parts of New York and the Midwest, as well as the Pacific Coast from San Francisco to Seattle.
The Wisconsin area, bordered by the states of Iowa, Minnesota, Michigan and Illinois, as well as Lakes Michigan and Superior, has been part of United States territory since the end of the American Revolution; the Wisconsin Territory. Much of the Territory had originally been part of the Northwest Territory, which was ceded by Britain in 1783.
The area encompassed by the Wisconsin Territory that was part of the Northwest Territory was included with the Indiana Territory, when that territory was formed in 1800, in preparation for admission of Ohio as a state. In 1818, when Illinois was about to become a state, the area was joined to the Michigan Territory.
The Wisconsin Territory included all of present-day states of Wisconsin, Minnesota, Iowa and part of the Dakotas up to the Missouri River. Wisconsin Territory was split off from Michigan Territory in 1836 as the state of Michigan prepared for statehood. Other states also claimed portions of what was to become Michigan, including New York, Connecticut, and Massachusetts. The several states eventually ceded their claims and in 1787, the Continental Congress created the Northwest Territory. Large numbers of European immigrants followed them, including German Americans, mostly between 1850 and 1900, Scandinavian Americans and smaller groups of Belgians, Dutch, Swiss, Finns, Irish Americans and others; in the twentieth century, large numbers of Polish Americans and African-Americans came, settling mainly in Milwaukee. Today, 42.6% of the population is of German ancestry, making Wisconsin one of the most German-American states in the United States. After the American Revolutionary War, Wisconsin was part of the U.S. Northwest Territory.
With its location between the Great Lakes and the Mississippi River, Wisconsin is home to a wide variety of geographical features. The state is divided into five distinct regions. In the north, the Lake Superior Lowland occupies a belt of land along Lake Superior. Just to the south, the Northern Highland includes the state's highest point, Timms Hill, as well as massive forests and thousands of small glacial lakes. In the middle of the state, the Central Plain possesses some unique sandstone formations like the Dells of the Wisconsin River in addition to rich farmland. The Eastern Ridges and Lowlands region in the southeast is home to many of Wisconsin's largest cities. In the southwest, the Western Upland is a rugged landscape with a mix of forest and farmland.
Many town names such as Mineral Point recall a period in the 1820s, 1830s, and 1840s, when Wisconsin was an important mining state. When Indian treaties opened up southwest Wisconsin to settlement, thousands of miners — many of them immigrants from Cornwall, England — flocked to the "lead rush" in southeastern areas. Wisconsin produced more than half of the nation's lead; Belmont was briefly the state capital. In the 1830-60 period, large numbers of Yankees from New England and New York flocked to Wisconsin. Wisconsin originally was applied to the Wisconsin River, and later to the area as a whole when Wisconsin became a territory. Wisconsin's self-promotion as "America's Dairyland" sometimes leads to a mistaken impression that it is an exclusively rural state. Towns are unincorporated minor civil divisions of counties. This string of cities along the western edge of Lake Michigan is generally considered to be an example of a megalopolis.
