The What If Game

June 28, 1935, Oshkosh Northwestern

We've played the "what if" game here before, wondering how Menasha's fortunes would have changed if consolidation had occurred, or if Broad Street had become the city's downtown area, etc.  So it's no wonder that this speaker threw his own take on the game into his presentation, as evidenced by the last paragraph of the above article.  If any one of those names of prominent Menasha residents had failed to make the trek from their comfortable homes "back East"  to the wilds of northeastern Wisconsin, who knows what might have transpired.  Oh sure, some other settler would probably have stepped up and become the new Curtis Reed or Elisha Smith.  But perhaps a less forceful personality would not have fought for the canal rights that helped keep Menasha independent of Neenah and consolidation might have become a sure thing.  Menasha might have become a footnote, having been subsumed under the Neenah government.  We definitely might have become the county seat, to our own detriment.  You can drive yourself crazy with the possibilities, or run with them, as some alternate historical fiction writers have done- for example, if the South had won the Civil War, which is a popular topic.  I'd like to see some local writer's take of an alternate history if the two cities had combined and what that might have led to.  Hmm, now there's an idea.  I'm not much of a fiction writer but maybe...just to amuse myself when I retire....