Finding the unexpected in the everyday.
February 19, 1966 It was the end of an era in train history when the Chicago, Burlington and Quincy Railroad’s steam locomotive No. 4960 departed from Union Station in St. Louis, Missouri, for a trip to the city of Hannibal in the Show-Me State. This steam locomotive was a coal burner dating back to 1923. (The... Continue Reading →
January 2, 1935 The Chicago and North Western (C&NW) Railway formally inaugurated its 400 passenger train service between Chicago, Illinois, and Saint Paul, Minnesota, with a final stop in Minneapolis. This train, which would later be renamed “The Twin Cities 400,” was called “400” in part as an homage to “The Four Hundred Club.” (This phrase... Continue Reading →
July 22, 1893 Here’s proof that transportation not only gets you from point A to point B but can also be inspirational. . . It was on this date that 33-year-old Katharine Lee Bates, an English professor at Wellesley College in Massachusetts, found herself taking in a majestic view from atop the Colorado-based mountain Pikes... Continue Reading →
May 22, 1899 A new and important word found its way into the transportation lexicon of the United States when Charles B. Shanks, a reporter with the Cleveland-based Plain Dealer newspaper, became the first known person in the country to use the French word “automobile.” This word made its official American debut in the first of... Continue Reading →
Transportation History 