The penultimate segment of my Milwaukee Road search took me on a 1100-mile loop through Minnesota and South Dakota. I learned much about the history of the Chicago, Milwaukee, St. Paul & Pacific Railroad and this region. The regional economy is surprisingly strong and it is apparent in the prosperous towns that still have a connection to a railroad. I drove from the Minneapolis airport west to Aberdeen SD, south to Mitchell SD (home of the Corn Palace) and then east to Albert Lea and Preston MN. The cities and towns ranged from vibrant and booming to empty and desolate. (continued below)
Some of the Milwaukee Road routes are still busy with trains of major carriers and others almost impossible to find. Often there was no trace of the old rail lines at all, not even a bike trail. Many cities still have active rail lines, now run by the BNSF and CP. In towns off the BNSF mainline, operations might be run by a small local line or elevator co-op, such as the Twin Cities & Western, the Dakota, Minnesota & Eastern or the Wheaton Dumont Elevator Cooperative (Ortonville). Many of these orphaned rail lines are the end of what was a longer branch line or spur and have adjacent unused rails rusting and overgrown or being dismantled.
Agriculture is the core economy of this upper Midwest region and October is peak corn harvest season. Roads are jammed with semis, fields are full of combines and ethanol plants have long lines of tank cars being filled. A relatively new business in the MN-SD border area is wind generation. It is not unusual to see hundreds of giant wind mills stretching to the horizon. Wind produces almost 20% of all energy generated in Minnesota.
Madison, SD is now the end of a line that originally went another 75 miles west. A prosperous community of 7000 is where one finds the Madison Farmers Elevator Company, founded in 1908, the anchor of the local economy. The commercial center is full of storefront businesses and the main streets are crowded with semi-trucks delivering grain to the elevator. The former Milwaukee Road depot has been renovated and houses the Chamber of Commerce. Go a mile west and you’ll find the Prairie Village historic tourist site, which has an operating train on the Prairie Village, Herman & Milwaukee RR line.
In Alpena SD, the Jack Links jerky factory is running 24/7 and on a Sunday afternoon there were no empty spaces in the employee parking lot. Across the highway, a double rail line serves the grain terminal which was loading a grain-hopper-car train at least 40 cars long.
Nearby Virgil, population 16 and named after the poet, has few occupied buildings, no active businesses and no sign of its citizens.
Montevideo MN has little to offer on a Main Street of empty storefronts, but it has restored its CMSP&P depot and nearby has the most beautifully painted coal tender I’ve ever seen. Across the street is a yard full of Milwaukee Road passenger cars and two scrapped, partial Hiawatha observation cars. Maybe some of these relics will one day be restored by the local rail fans.
In Austin MN, the home of the Spam Museum and Hormel factory, the Milwaukee Road depot houses the Catholic Charities office. Across the street is the decrepit Hiawatha Bar, which probably entertained many tired travelers in its heyday.
I read about restored Milwaukee Road cars and grain elevator in Preston MN, so I stopped there. Driving around town, I could find no of a rail line, so I went to the County Clerk’s office and asked if they knew where the Chicago, Milwaukee & St. Paul rails used to run. After three people consulted, I was shown an original CM&SP map from 1918 with the route thru town, which was abandoned in 1976 and is now hidden by new buildings. With their help, I did find a park with a caboose, box car and elevator from 1902. The bike trail starts just behind the elevator and follows the Milwaukee Road route out of town.
As was true in my travels further west, the demise of the CMSP&P devastated small towns across the midwest. Many communities were first established by the Milwaukee Road to serve its new system of rails. Those that managed to salvage and continue rail service into the 21st century have survived. Those without rail service withered, sometimes disappearing altogether.
The remaining section of the MR that I have yet to explore is Wisconsin, its home state – and mine. It crisscrossed the state and also went north to the Upper Peninsula and Lake Superior. I plan to search the Dairy State in 2023 and expect to visit the northern terminus in Calumet Michigan, which is a few miles from Houghton, where my father John Butler Ballard was born.
Links to previous CMSP&P chapters:
Part One - April in Washington - Looking for the CMSP&P