INDUSTRY OF COUNTIES. 
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well as tlie plow. Encouragements to tlie investment of capital in sucli 
enterprises are now held out, extensive establishments are contemplated, 
and these at an early day will make of Prairie du Chien one of the most 
prosperous and growing towns in the state. That place, aside from its 
natural beauty and historical associations, has every advantage which could 
come from almost unequaled facilities for shipments in all directions, from 
proximity to heavy bodies of fine timber, from railroad connections with the 
Iowa coal fields which will soon be completed; and these causes combined 
with others will result in this place becoming one of our principal manufac¬ 
turing towns. There is no better location in the state for manufactories of 
all kinds; and all would find customers for their wares near at home. 
In the line of public improvements, are excellent roads and good school 
houses, so numerous that every child enjoys the privilege of a good com¬ 
mon school education. 
An elegant court house and jail was erected at Prairie du Chien in 1869 
at a cost of 25,000 dollars. 
The Milwaukee and St. Paul railway extends along the southern line of 
the county for a distance of twenty miles. Bridgeport is one of the princi¬ 
pal shipping points on the road for grain and live stock, while at Prairie 
du Chien the company have one of the largest freight depots in the state, 
a grain elevator with a capacity of 250,000 bushels, and from which 275 
cars have been loaded with wheat in a single day. The company have 
here large car works, a good passenger depot, and near this one of the 
finest hotels in the West. The business of the company has increased so 
rapidly under its excellent management, that it has been compelled to 
erect a temporary bridge over the Mississippi for the transfer of trains 
during the winter, while in the season of navigation, in 1870, three steamers 
were constantly engaged in the transfer of cars from one shore to the other. 
Second to no other enterprise affecting the welfare of this county, is the 
scheme for the improvement of the Fox and Wisconsin rivers, over which 
Marquette and his little company sailed nearly two hundred years ago on a 
voyage in search of the “ Father of Rivers,” and whose success was a 
prophecy of this future Erie canal of the west. Cheaper transportation for 
western produce to the seaboard has become a necessity, and while the 
completion of the work will add millions to the wealth of the west, it will 
make within the limits of this county a city which shall bear to another up¬ 
on the lakes, the same relations that Buffalo does to New York. That city 
will be Prairie du Chien. With the dawning of that day will come to Craw¬ 
ford county an increase in wealth, population and the value of its lands of 
which her people have hardly dreamed as yet. 
The commerce of the county at this time has an extent and importance 
which few would imagine who have not examined the figures which show 
it; and this is not conducted by rail alone, but three organized lines of ele¬ 
gant steamers touch at our river towns, and do not only a large freight but 
passenger business also. 
