Minnesota Train Stations
Minnesota Train Stations
Minnesota was home to two rival giants in the railroad industry, Great Northern and Northern Pacific, both of which were headquartered in St. Paul. The state's railroad importance didn't end there, though. Other major railroads had multiple routes in Minnesota as well. The Milwaukee Road, Omaha Road, Chicago North Western, Chicago Great Western, Soo Line, Rock Island Line, Minneapolis & St. Louis, Duluth Missabe & Iron Range and several short line railroads laid down tracks in Minnesota too.
Minneapolis, St. Paul and other cities and towns in Minnesota were served by some legendary passenger trains - the Milwaukee Road's Twin Cities and Olympian Hiawathas, the Burlington Twin Zephyr, Rock Island's Twin Star and Kansas City Rockets, Great Northern's Oriental Limited, Western Star and Empire Builder, Northern Pacific's North Coast Limited, the Omaha Road's Nightingale, Chicago Great Western's Minnesotan, and Chicago North Western's Twin Cities 400 (to name a few).
Railroads were instrumental during the influx of European immigrants in getting people to choose Minnesota. Great Northern had agencies in Germany and Scandinavia to advertise and lure people across the pond and onto farms in Minnesota. Once the people came, the railroads continued to serve their needs, connecting them to destinations and places to buy and sell goods and services.
Towns sprung up along existing and planned railroad lines all over the state. The railroads' decision-making and priorities had the potential to (and did) make or break these communities.
Some of the decisions were not made without more than a little chicanery. Deals made both directly and on the side had major influence over where a railroad route would go. Successful communities were the end result for those towns lucky enough to have come out on the right side of those wheelings and dealings.
Along with that success came one, or even sometimes more than one, passenger depot or freight station. A few railroads pooled together and co-built shared "Union" stations. Most did not, however, so towns that hosted more than one railroad like Faribault or Waseca had multiple depots.
The majority of the train stations in Minnesota bit the dust, starting in the 1960's and continuing on into the 1970's and 1980's when most all of the major railroads either went under or merged with one another. Thankfully, though, there are a lot more depots still standing than one might think!
Some have been kept up, others have been rehabilitated and in many cases, re-purposed. Several are historical museums, some are residences, some are offices and in a few cases, surviving railroads are still using them. Several have been moved from their original locations to other sites in their communities or to "living"' railroad museums that have preserved them.
This web page contains photos and brief information segments about some of those depots that are still extant. Click on the images to access that information and see higher resolution photos, and once you are done viewing an individual depot's page, click the "Back" button at the bottom of the page to return here.
If this stuff interests you, check out my Minnesota Train Stations board on Pinterest for images and info about more Minnesota depots, both gone and still standing.
