Merge Counties?

September 21, 1967, Oshkosh Daily Northwestern

 

A trip back in the ol' time machine to 48 years ago today brings us to this editorial on the front page of the Northwestern, decrying the then-recent idea to merge Outagamie, Winnebago, and Calumet Counties into one.  It was an idea thought up by the editor of the Appleton Post-Crescent and then run with by Appleton Assemblyman Harold Froehlich.  The proposal even included moving the county seat to the Town of Menasha, more or less in the center of the area. 

 

But within a month or so, the idea fell by the wayside and little more of it was heard again.  For the time, it brought some heated discussions within the valley and between the main competing newspapers, especially when Oshkosh was left off the map for this idea, hence the caption above.  (It references Winneconne having been left off the state map earlier that year; remember that?!)