The Railroad through Springdale
NO ROUND TRIP TICKET (PART TWO)
by Tim White
The railroad not only made transporting goods and services much easier, but the trains also brought improved communications, as post offices along the rails were established. The mail was sorted on board in a mail car, called a R.P.O. (Railroad Post Office), and delivered to the different stations along the route. From there a station postmaster would deliver it to the residents in his area.
Hans Grann, a grain and livestock dealer, became Klevenville's first postmaster, in 1881. He passed the job on to Albert Sorenson, who served from 1884 to 1893. Iver Kleven took over in that year and he and his family administered postal duties for the next fifty seven years. During its heyday, the Klevenville post office served nearly one hundred patrons. The town's last postmaster, Mary Riphahn, served from 1941-1952. By that time, the post office was officially known as "Wisconsin's Smallest P.O.", serving only three families! Finally, on May 31, 1952, in a scene captured by the "Capitol Times", Klevenville's post office closed its doors as Mary handed the last mail pouch to Gilmore Aavang, rural carrier in Mt.Horeb. It is interesting that on this particular day the outgoing mail was one of the heaviest ever for the office. Several hundred letters were mailed all over the country to stamp collectors and philatelists who were eager to have the last day's postmark from a discontinued post office.
During World War I Riley's postmaster, Malcolm Seth, went in the army. Marc Deneen's father, John, the station master, took over the Riley Rural Route and delivered the mail by horse and buggy. Marc's oldest sister, Ruth, helped her father keep up the bookwork as he worked at the two jobs. Riley's rural route ended in 1938, when regular mail service was established.
As the look of Springdale changed with the arrival of rail, the look of the trains that passed through it changed as well. The age of steam engines powered by burning wood and later coal, gave way in 1956, to gas electric engines. No longer did the engine have to worry about getting up a head of steam, for now, a gas powered generator drove the engine.
In the 1940s, ticket prices were 2' per mile. A trip from Klevenville to Mt.Horeb was 10' and from Riley to Madison, the fare was 15'. Before the establishment of bus routes, students used the train to get to school. Marc Deneen took the train every day to Mt.Horeb to attend high school until the bus routes took over.
Helen Riphahn Gerber and Peter Riphahn would put their bikes on the train to Mt.Horeb in the mornings because, at that time, the return trip wasn't made until very late in the afternoon. Helen recalled the friendly railroad personnel. "When they saw kids near the track the conductor would often throw candy out to them." She remembered sitting around the pot bellied stove in the depot and listening to hobos and railroad employees tell their stories of life on the rail. One of Pete Riphahn's vivid childhood memories was when the train split before attempting the grade to Mt.Horeb, and the conductor would let him sit in the engine cab.
Our love of the automobile signaled the beginning of the end of widespread reliance on rail travel. The auto and the train not only effected each other economically but all too often their meetings were disastrous. Bill Krimmins related one of the saddest incidents that happened along the railroad. In the spring of 1930, a car of freshman from the high school were picnicking in Blue Mounds. Towards evening, when they started their ride home they were boadsided by a train. The three students in the front were killed, the three in the back, though seriously injured, survived. Bill's wife, Elsie Schutvet, was one of the survivors.
In the 1940s, passenger travel was reduced to one train each way through the area. By 1951, a report from the Public Service Commission stated: "The fact remains that habits of riding have changed during the years; and where rail passenger service was once a vital necessity to the community, it has now become an alternative or emergency mode of transportation." On December 31, 1951, passenger service was dropped; it required, however, that freight trains accommodate passengers. Since it took nearly twelve hours to make the run from Lancaster to Madison, it is not surprising that passenger travel fell off to only two passengers a month, and on July 21, 1954, passenger service was officially discontinued.
Although freight trains continued to rumble through the area, the highways effected their business as well. Railroad companies invested in more profitable enterprises and the railroad fell into a period of decline. In the 1970s the track was in such bad shape that 10-15 miles per hour was the maximum safe speed possible on the rails. In 1979, humbled by the deteriorating conditions of the rail and dwindling business, the line was abandoned and rail service in Springdale ended. Gone were the freight trains with magical names such as the "The Cannonball", that rumbled through the area. The once common sight and sounds of the "iron horse" faded to a memory and the rail corridor fell silent.
The Riley Tavern is the only business left in Springdale from the days of the rail. Once a general store run by Johnny Brown and home of Riley's post office, it remains a meeting place for the railroad's new travelers, the bicyclists. It still serves as a watering spot where bikers can find food and beverage to fuel them as they make the grade up to Mt.Horeb. The change from rail to trail kept the corridor open and is used by many. (In a future article we will examine the process that changed the empty corridor into a recreational trail.)
The following statement, taken from "Wisconsin Historical Magazine", perhaps best sums up the loss of rail service.
"The railroad wins permission to abandon, and the last train is run. The track is removed, the bridges torn down, and the stations razed or converted into homes and barns. All that remains is the right of way, growing new wild grasses and brush, for even nature helps to eradicate the memory.
But there is a memory. There were reasons why the line was built, and there were builders and planners who never thought that this would be the end of their dreams. The railroad influenced the lives of the people it served, and the people affected the railroad.
The history of an abandoned railroad is the story of social and economic change. It is also the story of the dreams and acts of men and communities to whom this now neglected stip of land had once represented the entering upon a new era."
"There's no round trip ticket, you're on the final run.
This cannonball is never coming back,
Tomorrow she'll just be, another memory,
and an echo down a rusty railroad track."
Bruce (Utah) Phillips
Our thanks to Marc Deneen, The Mt.Horeb Historical Society, Helen and Peter Riphahn, and Bill Krimmins for their help with this article. This, like all of our historical articles, are meant to be open ended. If you have any thoughts, memories, photos, or manuscripts concerning our area's past, please let us know. Utah Phillips is a singer/song writer. His music can be heard on Philo and Rounder record label. Lyrics used with permission.