It accepted Congress’ original offer and became a state in 1837. It had spent a lot of money paying the militia to patrol the Michigan-Ohio border. Treasury, and that every state could have a cut. That changed in late 1836, Myers said, when Congress determined it had a federal surplus in the U.S. The Upper Peninsula doesn’t have anything but ice and rock and trees. "They said, 'No, we want the Toledo Strip. Ideally, Congress hoped the UP compromise would make Michigan happy, too. It was a presidential election, and so he needed Ohio to be happy," he said. "President (Andrew) Jackson needed Ohio’s electoral votes. Michigan’s status as a territory meant it didn’t have as much power as Ohio, which had already become a state. Robert Myers, director of education for the Historical Society of Michigan, said it came down to power politics. The compromise would give it statehood if it took the western portion, as well. At the time, Michigan territory included part of the eastern portion of the UP. In return, it would get all of the Upper Peninsula. They fought over the land until Congress stepped in and proposed a compromise: Michigan could become a state if it gave this strip of land up to Ohio. Modern-day Toledo, OH and the mouth of the Maumee River are shown as part of this territory. This 1838 map shows Michigan Territory before it became a state. Unfortunately, some of the boundaries weren’t well-defined, causing the state of Ohio and the territory of Michigan to fight over a less than 500-square-mile piece of land called the Toledo Strip that encompassed modern-day Toledo and Maumee Bay on Lake Erie. Areas became territories, and territories started to become states. In the late eighteenth century, the United States acquired the land that would later become Illinois, Indiana, Michigan, Ohio and Wisconsin, and adopted the Northwest Ordinance of 1787, laying out how new states could be admitted into the Union. And does a state’s identity rely on its physical connection? How DID The UP Become Michigan’s? The bigger question might be whether the UP and Wisconsin should have been joined. Digging into the technicalities of how this chunk of land joined Michigan rather than Wisconsin shows the former state’s claim over it had more to do with timing than anything else. It's also WHYsconsin’s most-asked question.īut this isn’t a story about a bloody battle where Michigan reigned supreme. With Wisconsin, it shares more than 200 miles of border. What’s the deal? Geographically, the UP is only connected to the Lower Peninsula by a bridge. The Twitter account has since changed its description a number of times, from the "Upper Peninsula of □♀️" to the "Upper Peninsula of America." Intriguing, and perhaps the tip of an iceberg of discontent between the UP and its mitten counterpart. The account even changed its name to the "Upper Peninsula of Wisconsin." "It’s official, I belong to Wisconsin now," the Tweet read, after rattling off the scores. Michiganders likely weren’t too happy when the Wisconsin Badgers beat several of its football teams last year its Upper Peninsula, however, took it in stride - at least it’s unofficial Twitter account did.
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