Finding the unexpected in the everyday.
January 15, 1931 Union Station in Omaha, Nebraska, was officially dedicated about a year-and-a-half after the ground-breaking ceremony for this train terminal. As part of the ceremony, Omaha Mayor Richard L. Metcalfe opened the main door of the 124,000-square-foot (11,520-square-meter) building with a gold key. Carl R. Gray, president of the Union Pacific Railroad, used the... Continue Reading →
January 14, 2010 Checker Motors Corporation, a longtime vehicle manufacturer that was best known for its popular taxicabs, ceased to exist altogether with the sale of the company’s headquarters in Kalamazoo, Michigan. The company’s origins can be traced to the early 1920s, when a Chicago clothier named Morris Markin became the owner of an automobile body... Continue Reading →
January 9, 1996 At the age of 71, aviation pioneer Berta Zerón de García – with more than 10,000 flight hours to her credit – took to the skies as a pilot for the last time. The airplane that she flew for her final trip was a Cessna 206. Born in the city of Pachuca in... Continue Reading →
January 7, 1907 Three days after a streetcar franchise in Enid, Oklahoma, had been awarded to C.H. Bosler, the Enid City Railway Company was established to build and run that public transportation network. The Enid City Council awarded the franchise with conditions such as streetcar speed limits of 10 miles (16.1 kilometers) per hour in the... Continue Reading →
January 4, 2011 The final Mercury vehicle was produced at the Ford Motor Company’s St. Thomas Assembly Plant in the Canadian township of Southwold. This last-of-a-kind vehicle was a white Mercury Grand Marquis automobile, and it rolled off the assembly line at 7:46 a.m. Crain News Service reported a couple of days later that “Mercury’s... Continue Reading →
January 2, 1842 In Philadelphia, the first major wire-cable suspension bridge in the United States was opened. The 358-foot (109-meter)-long bridge carried traffic over the Schuylkill River below Fairmount Dam. This bridge was designed and built by civil engineer Charles Ellet Jr. It replaced a bridge famously known as “The Colossus.” The earlier structure, which had... Continue Reading →
December 28, 1942 The U.S. Coast Guard Cutter (USCGC) Northwind, which would have an eventful career under various names and in the service of different nations as well as military branches, was launched just after noontime at Western Pipe & Steel Corporation’s shipyard in the Los Angeles community of San Pedro. Mrs. R.B. Lank, the... Continue Reading →
December 26, 1960 Airplane designer and builder Giuseppe Mario Bellanca died in New York City at the age of 74. Bellanca had been born on the island of Sicily in southern Italy in 1886. As a young man, he became enthralled with the possibilities of human flight. This enthusiasm led him in 1909 to help create... Continue Reading →
December 20, 1870 In what turned out to be a day-long celebration, a station for the Wallkill Valley Railroad in upstate New York was formally opened in the village of New Paltz in Ulster County (just south of the Catskill Mountains and on the western side of the Hudson River). The New Paltz station’s features included... Continue Reading →
December 18, 1962 In Seattle, the Ship Canal Bridge carrying Interstate 5 over Portage Bay between the city’s Capitol Hill and University District communities was opened. The bridge was named after the Lake Washington Ship Canal and serves as one of the crossings for that waterway. At the time of its opening, the giant double-deck steel truss... Continue Reading →
Transportation History 