Good morning, Whitewater
There are no municipal public meetings scheduled for today — you have an unobstructed path to the weekend.
The Wisconsin Historical Society reports that on this date in 1832, Wisconsin had what might be its first public housing project, so to speak —
On this date General Henry Atkinson wrote General Winfield Scott that he had finished constructing Fort Koshkonong. The fort, constructed of oak logs, was abandoned when the army pursued and defeated Black Hawk at the Battle of Bad Axe in August of 1832. The logs from the fort were then used in the construction of houses in the community now known as Fort Atkinson. By 1840, little of the original fort remained. [Source: History Just Ahead: A Guide to Wisconsin’s Historical Markers edited by Sarah Davis McBride, p. 107]
Here’s a picture of a replica of that fort —
I don’t know if homeowners had to pay for the logs, or if war produced a benefit to some homeowners, perhaps over others — I’ve no idea how the logs were distributed. They were, I’d guess, the homes that Black Hawk built, at least indirectly.
Friedman famously said that war was a friend of the state, and he might have added a friend of those who were friends of the state, too.
Here’s the man who made the log distribution from an abandoned fort necessary possible —
