Transcripts For CSPAN3 James Turner The Origins Of Lansing

Lansings beginning. Established the 1836. In about they designated detroit is the capital, but they were fearful that detroit could be easily attacked from lake erie, and that they should move the capital inland. They could not decide where. They put in the constitution the first session of the legislature of 1848 should be held in the new capital, which should be inland. They had 10 years to decide. They waited until they had 10 months left. Every little town in the whole state wanted it to be by them because that would mean a big boom for their community. Votingy kept voting and and nobody could decide. Finally, the people who were , anding about this area putting up a dam in a mill, they decided they would try to attract the legislature to this area. James turner was one of those who lead that i would say the argument, the persuasion of the lobby. It was james seymour, his friend, who made a map, put a look, if we said put it here, it will be this many miles and they showed all the numbers of miles past the legislature. Quite surprised because theyd been voting 70 times. They never thought that would be the last time, but it was. They decided on lansing. James server james turner was from cazenovia in western new york. Working at at store in jackson. Here, they said lots of people came here to the spot which was nothing, so they had to figure out ways to where they could have sleep, where they could eat. The first thing he did was chop down all the trees. They were going through about of a dozenur boxes axes each day to get rid of all the wood. That left a bunch of stumps and marshy, watery ground. It was not really dont get the idea that it was a great if you then lived in the county. They were extremely excited about having the capital come and be here. When they heard it was going to be here in the woods, they would sleds, with their horses and watch the capital come in. Once they cut down a tree that was hundreds of feet long, huge tree, they pulled it all the way up to the capital and started cheering and yelling and having a party over the fact that it was cleaner. They built a hotel, james seymour, which was where the legislators could live. They would have to walk a mile from the capital down. There were 66 members of the house of representatives and 22 in the senate. And all of their flock of lobbyists that came with them. White frame two story capital there which became the meetinghouse, and the library and everything else. This community did not have anything. That was the first building. It was a number of years later before the capital that we see today was built. The first meeting of the legislator legislature and their new building was in january of 1848. Wasr order of business plank roads, developing charters which were given out to private groups within the city. There was no department of transportation in those days. If your town wanted a road, you had to figure out a way to get it. They were issuing charters to build plank roads. After a while, the city of Lansing Charter and james turner became the organizer of that plank road. The plank roads were amazing. You can never build one now because it took so much would. It took so much wood they had everybody working on it. Farmers who had land close to the road, Business People came out and worked on it. It was a major enterprise. When it was finally built, they had a party on the back plank road. At the beginning, the people who andere had invested so forth. We were constantly afraid that the legislature would get fed up with the inconveniences of having the d middle of a forest. Having the capital in the middle of a forest. It was not until the 1860s when the decided to have permanent state capital where they really at ease about the announcer artur step recently living visited michigan, and to watch more about other stops on our tour, visit cities to her at cspan org. You are walking watching American History tv all weekend every weekend on cspan3. Next on lectures in history, Tulane University Professor John ray proctor teaches a class about August Wilson, his contribution to africanamerican theater, and his Pulitzer Prize winning play fences. Prof. Proctor today, we will look at August Wilsons fences. We will begin with a very brief discussion about who and what August Wilson was, his goal as a playwright. I am going to repeat some stuff you have heard before from our in class presentat