In 1776 the land west of the Mississippi belonged to Spain. Between 1776 and 1786, parts of the North American Continent that later became Minnesota, Wisconsin, Michigan, Indiana, Ohio,and Kentucky were at first claimed the states of New York, Virginia, Massachusetts and Connecticut(which claimed the area of Cleavland Ohio all the way up to 1800).

In 1784, Jefferson proposed that the area be divided into ten parts. If that had come to pass then Chicago would have been in Assenisipia, and I would be in Michigania. In 1787 this area became the Northwest Territory and the area West of the Mississippi belonged to France. Kentucky was carved out in 1792 and Ohio in 1803.

In 1803, the United States bought the French out and the Louisiana Purchase became the Missouri Territory in 1819.

The area of the Northwest Territory minus Ohio and Kentucky, became the Indiana Territory in 1800, with some native American lands included in around 1803.

Michigan Territory became the lower Michigan area in 1805, The Illinois Territory had Illinois, Wisconsin and Eastern Minnesota, and Indiana Territory had Indiana and for a few years Upper Michigan.

Indiana (1816),Illinois (1818),and Missouri (1821), became states and Michigan Territory ballooned out to include Wisconsin and Eastern Minnesota in 1818 and Iowa, Western Minnesota and lands east of the Missouri River in 1834.

In 1837 Michigan became a state including Northern Michigan,(and had given up its claim to Toledo) and the remaining territory was now the Wisconsin Territory. Between 1843 and 1846 as Wisconsin sought statehood the Upper Peninsula was claimed by Wisconsin and it took the Federal Government to settle that dispute along with several different configurations of the Wisconsin boundary on the north west part of the state. Even Stephen Douglas (of the later Lincoln Douglas Debates)had a finger in that mess.