Iola and Northern Depot Station Number 66

Iola and Northern Depot Station Number 66. . The Iola and Northern Railroad was mothered by the Green Bay, Winona and St. Paul Railroad in 1892 when plans were announced for the construction of a line stretching from Scandinavia stretching 100 miles north to Prentice in Price County. Ultimately, only 4.7 miles were built. With the end point being just west of Main Street in Iola, the siting of the depot was designated as Station No. 66, it being 66 rail miles from Green Bay., The depot was built in 1894 and survives today at its original right-of-way location. An impressive structure in its day, rendered in Victorian “Railroad Gothic” style, with the eves (sic) accented with “scroll sawed” gingerbread brackets, it came under the protection of the Iola Historical Society on October 23, 1979. The last train had departed on May 30, 1958, and for the intervening 21 years the structure had served as a fertilizer storage warehouse. , One source indicates that “early on an 1893 summer evening” the first scheduled train arrived in Iola from Scandinavia, and while an existing example of “Time Table No 1” carries the date July 16, 1893, it is believed that first arrival likely didn’t happen until sometime in 1894 when the depot was built and occupied. , The line’s original and longtime motive power was engine number 1, a 4-0-4 steam locomotive built in 1871 by Danford and Cook, and affectionately referred to locally as “Ole Heddahl.”, Formally becoming a branch of the Green Bay and Western Railroad in 1901, it was merged into the Green Bay as of Dec. 29, 1914. Petitions to “discontinue the road” were initiated by railway officials on several occasions from the mid-1930s, to the mid-1950s. In the meantime, in 1942-45 the line experienced the most active phase of its existence, when Iola’s role as a processor for sorting, grading and sacking potatoes became an Iola war-effort contribution. (See Historic Iola Marker No. 7 – Spud Alley.) , During this time 35 to 40 boxcars packed with potatoes regularly moved into Iola from the Red River Valley for processing. During those years monthly freight charges averaged in the $30,000 range. The rhythm of the rails quieted quickly thereafter, with passenger service being discontinued in 1949. The following year the station agent’s office was moved into the former passenger area, and the partition between the office and freight area was removed.