April 7, 1947
Ellis Dexter Atwood (1889-1950) completed construction on the Edaville Railroad on his 1,800-acre (278.4-hectare) cranberry farm in the Massachusetts village of South Carver on the inland end of Cape Cod. (The “EDA” in “Edaville” came from his initials.) That two-foot (0.6-meter) narrow gauge line is widely considered to be the world’s first tourist railroad.
Atwood obtained two locomotives and most of the passenger and freight cars for the line from the Bridgton and Saco River Railroad when that Maine-based enterprise ceased operations in 1941. Following the end of World War II, he purchased additional locomotives and cars that had been used for the Sandy River & Rangeley Lakes Railroad. This railroad, which stopped running in 1935, was likewise based in Maine.
Atwood initially used the miniature railroad to shuttle sand and other supplies to bogs on his farm and to carry cranberries grown there to a building so that they could be dried and then sent to market. Over time, however, Atwood began offering rides on his railroad to anyone interested. These excursions were free at first, but — owing to the large number of people showing up to travel along that line — Atwood ended up charging a nickel per ride.
The Edaville Railroad ultimately became much less of a working railroad for the transport of cranberries and, even well beyond Atwood’s death in 1950, served a lot more as a popular tourist attraction. The accompanying photo taken in 1973 shows one of this railroad’s locomotives on display at Burlington Mall in the Greater Boston Area.
Photo Credit: Public Domain
For more information on the Edaville Railroad, please check out https://www.masshist.org/beehiveblog/2025/02/cranberries-railroads-and-an-early-faq/
An obituary for Ellis Dexter Atwood is available at https://www.nytimes.com/1950/12/01/archives/ellis-d-atwood-61-cranberry-expert-outstanding-cape-cod-grower.html
Transportation History 
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