Paxson—Early Railways of the Old Northwest. 
259 
west been built only where they were needed they might well 
have been too few to hold in the trying, days of the early six¬ 
ties. 
The Illinois Central is only the most striking of the north¬ 
west roads appearing on the maps after 1853. Less was anti¬ 
cipated from it than from other roads of shorter mileage. 
the least savory of all the projects in what was not a squeamish 
decade. Taken together, the Detroit and Milwaukee, and the 
La Crosse and Milwaukee, as the roads were named, were ex¬ 
pected to afford a short and popular route to Wisconsin and the 
new state of Minnesota. Both were done by the end of 1858. 
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