Minnekeeta County Post.

Official abandonment and removal of the railroad starts today.

Dead Lake Township. May 16 1974.

Today marked the end of an era as the Milwaukee Road officially started removal of the former Lakefield & Tallow and its own secondary main through town. The L&TRR was a mainly wood and mining narrow gauge line established in 1899, it was next bought by the Milwaukee Road in 1913 and converted that summer to standard gauge. In 1952 the Jacob Sennonson Mining company closed its mine in nearby Minnekeeta and a few years later in 1965 the Dead Lake lumber company switched to using trucks. Afterwards only a few remaining small customers remained, most of which were grain. In 1968 the railroad moved to abandon the line and tried to cease operations, a move that was reversed a few weeks later. The Milwaukee, itself hit hard by declining traffic found the line that rounds our fine town to be a loosing proposition and again officially filed for its abandonment in 1969.

By last summer the Chicago, Milwaukee, Saint Paul and Pacific Railroad gained approval from the ICC to formalize abandonment. Last week was a frenzy of activity as remaining customers made sure that no railroad cars remained on their spurs. The railroad itself spent the week cleaning up the 'right of way'. Oddly, as of this writing there are 3 locomotives gently idling either in the yard or the diminutive old station on Second and Washington St., more than have been seen here at one time for over a decade according to the Milwaukee Road employee, Richard Manning. He said the engines, one EMD GP-9, one ALCo RS3 and one EMD SD-9 with a crane and cabboose would be here only a short time as they wouldn't all be needed for the final work train. When asked about railroad buildings in town he didn't know what would be done with them, but odds were they'd either be torn down or sold off. The town counsel as of yet doesn't have any plans for purchasing although they did say two inquiries as to the disposition of the depot have been fielded. Local residents were mostly indifferent, however one person said he will miss the occasional train whistle. Local fishermen also will loose the rather grand iron lacework bridge that crosses Minnekeeta Creek to the west of town which was part of the L&TRR. When asked why this bridge would be removed and the others left, Richard Manning supposed it was due to it's old age and that the railroad didn't want the possible legal risk even though the line was officially abandoned. The two other Milwaukee bridges of steel girder and plank design will remain sans their rails once the scrapping has passed.

Staff writer, Jason Miles.