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Loading... The Milwaukee Road: Its First Hundred Years (1948)| 27 | 1 | 907,443 | 
(4) | 5 | From its incorporation in 1847 in Wisconsin Territory to its first run in 1851--twenty miles between Milwaukee and Waukesha--to its later position of far-flung power, the Chicago, Milwaukee, St. Paul &Pacific Railroad Company had a vivid history. By 1948, the Milwaukee Road had more than 40,000 employees and maintained more than 10,000 miles of line in twelve states from Indiana to Washington. Also in 1948, August Derleth's popular and well-crafted corporate history celebrated the strength and status of this mighty carrier. On February 19, 1985, the railroad became a subsidiary of Soo Line Corporation and its identity vanished overnight. Nonetheless, it remains a romantic memory, and Derleth's book remains the only complete history of this innovative and dynamic railroad.… (more) |
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| Epigraph |
The smoothest roadbed I have ever known on an American railroad is the velvet line of the Milwaukee into Chicago.
John Gunther, Inside U.S.A.  (Chapter I)
Not far out of Portage, I came to Dead Man's Cut on the Milwaukee Road's line, and, nearby, a little place enclosed by a white picket fence. I wheeled over to it and discovered there a lonely grave, over which towered two ancient oaks, and I recognized it for the grave of a trackworker killed during the building of the road in 1858. This isolated grave was the subject of Alfred Burrett's poem, "The Grave of a Section Hand":
They laid him away on the brow of the hill,
Outside of the right-of-way,
And the old boss whispered: "Peace, be still
Till the call on the Final Day."
They had placed him where he had wished to lie
When his turn would come, he said;
Where he'd list to the wires' mournful sigh,
To the foreman's "Joint ahead!"
For many a year he had paced the beat;
He had pumped o'er every tie;
And now from his narrow, last retreat,
He could feel the freights roll by;
For from his rest, 'neath the willow's shade,
His spirit would guard the track;
He would know when the engine struck the grade,
Hear the call, "Center back!"
The "willow" had somehow become oaks, but the grave was unchanged, cared for still by the section crews of the Milwaukee.
--STEPHEN GRENDON
Through Wisconsin on a Bicycle (Chapter II)
The old-timer was voluble, remembering the early days of the Milwaukee.
"Swamps and bogs, that's all there was," he said appreciatively. "Why, when we put in that line between New Lisbon and Star Lake -- between Milwaukee and La Crosse, too, if it comes to that, and other places -- we had to cross one swamp after another. Soft and tricky land, too. We couldn't place ordinary filling material, no sir, not unless we put in something to spread out the load over a larger bearing area. But we did it, and this is how we did it -- we cut long trees, hauled 'em out on the ice, and put 'em down at right angles to the track, close together and on top of each other to make a kind of mat. Then we put earth, sand and gravel on top of that, and it got pressed down and down into the swamp until it hit a firm foundation. Then we put on more earth and sand and gravel and then the ties and the rails.
"Now they tell me the Milwaukee dumped car bodies along a riverbank out on the Kansas City Division, and the Iowa and Dakota, wired 'em together to keep the flood waters down and hold the sand in to keep the bank the way it should be. But back in the fifties, we did it the hard way, we didn't have any car bodies to sink, we had to do it with trees -- we had plenty of them."
--STEPHEN GRENDON
Through Wisconsin on a Bicycle (Chapter III)
The engines in service in the sixties were all wood-burners, and to supply the wood necessary for fuel, wood yards were located at Pewaukee, Oconomowoc, Watertown, Columbus, Portage, Kilbourn, New Lisbon, Tomah, Sparta, and North La Crosse. The wood was cut in 4-foot lengths and was sawed in three pieces by a saw operated by a treadmill, on which horses furnished the power.
The right of way was practically all corded with timber, and fires were frequent and destructive. In 1866, 1700 cords of wood were burned two and a half miles east of LeRoy, now called Oakdale. At this fire the wood train and 40 laborers came to the assistance of the men fighting the flames, the wood ranks were separated and the ends of ranks covered with sand, furnishing protection against the flaming embers and intense heat, and saving the greater portion of the stock piles.
The engine hauling the wood train had a peculiar-sounding whistle, by which it was instantly recognized when heard in the distance, and in the event the whistle was sounded after the working hours, it was assumed to be a distress-signal, and trackmen immediately reported to their car houses ready for duty without waiting to be notified by special messenger, because when derailments occurred the task of re-railing the cars was largely a matter of physical strength, with the assistance of a system of leverage, in which the chains and tamarack poles were utilized in lifting and shifting the car trucks and bodies until the equipment was back on the rail.
--H. F. BUFFMIRE (Chapter IV)
I remember that tea was then $2.00 a pound. That was in 1872 or thereabouts. A price like that was pretty high and Col. W. H. Hamilton never allowed a chest of tea to remain in a way car over night, for fear someone would steal it. On several different occasions he got up in the middle of the night in violent wind and rain-storms to set the brakes on every box car in the yard, so that they would not run out on the main track. Col. Hamilton was very conscientious; he probably worried more about the business of the Milwaukee than he did about himself or his own affairs. The only thing about him -- he was a "paper-mill operator," and he wouldn't discard the mill no matter how often I told him I could read by sound; so I had to use the contrivance for some time.
--C. J. CAWLEY (Chapter V)
When General Manager S. S. Merrill was on a train, he invariably told the conductor, "Pay no attention to me. I want the same treatment as the other passengers." Near Libertyville Junction (now Roundout), during the construction of the Libertyville branch, a large number of cross ties were piled. Mr. Merrill took a short walk to inspect these ties during a station stop of the train. Its work done, off went the train. About a mile east of Libertyville, the conductor on his round found he had lost the Manager. He gave a stop signal to the engineer, Al Fuller (who always had to be shown), and said, "Al, we'd better back up to Libertyville." "What for?" asked Al. "To get the Old Man." "Where is he?" asked Al. "I think at Libertyville," said the conductor.
After overcoming Al's remonstrance, the conductor had his way, and the train backed up. The curious passengers pushed their heads out of the windows, looking for the reason of their reversed movement. The reason was soon in sight, looking like a thundercloud on the station platform. The Old Man made a big noise, greatly to the delectation of the passengers and the consternation of the crew. Only the presence of ladies in the chair car prevented Mr. Merrill's forceful comments "on a conductor who didn't know better than to leave me." He said, however, that "it's the last time I'll ever be left." That, however, was in error; years later he was left at Lakefield, on the Southern Minnesota. That time the train went thirty miles before the Old Man was missed!
--The Milwaukee Magazine (Chapter VI)
The river floods have always been a great drawback at North McGregor. I remember the flood of 1896. It came on May 25th, late in the evening, and, shortly before midnight, I heard William Keen, engine dispatcher, shouting with all his might that the eating-house with everything around it was going out. I ran down to the eating-house. Water was all around it, and cries for help were heard everywhere. Engineer J. Straye, Mr. Krohn, the bridge carpenter, and I went up the track and found the water running through the creek at a sixty-mile rate and raised fifteen feet. The cars were afloat.
We tried to get to the round-house, but found the tracks all washed out and cabooses, wooden bridges, box cars, refrigerators, barns and houses piled in a mass all over the tracks. I remember an old hen with a brood of ten chicks, who sat in the hay at the top of a barn, as unconcerned and contented as possible. We got to the round-house about four A.M., walking along the bluffs; the office, store-room, oil-house, sand-house, top of turntable and water take had disappeared and no trace of them was ever found.
The next day we received car lots of material from Milwaukee. All the roadmasters were on the ground, and ten machinists were sent for. We had fourteen engines to jack up on blocks, take down driving boxes, remove sand and mud, draw pistons to blow mud off of steam chests and cylinders, take down air equipment and clean, bore the flues out where the water had been up to the center plates -- and we had all those engines ready in seventeen days. It was six weeks before we could run a train on the Iowa and Dakota Division.
--FRANK B. VEIT (Chapter VII)
In Milwaukee, I discovered that the Milwaukee Road had tracks which appeared on no printed schedule. Like the "gas track" -- where cars whose tanks needed filling by Pintsch gas, for lighting, were put; or the "rosary track", likewise unique, another Milwaukee track named because the cars had to be put there one at a time in correct order.
But perhaps the Milwaukee's most famous "unknown" tracks were those of the "Beer Line", which serves three of the largest breweries in the nation. Its billing station is the Chestnut Street Station at the terminus, and it is located only four blocks from the heart of downtown Milwaukee. Though something like 150 industries are served by the Beer Line -- including coal, lumber, paper, electrical, hospital, bedding supplies, foundries, tanneries, manufacturers of boxes, chocolate, ice, shoes, furniture, batteries, automobile parts, and many other article, [sic] it is known no less as the Beer Line because of the great breweries it serves. Though the end of the line is but six blocks from the Milwaukee's Union Station in downtown Milwaukee, the actual distance by rail is sixteen miles.
Small wonder that they called in the "Beer Line". Perhaps there was good reason for it, though it was probably neither necessary nor possible to do what the enterprising lads on one section of a line that became part of the Milwaukee later used to do -- draw the bung of casks in transit, insert straws, and have a "snifter". In Milwaukee the steins were always handy.
--STEPHEN GRENDON
Through Wisconsin on a Bicycle (Chapter VIII)
The Milwaukee has been moving the great 100-car Ringling Brothers, Barnum and Bailey circus for years. Like the Milwaukee, the great Ringling Brothers circus is indigenous to Wisconsin, having come out of Baraboo in the early 1880's.
On the second district of the Milwaukee Division, one of Ringling Brothers, Barnum and Bailey's playful pachyderms, in the best tradition of the circus, made the people forget their troubles.
The circus was on its way from Milwaukee to Davenport over our rails when it reached Davis, Illinois on the morning of September 11th. There were orders out on the train order stand at the station, awaiting the engineer and conductor of the special.
As the locomotive rolled by, the engineer reached out, slipped his arm through the fork and pulled in his copy, leaving one for the conductor in the caboose. But Jumbo, peeping out of his car back in the middle of the train, had seen what the engineer did and apparently decided he would try it himself. It looked like just the kind of fun his face was made for.
So, snaking his trunk out of the car, he awaited his moment. As he approached the stand, he took careful aim and popped his long trunk right through the loop. Then, he pulled his copy in to see what it said.
Luckily, Operator R. V. Stickler saw the entire show and, grabbing the triplicate copy, set it up in time for the conductor to take it as the caboose went by.
--The Milwaukee Magazine
October, 1944 (Chapter IX)
On hand to meet The Marquette every morning when it pulls into Mason City, Iowa, at 7:45 is Minnehaha, the station cat, whose breakfast for the last ten years have been served with the compliments of the Milwaukee Road. She insists on fresh meat -- rejecting cold, pressed meats -- and she never fails to show up and see what's on the menu.
Minnehaha waits until the dining car is placed and then makes her approach, never making a mistake about which is the diner. She is very cagey about letting anyone touch her and no one is even allowed near her two kittens, who stay at home in the freight house while she makes forays for food. On the Milwaukee's hardy fare, she raises two families a year.
The Milwaukee Magazine
November, 1946 (Chapter X)
Suddenly, the train -- slowly from under
the web of city streets, the ramps, the gleaming cars:
slowly, like a great beast gathering in its black length the thunder
to hurtle away into the dark countryside under stars--
the train with its headlight probing, and the brakeman standing beside,
swinging his red lantern, slowly coming forth, drawing away
into deeper dark, the world outside--
going far into night, far into day,
the train along the gleaming track
chuffing, steaming, crying, the lit windows looking out everywhere,
going somewhere in the night and never coming back,
free in the country dark of the city's strident lair--
the train going far into childhood, oh far
to youth, to love, far to anguish, far over the land
past yesterday, tomorrow, and forever, oh far . . .
like a great beast in the dark night,
the train -- making its long-drawn lonely cry,
slowly into the sleeping land, the unwary heart, into the bright
of coming day, into the world of men to be born, to love, to die. . . .
--Chicago: Night Train | |
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| Dedication |
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At no time since the invention of the locomotive and its adoption as a major means of transportation in the United States have trains diminished in the romantic esteem of the average American. | |
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Despite its periods of travail, the Milwaukee was fortunate to have within its ranks the men of vision to guide its fortunes, and after looking back over its first 100 years, it could look forward with confidence to its second century. (Click to show. Warning: May contain spoilers.) | |
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▾References References to this work on external resources.  Wikipedia in English
None ▾Book descriptions From its incorporation in 1847 in Wisconsin Territory to its first run in 1851--twenty miles between Milwaukee and Waukesha--to its later position of far-flung power, the Chicago, Milwaukee, St. Paul &Pacific Railroad Company had a vivid history. By 1948, the Milwaukee Road had more than 40,000 employees and maintained more than 10,000 miles of line in twelve states from Indiana to Washington. Also in 1948, August Derleth's popular and well-crafted corporate history celebrated the strength and status of this mighty carrier. On February 19, 1985, the railroad became a subsidiary of Soo Line Corporation and its identity vanished overnight. Nonetheless, it remains a romantic memory, and Derleth's book remains the only complete history of this innovative and dynamic railroad. ▾Library descriptions No library descriptions found. ▾LibraryThing members' description |
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