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Pictures: Railroad Yards Looking East 1909; Panorama Stanwood IA Looking East from Elevator

THE RAILROAD

       In 1857 the Chicago, Iowa, and Nebraska Railroad, later to become the Chicago and North Western, was pushing its rails across Iowa from the east. Real estate records of that era show that on April 14, 1857 a land owner by the name of Lafayette M. Flournoy sold the Chicago, Iowa, and Nebraska railroad an option for a right of way across his land which was just east of where Stanwood now stands. A small flag station was erected and named Flournoy, for the land owner. It was located north of the point where Route 38 now turns into Route 30 and served as a fueling station for the trains until 1869. Few of the earliest settlers could have been aware of this station as its site was in the middle of bare, wide-open country.

       In the fall of 1868 the owners of the site of future Stanwood, W. C. Maley and Samuel H. Maley and William Preston, were anxious to have the railroad company erect a depot for passengers and freight. These men of vision induced the railroad to accept an offer of free land in exchange for which the railroad company promised to establish a station and lay side-tracks. The acreage included every alternate lot along the right of way and four acres for the station and other railway facilities. There was a little delay in building the station, but it did materialize in the form of a two-story building, completed in June 1869. It was a frame structure, the second story serving as a home for some of the telegraph operators who came later. Incidentally, this station still stands, minus the second story.

       The infant town was named for the assistant superintendent of the railroad, H. P. Stanwood. On January 20, 1869, W. W. Allen started to build a two-story house a short distance southwest of the present depot. The first religious service in this community was held in this house that spring. (See the history of the Stanwood Methodist Church.) As a note of interest, this same house almost as soon as it was finished was opened as the first tavern in town. Now the home of Mrs. Cora Mitchell, you may see this house at 201 Center Street.

       The Allen house and tavern proved to be the nucleus of the settlement; thirty buildings sprang up here during the next few months. One of these was a two-story house now owned and occupied by Mr. and Mrs. L. W. Meyer, 302 South Main Street. The first occupant of this home was S. R. Houghton who lived there while his own public house (hotel) was being built. This hotel, destroyed by fire a few years later, was erected on the northeast corner of today’s Main Street where an empty service station stands today.

       The railroad company maintained extensive equipment at Stanwood for supplying all trains with coal and water. This was an especially important point for both freight and passenger service since it was from here that the older town and community of Tipton was served. Originally the project of a railroad from Stanwood to Tipton was the objective of a privately owned organization, The Tipton-Stanwood Company, with capital of $200,000. Grading for this railroad started in 1859, but wasn’t completed until 1867. Rails were not laid until 1872, when the road became a part of the Chicago, Iowa, and Nebraska Company’s system. The first train from Stanwood to Tipton ran on Thanksgiving Day, 1872, with George Dutton as the engineer.

       The story of “The Plug”, as the passenger train that ran regularly between Stanwood and Tipton was called, is part of the story of Stanwood, It was a short train, (explaining . . .

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Pictures: President Hardings’ Funeral Train, Stanwood, Iowa; Original Depot With Two Stories

. . . its name), usually a passenger car and an express car, with occasionally the addition of a livestock car. The engine was smaller than those used on the main line. It made three regular round trips to Tipton daily except Sunday and for quite a number of years obligingly stopped at any crossing enroute if it was flagged or had passengers who wanted to be dropped off. Wald was a regular scheduled stop. There was a period in the history of the Plug, in the early 1900’s, when the little train made a daily round trip to Cedar Rapids too, in between its regular runs to and from Tipton.

       The facilities at Stanwood included a well, and a two-story pump house, plus three large wooden supply water tanks, with the penstock which conveyed the water from the tanks to the engines. At one time two employees were needed as pump men, one as day man and the other as night operator. One whom Stanwood still remembers was Descom Rickard, the man who doubtless served longest in that capacity. Telegraph operators also are to be recalled. About 1901 when her father John Robinson was depot agent, a lady by the name of Mrs. Charles Bair had the duty of night telegraph operator.

       Just north of the tracks and east of the depot was a large coal house, two stories high and over 100 feet in length. An incline side track made it possible for a coal car to be backed up this incline to the chutes. Here men fed coal through the chutes into the coal cars. The Tipton Plug usually did this pushing job during its noon hour, while it was waiting for the main line to be cleared. Two men had charge of the coaling job which operated day and night. After the westbound track was laid (1891) another coal house was built at the east edge of town, with the incline at the east end.

       Passenger service was outstanding in and through Stanwood. As early as 1880 morning and evening trains were running each direction. Two of the early trains were the “Denver Limited” and the “Chicago Limited.” These had sleeping cars, vestibules between the cars, and dining cars. About 1900 the famous “Overland Limited”, with library car, barber shop, drawing rooms, and reclining seats, made its appearance. It continued its run from Chicago to San Francisco until 1955. From the time card of June 23, 1904, when Charles Caldwell was agent (his brother Herb served later), we learn that there were nine east-bound passenger trains daily and ten west-bound trains. At times the section crew included 67 men; the average section crew was about 30.

       The coal sheds were taken down before 1924, and about 1930 the wooden water tanks and pen stock were removed. Before the electric signals were installed Henry Gottschalk and Matt Pritt were flagmen. By the early 1930’s most of the small towns on the line were reduced to flag stops.

       In 1936 the streamliners arrive. The “City of Portland” was the most impressive, with its colors of yellow and brown. . . .

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Picture: Depot 1969

. . . By 1938 Stanwood was the only town between Clinton and Cedar Rapids where there were four scheduled stops, including the gas-electric motor train that commuted between Clinton and Belle Plaine. The Plug had been taken off several years preceding this. The last passenger train was taken off the Chicago and North Western main line through Stanwood in May 1960. The last station agent, Thaddeus Stevens, was released in 1957, and the station officially closed. Several freight trains still make their daily runs and have their switching connections at the east end of Stanwood. Twice a week a freight train makes the round trip to Tipton. It was the railroad that determined the location of our town, gave it its name, and was responsible for much of its life and livelihood. We live now in the era of the motor car and truck at even a faster pace than we did when the shrieking whistles of the many steam-driven engines and later the roar of diesel locomotives kept us aware that the world was passing through out little town on the steel rails.