The Midwest Region

Patterns of human settlement follow certain rules. To exist humans need food, water, and a source of income. These must be found in their environments. The Midwest has attracted people for a long time. Where these people settled have been greatly determined by the physical geography of the region and the ability for the people to obtain food, water and wealth. The Midwest has seen four major, and different, phases of settlement throughout history. First the native peoples, second the French traders, third the early American settlers, and finally the growth of industry. The communities in each of these phases looked for different things from the land. Be it natural resources or the access of water ways, humans have found what they need

They had hoped that the vast St. Lawrence-Great Lakes waterway was part of a Northwest Passage to the wealth of the Orient. But to their dismay, it wasn't. France then envisioned an empire linking the St. Lawrence with the Mississippi and the Atlantic Ocean with the Gulf of Mexico. To achieve this goal, the French built forts and missionaries along their surest way of travel, rivers and lakes. By the middle of the eighteenth century, settled populations were beginning to take hold at Detroit and Green Bay and in what was called the Illinois country (<a href="http://lcweb2.loc.gov">http://lcweb2.loc.gov</a>).

The great currency of the French empire in North America was, however, the fur trade. Canoes were used to float the furs down a series of waterways from the area around the Great Lakes, up the Ottawa River to Montreal (<a href="http://lcweb2.loc.gov">http://lcweb2.loc.gov</a>). The focus of settlement had shifted from hunting and fishing land, to commercial waterways. The ability, and easy, to transport goods out of the Midwest will continue to draw people to the area for the next two hundred and fifty years.

American Farmers and

The area surrounding Lake Superior was rich in metals, especially iron and copper. Southwestern Wisconsin had lead deposits that were important to the early development of that state (<a href="http://lcweb2.loc.gov">http://lcweb2.loc.gov</a>). Another factor was timber. In 1865, Michigan leads all the states in timber production. By 1890, Minneapolis was the premier lumber market in the world. However it is not until the raise of railroads and manufacturing that the Midwest sees expansion.

By 1890, the Midwest was firmly integrated into the national economy. A fully developed railroad system moved the region's products east through Chicago to New York. With the railroad brought heavy industry. The growth of the auto industry is a dramatic case in point. Michigan has become a center for the manufacture of various products, wagons, stoves, furniture, and, particularly, of gasoline engines (<a