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Old Posted Dec 2, 2011, 10:30 PM
hudkina hudkina is offline
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Join Date: Nov 2003
Posts: 7,445
I would like to see cities that were boomtowns in the 19th century that sort of busted by the 20th century.

One example is Wheeling, West Virginia. Back in the mid 19th century it was basically a Top 50 city, and one of the largest cities west of the Appalachians. Despite having a population of only about 30,000 today, it has a massive collection of early and late 19th century architecure. It also has a huge downtown for a city of its current status. The only problem is that Wheeling doesn't have anywhere to expand.

Another example is the city of Calumet, Michigan. Today the city has a population of just 798! However, the downtown is comparable to cities in the 10,000 to 50,000 range. The city peaked with well over 5,000 people in the early 1900's (the larger Calumet Township had nearly 30,000 at its peak). The region declined in the early 1900's when the copper mining industry went under and many of the residents moved down to Detroit to work in the auto factories. The Houghton-Hancock area (~15,000 people) to the south is now the dominant economic center in the area, but the size of downtown Calumet rivals any other downtown in Michigan's UP. I would love to see a city population to match the downtown. (10,000+)

Another example is Madison, Indiana It was one of the earliest major cities of Indiana and reached a population of well over 10,000 by the time of the Civil War. Cincinnati and Louisville basically sucked all the growth out of Madison. It would have been nice to see a third major metropolitan area along that stretch of the Ohio River.
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