VOLUME 38 NUMBER 1 •TORICAL SOCIETY OF WISCONSIN Here is portrayed a lazy-hazy autumnal landscape, on the threshold of winter, drenched, no doubt, with the pungent odor of Indian summer's ivoodsmoke. This is one of thousands of glorious pastoral scenes well- known and well-loved in Wisconsin. The sea and the mountain states have their admirers, too, but if you were ON THE COVER: asked to choose the loveliest spot on earth, would you not reply: ^'Make mine Wisconsin"? This picture, taken by Richard Vesey, Madison, was given honorable mention in the Society's Photographic Competition, 1950. It is Simpson's Valley, northeast of Richland Center, in southwestern Wisconsin. The WISCONSIN MAGAZINE OF HISTORY is published by the State Historical Society of Wisconsin, 816 State Street, Madison 6, Wisconsin. Distributed to members as part of their dues (Annual Membership, $4.00; Contributing, $10; Business and Professional, $25: Life, $100; Sustaining, $100 or more annually). Yearly subscription, $4.00; single numbers, $1.00. As of July 1, 1954, introductory offer for NEW members only. Annual dues $1.00, Magazine subscription $3.00. Communications should be addressed to the editor. The Society does not assume responsibility for statements made by contributors. Entered as second-class matter at the post office at Madison, Wisconsin, under the act of August 24, 1912. Copyright 1954 by the State Historical Society of Wisconsin. Paid for in part by the Maria L. and Simeon Mills Editorial Fund and by the George B. Burrows Fund. PERMISSION—Wisconsin newspapers may reprint any article appearing in the Wisconsin Magazine of History provided the story carries the following credit line: Reprinted from the State Historical Society's Wisconsin Magazine of History for [insert the season and year which appears on the Magazine^. PHOTO CREDITS—Cover picture supplied by Richard Vesey, Madison; Nipo T. Strong- heart as Medicine Priest, by Inter-Americana Research Institute, Nipo Strongheart, Director; on location, Nipo Strongheart at camera, by Metro Goldwyn Mayer Pictures Corporation; conversing in Indian dialect for production of "The Outriders," by Metro Goldwyn Mayer Pictures Corporation; Indian sign language coaching for "Across the Wide Missouri," by Metro Goldwyn Mayer Pictures Corporation; Indians portraying ancestors in "Canyon Passage," by Walter Wanger Productions, Universal Studio; Nipo Strongheart "Meet the Authors" page, from a group discussing "Black Gold," by Allied Artists Studios; crowd in front of Ringling Barnum Circus tent, by Trimpey Estate, Baraboo; complimentary circus ticket, by Sverre 0. Braathen, Madison; George Hall's Wagon Show, by Mrs. Frank Hall, Evansville: Old Station at Mineral Point, bv E. W. Grant, Milwaukee. VOLUME 38 NUMBER 1 PUBLISHED BY THE STATE HISTORICAL SOCIETY OF WISCONSIN « AUTUMN, 1954 Editor: CLIFFORD L. LORD Managing Editor: LILLIAN KRUEGER CONTENTS The History of the Mineral Point and Northern Railway Company (Part 1) PAUL S. NADLER 3 History in Hollywood NiPO T. STRONGHEART 10 Convention Memoir of a Wisconsin Delegate Introduction by PALMER H. BOEGER 17 The Educators' Debt to Lyman Copeland Draper JOHN GUY FOWLKES 29 Suffragettes on the Stump: Letter from the Political Equality League of Wisconsin, 1912 Introduction by KENNETH W. DUCKETT 31 FEATURES: Meet the Authors 2 Pandora's Box 27 Smoke Rings 7 Sincerely Yours 35 The Collector 20 Readers' Choice 37 Circuit Rider 24 Accessions 61 meet the authors PAUL S. NADLER, New York City, re­ teaching assistant at the University of ceived his master's degree in history Connecticut, and was later an assist­ at the University of Wisconsin in the ant at the University of Wisconsin. summer of 1953. His thesis subject Mr. Nadler began service in the sum­ was "Abandoned Railroads in Wis­ mer of 1953, attended master gunner consin." His interest in railroads be­ school, and has been put in charge of gan at an early age, and it was natu­ service schools and information and ral for his hobby to develop into his education for the 26th AAA Group, field of study. In 1951-52 he was a at Fort Lawton, Washington. NIPO T. STRONGHEART, LOS Angeles, Indians for service during World was born on the Yakima Indian Res­ War I, and after the war lectured for ervation, Washington, May 15, 1891. Lyceum and Chautauqua circuits. He was educated at a reservation Strongheart founded the Inter-Amer­ school and at Carlisle Indian School. icana Research Institute and the Am­ When the Lubin Film Company pro­ erican Indian Arts Academy. Through duced "The White Chief" at Carlisle, these agencies, and as technical ad­ with Indians participating, Strong- visor to movie producers, he has pro­ heart was asked to become interpreter vided authoritative research on and technical advisor. He recruited the American Indians. Though a native of Iowa, FAY BRAA­ their vacation following the Big Top THEN has long been a resident of along the Sawdust Trail. Their hobby Madison. A graduate of the Univer­ has led to speech-making and the sity of Wisconsin, she taught school showing of color slides which Mr. for several years and then married Braathen takes from time to time. Attorney Sverre 0. Braathen, a cir­ When the circus museum at White cus fan. She has since become a dyed- Tops looks its shining best, Mrs. Braa­ in-the-wool collector of circusiana. then takes over another fascinating Every summer the Braathens spend hobby: her flower garden. DR. JOHN GUY FOWLKES, a Missouri- dena, Fort Worth, and other cities. an, joined the staff of the University Among his contributions to his field of Wisconsin in 1922 and since 1947 are several textbooks, a group of has been Dean of the School of Edu­ charts entitled "Democracy at Work," cation and Director of the Summer and numerous bulletins of the Bureau Session. He has been a member of of Educational Research. Dr. Fowlkes the Mississippi and Virginia State recently left the University for India Educational Survey staffs, and direc­ to serve as advisor to the Ministry of tor of surveys at Kansas City, Pasa­ Education for a two-year period. Along the Pecatonica and over the hills to the mine fields, twenty-six miles of railroad track brought prosperity to Iowa County. Although trains and tracks are gone from the landscape, enjoy this story of a railroad dream-come-true. iSM The Old St. Paul Railroad Station at Mineral Point in 1898. The Offices of the Mineral Point & Northern Railroad Were Opened on the Second Floor When Its Road Construction Was Begun. The History of the Mineral Point and Northern Railway Company (Part I) bif Paul $. Nadler The abandonment of a railroad is a common Then the railroad wins permission to aban­ procedure: first there is the slow decay of the don, and the last train is run. The track is equipment of the line, and the daily or thrice- removed, the bridges torn down, and the sta­ weekly train carries less and less cars until tions razed or converted into homes and barns. there are just the locomotive, tender, combina­ All that remains is the right of way, growing tion baggage-passenger car, and sometimes, new wild grasses and brush, for even Nature but not always, a box car. helps to eradicate the memory. Then the owners of the railroad ask for per­ But there is a memory. There were reasons mission to abandon operations, and a hearing why the line was built, and there were build­ is held. The railroad has its last day of glory, ers and planners who never thought that this as people who seldom or never patronized the would be the end of their dreams. The rail­ line tell the officials how important it is to the road influenced the lives of the people it community. Some really expect to use the served, and the people affected the railroad. service again, sometime; some use it now to a The history of an abandoned railroad is the slight extent and dislike the idea of the expense story of social and economic change. It is its abandonment will cost them. Others come also the story of the dreams and acts of men and complain simply because they dislike to and communities to whom this now neglected see the change. Maybe the railroad reminds strip of land had once represented ''the enter­ them of the past and better days. ing upon a new era^ Before the Civil War, Mineral Point had been principal product.^ Mining never completely the center of the Iowa County mining and died, for during the Civil War zinc deposits smelting district. The city had developed with had been discovered in the area, and these the successful exploitation of the lead ore of were worked for the next thirty years.^ In the southwest Wisconsin. By 1862, however, this latter half of the nineteeenth century small ill- ore supply had been exhausted, and Mineral ^Workers of the Writers' Program of the Works Point and the surrounding area became agri­ Projects Administration in the State of Wisconsin, "Mineral Point Guide Book" (Unpublished, 1941), cultural districts, with dairy cattle as the 227. nUd., 228. WISCONSIN MAGAZINE OF HISTORY AUTUMN, 1954 equipped mines, lacking pumps and steam laundry, a creamery, and a paper and pulp powered engines, usually earned enough to mill."^ It was symbolic of the fever that struck sustain the two or three partners operating the community that a paper and pulp mill the mine, and little more.-^ was built in an area with a scarcity of timber. A change took place in 1882, however, when The boom ended with the Panic of 1893, and local people invested $35,000 in the Mineral these new enterprises were forced to contract Point Zinc Company.