Editing Independence, Wisconsin (section)

==History==
Unless otherwise noted, the history below is taken from a local historical album published for the city's centennial in 1976.{{sfn|Gamroth|1976}}

Independence is in the Town of Burnside, which corresponds with one of the [[Township (U.S.)|townships]] created under the [[Land Ordinance of 1785]]. Shortly after the naming of Burnside in 1863, settlers from Europe and the Eastern United States began arriving in significant numbers.
[[File:Independence, Wisconsin (1900).jpg|thumb|left|Looking east on Washington Street, 1900]]

The city of Independence owes its existence to a railroad and a man named David M. Kelly. Running almost parallel to the Trempealeau River is the [[Green Bay and Western Railroad]], which is part of a line originally intended to run from [[Green Bay, Wisconsin]] to [[Wabasha, Minnesota]]. Kelly was an enthusiastic promoter of building a depot for the new line in Burnside.

After much disagreement and dispute over its location, Green Bay and Lake Pepin (as the company was then known) agreed to build a depot if $5,000 could be raised by the residents to finance construction. The money was raised, and Kelly bought the land for the depot in 1876. He founded a village on the land and named it Independence in honor of the nation's centennial of independence. The village was incorporated in 1885 and became a city in 1942.

Independence has outlived the depot that was once at its heart. The line began at Green Bay but eventually reached [[Winona, Minnesota]] instead of Wabasha. Passenger service was never very profitable. Under the inexorable pressure of the automobile, passenger service ended in 1949, but freight trains still use the line today.