The Time Wisconsin Tried To Steal The Upper Peninsula

The ties between the Upper Peninsula and Wisconsin have always been close, and once The Badger State made a part of the U.P. an offer to come on over.

The Wisconsin State Legislature Made An Offer In 1921

In late January 1921, the Wisconsin Sate Legislature made a joint resolution proposing to ask all 15 counties in Michigan's Upper Peninsula to shift their statehood west.

An article published on January 29, 1921 by the Escanaba Morning Press highlighted the offer, saying that the bill, proposed by Assemblyman Martin Higgins of Milwaukee, which stated the Upper Peninsula, "because of natural obstacles (the Straits of Mackinac) is closer (to the seat of government) of Wisconsin than to the seat of government in Michigan at Lansing."

The Movement To Annex Upper Michigan Was Because Of A Land Dispute

The 1921 move to annex Upper Michigan came as the result of a long standing land dispute between the two states regarding a narrow strip of land near Hurley, Wisconsin in Iron County.

The Michigan legislature had failed to settle the dispute, and so the Wisconsin lawmakers saw it as their chance to ask the Upper Peninsula to join them.

The effort by lawmakers in Madison, Wisconsin to snatch the U.P. never got passed, probably due to early movements by some Yoopers to from their own state, which would be called 'Superior'.

The Upper Peninsula's chance to seize that opportunity was squished a few years earlier when the copper mining industry reached its peak and slowly died off, killing the main economic driver for the region.