Et cetera : Railroad historian discusses Iowa's forgotten railroad towns

Ever hear of New Buffalo, Iowa? How about Flemingville? They were among the 65 settlements or potential settlements in very early Linn County. In his talk at the Center Point Depot Museum, June 24, retired Kirkwood professor Dr. Peter Jaynes said the railroad pretty much decided which early communities lived and which ones died. The two mentioned didn’t get a railroad and died. Flemingville’s near neighbor, Alburnett, did and lived.

His presentation, “The Impact of Railroads on Linn County,” was part of the Historical Society’s special railroad theme for 2012. Dr. Jaynes, a Master Model Railroader, also has loaned the Depot Museum a display of model trains he has built. He is a member of the Hawkeye Model Railroad Club, which has a large permanent model railroad display in Coralville.

We think of ourselves as living in the “technological age,” but steam engines 150 years ago were the big game changers in Iowa. Dr. Jaynes said they were the noisiest, fastest, most complex, most powerful moving man-made objects Iowans had ever seen.

Railroads began the change from family farms to industrial agriculture because they put markets within reach, Dr. Jaynes said. Railroads begat grain elevators, still the largest structures in most Iowa towns. In Center Point, for example, he said, the railroad also made possible the button factory, the canning factory, the creamery.

Roads were poor, horses were slow, automobiles at first were few and fragile. The railroad put people within relatively cheap and easy reach of culture, entertainment, education, advanced health care, and all kinds of goods. Your new house could come in on a flat car, a pre-cut kit from Sears, Roebuck & Co.

The railroad was a big job maker just in itself, in constructing and maintaining the line and rolling stock, in handling freight and running the trains, stations and telegraph.

“The engineer was the highest level job you could have—it was every boy’s dream,” Dr. Jaynes said. “It was the equivalent of being a 747 pilot! Remember how people not too long ago used to go to airports to watch the planes. Well, people went to the depot just to watch the trains. Trains were a big deal. This was a quantum jump in people’s imaginations.”

The rest of the story, he said, was, of course, the building of better roads and cars. “The ability to have your own car and go where you want and when you want is hugely powerful. When I taught in China the most frequent question was ‘what’s it like to have your own car?’”

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The next special activity at the Depot Museum will be a free band concert by the Vinton Community Band, rain or shine, on Sunday, July 22, at 6 p.m. Bring your lawn chairs plus your generosity because the Historical Society will be holding a bake sale.

The Depot Museum is open, free, every Sunday afternoon, 1 to 4, through the end of October.