Hygeia Spring pipeline protest, Waukesha, Wisconsin, 1893. This week we’re looking at Wisconsin’s connections to the Chicago World’s Fair in 1893. Controversy brewed when entrepreneur James McElroy made plans to build a pipeline to bring in spring water from Waukesha, a distance of more than 100 miles, and sell it to fair-goers. Waukesha prided itself on the healing properties of its natural springs, and local residents feared that the pipeline to the World’s Fair would deplete supplies and hurt the local economy. In April 1893, more than 700 anti-pipeline protesters boarded this train to Madison to petition the governor to stop the pipeline. They were successful, but McElroy bought land at another spring site south of Waukesha and built a pipeline to the Fair after all. via: Waukesha County History 1870-1920, Waukesha County Historical Society read more: David Paul McDaniel, “Spring City and the Water War of 1892,” Wisconsin Magazine of History 89:1 (2005)
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Hygeia Spring pipeline protest, Waukesha, Wisconsin, 1893.

This week we’re looking at Wisconsin’s connections to the Chicago World’s Fair in 1893. Controversy brewed when entrepreneur James McElroy made plans to build a pipeline to bring in spring water from Waukesha, a distance of more than 100 miles, and sell it to fair-goers. Waukesha prided itself on the healing properties of its natural springs, and local residents feared that the pipeline to the World’s Fair would deplete supplies and hurt the local economy.

In April 1893, more than 700 anti-pipeline protesters boarded this train to Madison to petition the governor to stop the pipeline. They were successful, but McElroy bought land at another spring site south of Waukesha and built a pipeline to the Fair after all.

via: Waukesha County History 1870-1920, Waukesha County Historical Society

read more: David Paul McDaniel, “Spring City and the Water War of 1892,” Wisconsin Magazine of History 89:1 (2005)

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    be both historically interesting and somewhat ironic, because modern Waukesha is now...the...
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