Milwaukee Road - Colman, SD
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On the abandoned Milwaukee Road.
This cache is one of a series of caches dedicated to the Chicago, Milwaukee, St. Paul, and Pacific Railroad, otherwise known as the Milwaukee Road.
The series includes the route from Flandreau, SD, to Wessington Springs, SD.
The Milwaukee Road served this community from 1880 until 1980.
The city of Colman is located on SD Highway 34, five miles east of Interstate 90, in Moody County.
German, Norwegian, Irish, and Danish peoples settled the town in the late 1800s. As of 2008, its population was 548, a drop in population of about 4% since the 2000 census.
A short history of the Milwaukee Road (courtesy of Wikipedia) follows:
The Milwaukee Road appeared as the Milwaukee and Waukesha Railroad when incorporated in 1847, but soon changed its name to Milwaukee and Mississippi. After three years, the first train ran from Milwaukee to Wauwatosa, Wisconsin. The first passenger train ran on February 25, 1851.
In 1894, the name was changed to Chicago, Milwaukee, and St. Paul. By 1887, the railroad had lines running through Wisconsin, Minnesota, Iowa, South Dakota, and the Upper Peninsula of Michigan. Contrary to the common name of the railroad, its headquarters were in Chicago, Illinois, not Milwaukee. Until 1924, the General Offices were located in the Railway Exchange Building in Chicago. At that time, they moved to Chicago Union Station.
In 1905, the Board approved the Pacific Expansion at a cost of $60 million. Construction began in 1906 and was completed in 1909.
The whole railroad industry found itself in decline in the late 50s and the 60s. The Milwaukee Road was hit particularly hard. The Midwest was overbuilt with too many competing roads, and the competition was very intense. The first visible casualty was the Olympian Hiawatha, a premier transcontinental streamliner, which stopped service in 1961. When President John Kiley resigned in 1957 and William Quinn, very inexperienced, took over the reins, the company became fixated on mergers with other companies. These mergers sounded the death knell for the Milwaukee Road.
In 1970, the Burlington Northern completely surrounded the Milwaukee Road, when it acquired the Northern Pacific, the Great Northern, the Burlington Route, and the Spokane, Portland, & Seattle Railway.
In February 1973, the Milwaukee Road decided to scrap its electrification scheme, against the recommendation of several studies conducted by both railroad and independent groups. This decision really became significant when the oil crisis hit and electrified routes could operate at half the cost of diesel locomotives.
Another factor was lack of maintenance of trackage. By 1977, most of the routes were under slow orders due to track condition.
The road filed for bankruptcy for the third time on December 19, 1977.
Additional Hints
(Decrypt)
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