Good morning, Whitewater
There are no public meetings scheduled for the city today.
The National Weather Service predicts that today will be sunny with a high of 42 degrees. The Farmers’ Almanac continues a Thanksgiving series predicting continued “fair and cold” weather. Similar predictions.
Yesterday’s better prediction: About even. It was clear last evening, a beautiful, dark sky.
In Wisconsin history today, as the Wisconsin Historical Society reports it, a sensible decision if ever there were one — Legislature Assembled in Madison for the First Time —
1838 –
On this date, after moving from the temporary capital in Burlington, Iowa, the Wisconsin Territorial Legislature assembled in Madison for the first time. Two years earlier, when the territorial legislature had met for the first time in Belmont, many cities were mentioned as possibilities for the permanent capital — Cassville, Fond du Lac, Milwaukee, Platteville, Mineral Point, Racine, Belmont, Koshkonong, Wisconsinapolis, Peru, and Wisconsin City. Madison won the vote, and funds were authorized to erect a suitable building in which lawmakers would conduct the people’s business. Progress went so slowly, however, that some lawmakers wanted to relocate the seat of government to Milwaukee, where they also thought they would find better accomodations than in the wilds of Dane Co. When the legislature finally met in Madison in November 1838 there was only an outside shell to the new Capitol. The interior was not completed until 1845, more than six years after it was supposed to be finished. On November 26, 1838, Governor Henry Dodge delivered his first speech in the new seat of government.
Now, not everything in Madison is perfect. We may be grateful tomorrow, though, on Thanksgiving, that we are not governed from Burlington, Cassville, or Koshkonong.