website watertownhistory.org
ebook History of Watertown,
Wisconsin
C M & St P Railroad Depot
1910
1855
07 26 THE
RAILROAD DEPOT
Probably the
best depot building now in the state may be seen in the city of Watertown. It is finished, and last week after careful inspection,
was accepted by the railroad company, and is now ready for use. It is a brick building one hundred and fifty
feet long, with an exterior width of forty feet, and substantially built. The ticket department is admirably arranged,
having three rooms, one for delivery, one for ladies, and one for
gentlemen. Directly over these rooms, in
the second story, an office has been fitted up for the use of clerks,
engineers, and any other purposes to which it may be convenient to put it. The remainder of the building is for storing,
and the reception and delivery of goods.
Mr. P. B. Basford is the builder of this depot, and we know of no better
place, or more gratifying evidence of the perfectly satisfactory manner in which he has fulfilled his contract, and to say
that on offering the building in a finished state for examination to the
company, it was immediately accepted without reservation or delay. Everything was so well done as to call forth
an expression of hearty thanks and entire satisfaction on the part of those
into whose [hands it] has now passed.
FIRST BRICK DWELLING. It may not be uninteresting to remark, that Mr.
Basford put up the very first brick
dwelling ever built in Watertown, some ten years ago, and may now be seen
as perfect and solid as the day on which it was completed. He is one of our most extensive builders, and
the monuments of his enterprise are now scattered all over the limits of the
city, to which every year makes new editions.
WD
1873
1873, Tornado damage. The blast slightly raised the roof of the St. Paul Depot building,
but it fell back to its place without doing much harm beyond loosening a few
bricks and brackets.
1890
09 25 THEFT AT THE DEPOT
On Monday
last two eastside boys were fined $5.00 and costs by Justice Stacy for stealing
a box of raisins out of a freight car at the St. Paul depot. WG
1895
09 25 NEW CHICAGO, MILWAUKEE & ST. PAUL ROAD
DEPOT (1)
Mayor Moak "felt" of the Chicago,
Milwaukee & St. Paul Road moguls in regard to the
much-mooted and almost-worn-out question of a new depot for our city, something
which no one will deny is sadly wanted.
General Manager Earling in reply said the company had but recently
talked over its affairs in Watertown and had decided that a new depot must be
erected there. He assured the mayor that
this was not idle talk, and that he was desirous of being quoted to our
citizens to the effect that the first new depot built in 1896 by his company
would be at Watertown . . . WR
1896
05 13 NEW CHICAGO, MILWAUKEE & ST. PAUL ROAD
DEPOT (2)
Alterations preparatory to the erection of the
new St. Paul railway station are going on.
The freight and telegraph offices have been removed
to the building north of the depot, and the work of tearing down the old
Sleeper elevator and the old depot is nearly finished. The Watertown News, 13 May 1896
1897
1898
06 01 FLOWER
BEDS
Agent Webb
of the Chicago, Milwaukee & St. Paul Railway is very proud of the flower
beds which now adorn the lawns of the depot grounds. The plants are from the
greenhouses of Mrs. C. T. Lotz and the work of laying out the beds was done
under her supervision. The effect
produced is artistic and attractive. WR
1900
07 20 THEODORE ROOSEVELT STOPS IN WATERTOWN
C. M. & St. P. Ry. train passing through
here at 9:12 Wednesday morning had on board Gov. Theodore Roosevelt, of New
York, on his return home from the meeting of the republican clubs in
Minneapolis. A large crowd was at the
depot to greet him, and a number had the pleasure of shaking hands with
him. He carried on a conversation with
Lieutenant Col. Solliday and Surgeon F. C. Moulding
about the Spanish American war. He wore
a “rough rider” hat, and looked every inch a soldier. WG
1929
12 05 ABANDONED DEPOT TO BE REMOVED
The CM&StPaul Railroad Depot at the foot of 5th Street,
which was abandoned when the railroad company moved into its new quarters in
the Union Station, is being dismantled and will be completely torn down and the
excavation will be filled in and it is planned to place a large scale and a
short track in the locality.
1976
12 13 TRAINS JUST PASS WATERTOWN BY
The
following article about train service in Watertown,
appeared in Sunday's issue of the Wisconsin State Journal. The article was written by Charles Fulkerson
of the State Journal staff and was accented with three pictures in the Journal.
WATERTOWN
- Richard Seivert pushed the frigid switch handle with his padded mittens,
spreading a snow crusted rail.
A
hopper car rolled through the switch, its screeching wheels drowning out the
bleating horn of a diesel.
It
was 1 p.m. and Seivert, 26, was nearing the end of his work day on a four-man
switch engine crew operating out of Watertown.
He
trudged to the station to meet engineer Brian Reynolds, 27. The two joked about a beer commercial
featuring a railroad crew, and then Seivert turned momentarily serious. "My own feeling is the railroads aren't
going downhill. Some
day the United States is going to realize the railroad is the only way
to go," he said earnestly.
But
for Watertown, a manufacturing city of 15,000 on the Jefferson-Dodge County
line, the railroad stopped being the only way to go years ago, and for
passengers it became no way to go in 1972 when the last passenger train stopped
here.
In
1855, when the predecessor of the Milwaukee Road arrived here, Watertown was
the second largest city in Wisconsin and according to local historian, James
Rothschadl, city fathers had "really grandiose plans" for turning
Watertown into the capital and metropolis of the state.
In
1859, the North Western Railway reached Watertown from Chicago, and the city's
bustling future as a rail hub seemed assured.
But
in their rush to get the railroads to Watertown, city fathers had underwritten
bonds for the Milwaukee Road's predecessors and when the early railroads went
broke, the creditors turned to the town officials for their money.
"For
many years,"Rothschadl explained,
"Watertown didn't have a functioning city government." The public officials
the town did have meetings seldom and in secret to dodge the creditors and
their warrants. The lack of stewardship-
probably hurt the growth of the town, Rothschadl speculated.
The
Milwaukee Road established a variety of railroad shops and rail mills employing
more than 100, but by the turn of the century the railroad had moved the shops
elsewhere, and Watertown's importance as a rail center was on the decline.
Today,
trains are still numerous in Watertown. But, explained Jim Scribbins
of the Milwaukee Road's corporate communications department, few of them
stop. "Practically all of the
trains that pass through Watertown do exactly
that. They pass through.”
However,
Scribbins called Watertown, "a relatively
important place on our railroad."
The
L-shaped, stucco station at the junction of the Milwaukee Road and North
Western Railway tracks is manned around the clock by a train operator who
forwards written instructions to passing train crews and handles initial
billing for freight customers in Watertown.
An
ancient brick freight house south of the station once served as headquarters
for a freight agent and three clerks.
But the freight house has been abandoned; its windows are shattered and trees are growing in the tracks behind the
building.
STATION
OPERATOR
Lewis
R. Manthey has worked in Watertown since 1955 and for many years he sold
tickets to the Hiawathas bound for Minneapolis and
Seattle.
But
the last Hiawatha passed through Watertown more than five years ago. Now
Manthey's only contact with passengers and passenger trains is a cursory
inspection of the wheels on the four daily Amtrak trains that roar through
Watertown, leaving only swirling snow behind.
The Milwaukee Road station built in
1926 is headquarters for Manthey [Mange], signal maintainer,
Ken Bornitzke and two switch engine crews that
work out of Watertown. In activity, it
is a Grand Central
compared
to the sleepy North Western station a quarter mile away.
10 11 1926 <> New
Union Depot Will Be Opened On October 20
The new union passenger station at the junction of
the North Western and Chicago, Milwaukee & St. Paul railroads in this city
will be opened to the public on Wednesday, October 20. The station will be known as Watertown.
On and after October 20 at 1 a. m. the station of
the Milwaukee railroad at the foot of Fifth Street will be closed and all
passenger trains will discontinue stopping owing to the opening of the new
station at the Junction.
Last
spring the North Western removed the station agent from Watertown and 23 other
stations in Wisconsin. The North Western
division manager concluded that the small town agent
was excess baggage for the railroad.
"We just don't need people to do work in those stations
anymore," he said.
William
Konitzer, the agent forced to leave Watertown,
sympathized with the railroad which claimed to be losing money. "But the personal touch is lost this
way, and who could put a price on the personal touch?" Konitzer asked.
The
Northwestern still sends a train down to Watertown five days a week from Fond du
Lac, but the tracks south of the city to Johnson Creek are snow covered and no
longer used.
The
North Western's Chicago connection from Watertown via Fort Atkinson and
Janesville, once thought to be a boom for the town, was torn up last year. The railroad has no plans, however, to tear
up the tracks between Watertown and Johnson Creek, said James McDonald of the NorthWestern's public affairs
office.
Manthey
estimated that an average of 25 freight cars daily are dropped off and picked
up in Watertown by the Milwaukee Road.
The city also is a junction point between the mainline and a branch that
runs west to Waterloo, Sun Prairie and Madison.
Many
cars dropped off in Watertown contain feed and corn syrup. A malt company in Waterloo is a big rail
customer. A Watertown scrap dealer ships
his product by rail and a furnace manufacturing company occasionally sends
oversized furnaces out on rail flatcars.
Scribbins said
the-railroad has no plans to centralize further the
duties done by station operators and agents and apparently the jobs in the
Watertown station are secure. He ranked
Watertown in importance as a mainline station behind La Crosse and Portage.
"The
railroad is damn important to the community," said Paul Kehrer, president
of First State Savings and Loan Association and active in a drive to get
passenger service restored. In terms of
the city's economy, he said, "the future of Watertown being on the
mainline of the Milwaukee Road has to be real
important." WDT
12/13/1976
![Manthey [Mange], signal maintainer](http://www.watertownhistory.org/images_07/WHS_018_526.jpg){kind=link}
Cross References:
Chapter on C. M. & St. Paul Railway
Freight office, malt house in distance
Nancy Merriman: Since my dad was a trainmaster on the CMStP, I had a train pass. Every few months I was allowed
to travel to Watertown to stay with my grandmother, Emma Peterson. I played with my Peterson cousins, spent time
along the Rock River, shopped for goose liver sausage at Fendts,
shopped at Busse's, swam at the pool, and watched the tennis players below her
home on Harrison Street. Now when I travel to MN, I stare longingly at the area
where the station once stood and wish we could stop once again.
History of Watertown,
Wisconsin