Axel Lorenzsonn - Steam & Cinders: The Advent of Railroads in Wisconsin

History and story are the same word differently written.
Moses M. Strong

We are more eager to have railroads than we are to get to heaven.
Anonymous Wisconsin pioneer

I have long loved history. My childhood summers were spent at the beach lying on a damp towel and reading books about Revolutionary War heroes, frontiersmen, and Native Americans. In college I was taken by Juliette McGill Kinzie's Wau-bun: The Early Day in the Northwest, her account of living in Wisconsin in the 1830s. And for the last ten years I have been collecting stories of Wisconsin's early railroads.

Why railroads? The train bug bit me a number of years ago while I was shopping for a toy train for my son. I then became curious about the origin of railroads in Madison, where I live. A trip to the Wisconsin Historical Society Library revealed to me that the first train to arrive in Madison came from Milwaukee on May 23, 1854. It had two locomotives, thirty-two cars, and one thousand passengers and was met at the depot by some two thousand Dane County residents, most of whom had never seen a train before. At the Madison Public Library in the 1858 city directory I found advertisements for railroads with fascinating names such as the Milwaukee and Mississippi, the La Crosse and Milwaukee, and the Chicago, St. Paul and Fond du Lac. I was hooked.

When I first began collecting early Wisconsin railroad stories, I found that they were few and scattered. Pictures and photographs are rare. There are several summaries of early railroad development in local Wisconsin histories, but no book exists on the topic. With the encouragement of family and friends, I decided to try to write such a book. The result is Steam & Cinders, the story of the first thirty years of railroads in Wisconsin.

I would like to thank the people who helped make this book possible, although I regret I cannot name them all. I thank my wife, Nandini, my daughter, Faye, and my son, Erik, for being supportive and for reviewing sections of the manuscript. Thanks to my parents, Edgar and Vila Lorenzsonn, for insisting that I was a railroad historian and giving me confidence. Thanks to my mother-in-law, Josephine Sarkar, for giving me a copy of Stephen Ambrose's Nothing Like It in the World, which became the model for this book. Thank you to Dr. Stephen Weiler for helping me keep my focus. Thank you to the Madison Public Library's Sue Koehler, a now-retired librarian who helped me find and use reference guides; to the staff at the Wisconsin Historical Society Archives for helping me locate maps and other materials; to the volunteers in the society's microfilm room for their assistance and good cheer; to freelance editor John Toren for reading the manuscript thoroughly and offering many valuable suggestions; and to Wisconsin Historical Society Press editors Kate Thompson and Sara Phillips for their editing, guidance, and support. Thanks to all of the folks at the local historical societies for digging for those elusive preCivil War railroad itemsI was touched by their attention and courtesy. And finally, a special thank you to former Wisconsin Historical Society Press editor J. Kent Calder for giving me encouragement, direction, and so much of his time.