150 years on the rails: A new era began on Oct. 14, 1867, when the railroad came to Austin
Published 12:35 pm Saturday, October 14, 2017
- Engine 1004 is at Mower County Historical Society and was the last steam engine to operate in Austin. — Photo courtesy of the mower County Historical Society
On this day in 1867, the railroad was completed in Mower County.
The Mower County Register marked the event in their Oct. 17, 1867 issue, declaring, “A train of cars from Minneapolis, loaded with flour, passed through to Milwaukee to-day without change! On Monday afternoon the rial (sic) was laid between Austin and LeRoy, which closed the gap, and gave us an all-rail route to the eastern cities.”
The Chicago, Milwaukee, St. Paul, and Pacific Railroad (commonly known as the Milwaukee Road) constructed the first line running through Mower County.
The last stretch of the road, Owatonna being the north terminus and Cresco, Iowa, being the south terminus, was laid from Aug. 1 to Oct. 14. The line ran 104 miles north between Austin and the Twin Cities and 110 miles south between Austin and McGregor, Iowa, where it turned east toward Milwaukee and Chicago.
Austin served as a railroad hub for many years after, but the railroads also ran through Adams, Dexter, Elkton, Grand Meadow, Lansing, LeRoy, Lyle, Racine and Rose Creek. Other rail lines that ran through Austin went to Omaha, Nebraska, and Madison, South Dakota
With the advent of passenger airliners and affordability of automobiles, the railroad went into a decline. In 1955, Austin’s 20-stall roundhouse was torn down. An average of 20 daily trains ran through Austin in the 1960’s.
The last train to leave the former Milwaukee Road Depot, now the Austin DMV, was in 1983.
Today, Canadian Pacific owns the railroad that passes through Mower County.
