Finding the unexpected in the everyday.
January 22, 1903 Seattle businessman Fred Spenser Stimson and his associates Charles Terry Scurry and J.T. Robinson established the Yakutat & Southern (Y&S) Railroad to operate in the southeastern region of what was then the U.S. Territory of Alaska. For nearly seven decades, the Y&S served a unique role among American railroads. It was the... Continue Reading →
January 21, 1963 Early on a subzero Monday morning, the Chicago North Shore and Milwaukee Railroad – popularly known as the North Shore Line (NSL) – made its final run after nearly 47 years of service between northeastern Illinois and southeastern Wisconsin. United Press International (UPI) reported, “The last train of the North Shore railroad –... Continue Reading →
January 20, 1908 In the north-central region of the State of Washington, the first highway bridge in the United States crossing the Columbia River was officially opened. The Columbia River Bridge, which was built by the Washington Bridge Company over the course of two years, has provided an important link between the city of Wenatchee in... Continue Reading →
January 19, 1881 School bus pioneer Franklin A. “Patch” Patchett was born in San Miguel in San Luis Obispo County, California. In 1911, he went into business with his two of his brothers and a brother-in-law to run a Ford Motor Company distributorship for the western half of California’s Stanislaus County. A milestone for their... Continue Reading →
January 15, 1970 William Thomas Piper, Sr., an aircraft manufacturer and businessman who left an indelible imprint on the aviation industry, died in Lock Haven, Pennsylvania, at the age of 89. During the course of his long career, Piper had become widely known as the “Henry Ford of aviation.” Piper was born in the New... Continue Reading →
January 14, 1938 The Bushkill Street Bridge, crossing the Delaware River and connecting the city of Easton, Pennsylvania, with the town of Phillipsburg, New Jersey, was opened to traffic. This bridge was not only the first to be built by the Delaware River Joint Toll Bridge Commission but also the reason why that bi-state agency came... Continue Reading →
January 13, 1879 Ada Anderson – a 35-year-old Englishwoman widely known as “Madame Anderson” – finished a 28-day-long pedestrian endurance event at Mozart Garden in Brooklyn, New York, that earned her international headlines. The next day’s edition of the Cincinnati Daily Star reported, “Madame Anderson has completed one of the most difficult tasks ever attempted by... Continue Reading →
January 8, 1954 The Southern Pacific Railroad’s Sunset Limited became the first train to use the newly opened New Orleans Union Passenger Terminal (NOUPT). This train, which had begun its journey on the west coast, arrived at NOUPT at 4:35 p.m. At 5:00 p.m., the Illinois Central Railroad’s Panama Limited became the first train to... Continue Reading →
January 6, 1886 Russell Randolph Waesche, whose influential tenure as commandant of the U.S. Coast Guard (USCG) included his strong advocacy of maritime safety, was born in Thurmont, Maryland. Waesche graduated from the U.S. Revenue Cutter School of Instruction in 1906, and was commissioned a Third Lieutenant (Ensign). He subsequently served on cutters in the North... Continue Reading →
December 31, 1909 New York City’s Manhattan Bridge, which crosses over the East River and links Lower Manhattan at Canal Street with Brooklyn at the Flatbush Avenue Extension, was officially opened to traffic. This structure joined the Brooklyn and Williamsburg Bridges as the suspension bridges carrying traffic over the lower East River. At the time of... Continue Reading →
Transportation History 