Welcome to the Rail Maze

Welcome to the Rail Maze. . , In the late 1800s, flour mills packed the riverfront at Saint Anthony Falls, making Minneapolis the flour-milling capital of America. Trains brought grain from Midwestern farms to the mills, then shipped flour from the mills to consumers. Railroad main lines, spurs, sidings, and yards filled most land not occupied by mills. Switches transferred trains from one track to another. Viaducts separated city streets from the rails, avoiding disruption to traffic on both., The curve of this corridor echoes the railroad tracks that once ran here. To the right of the corridors, railcars were parked on rows of dead-end tracks ("spur lines"). Standing here 100 years ago, you could have watched locomotives assemble trains by collecting cars from the spur lines that stretched to Fifth Avenue South. Two railways, the Minneapolis Eastern and the Minneapolis and Saint Louis, operated these railyards. The office and shops of the Minneapolis Eastern were next to the yards. Part of that building still stands along First Street. It is a rare reminder, along with the corridor's curve, of this area's railroad legacy., The rail corridor has been converted into a woonerf, a road that accommodates cars but is designed primarily for pedestrians. This is the first time that this concept, which was introduced in the Netherlands, has been used in Minneapolis., Milling district railroads, 1892. (C. M. Foote and Company; Borchert Map Library, University of Minnesota, Minneapolis), Minneapolis Eastern employees. (Minnesota Historical Society), The railyards, with the downtown skyline in the background, 1961. (Robert Travis Keagle, photographer; Minnesota Historical Society), The railyards, looking towards Third Avenue, 1960. (Robert Travis Keagle, photographer; Minnesota Historical Society), The railyards were parking lots for train cars. Rail spurs stored grain-filled cars until mills were ready to unload them. The spurs also held cars packed with flour, waiting for locomotives to assemble the outbound cars into trains. By the time this photo was taken in 1930, the city's milling industry had begun to decline. (Minnesota Historical Society), Thousands of Midwestern farmers produced grain for the Minneapolis mills. In 1893, the Northwestern Miller ran a map showing "the Wheat City of each State for 1892; the location of the chief cities and towns wherein Flour is made for Eastern or Export trade; together with their daily capacity in barrels and their principal railway connections." (Minnesota Historical Society)