Line information

The Fargo and Southern railroad company built a loading platform in 1883 two miles south of Clinton

Clinton, Minnesota

Clinton is a city in Big Stone County, Minnesota, United States. The city was named for New York Governor DeWitt Clinton. The population was 449 at the 2010 census.-Geography:...

, Minnesota

Minnesota

Minnesota is a U.S. state located in the Midwestern United States. The twelfth largest state of the U.S., it is the twenty-first most populous, with 5.3 million residents. Minnesota was carved out of the eastern half of the Minnesota Territory and admitted to the Union as the thirty-second state...

. It was called Rupert.

Two years later they moved their station to Clinton and it was called Batavia as late as 1899. The Fargo and Company line built from Ortonville to the South Dakota

South Dakota

South Dakota is a state located in the Midwestern region of the United States. It is named after the Lakota and Dakota Sioux American Indian tribes. Once a part of Dakota Territory, South Dakota became a state on November 2, 1889. The state has an area of and an estimated population of just over...

 line near Wheaton, going through Clinton in 1884 and sold to the Chicago, Milwaukee, St. Paul and Pacific Railroad

Chicago, Milwaukee, St. Paul and Pacific Railroad

The Milwaukee Road, officially the Chicago, Milwaukee, St. Paul and Pacific Railroad , was a Class I railroad that operated in the Midwest and Northwest of the United States from 1847 until its merger into the Soo Line Railroad on January 1, 1986. The company went through several official names...

 company in 1885.

The first through train on the line ran July 2, 1884.

From 1885 through the late 1920s four trains stopped at the Clinton depot each day including morning freight and passenger trains northbound for Fargo, an afternoon southbound train, and an evening southbound passenger train.

Telegraphs

Posted at the depot was a sign which read, “Western Union Telegraph Office”. Railroads not only carried the mail and newspapers, they also meant another means of communication. Depot agents were necessarily telegraphers. In addition to handling railroad communications, they also relayed messages to the general public.

Telegraphy was the fastest means of news, business, and personal transmission at that time. Telegrams were use extensively until the late 1940s. J.P. Pratt became the depot agent in 1981. He had driven a streetcar in St. Paul and then learned telegraphy before he came to Clinton. While Mr. Pratt was depot agent, Frank Petrick became interested in the work and learned the Morse code and operation of the telegraph from him. Mr. Petrick started working as depot agent in 1901 and continued, except during the year 1908, until he retired in 1945.

Business, especially freight, increased to such an extent that Frank's wife, Alice Condit Petrick, was hired as depot assistant from 1909 to 1934. In 1900 a sleeping car was added to the passenger train. The 1904 Platt book shows the railroad depot to be located north of Main Street, and directly west of the crown elevator.

Line discontinued

There was daily service until May 1930, when Sunday passenger trains were discontinued. After 1932, a freight train with one passenger coach provided mixed service until the 1950s.

The Campbell Post American Legion purchased one of the discarded railroad coaches in 1935. They installed it on the Legion lot opposite the advocate office and used it as a legion hall. A.L. Makinster succeeded Frank Petrick as depot agent in 1945 until 1969. On December 16, 1968 the Milwaukee railroad discontinued operation of passenger trains numbers 15 and 16 (the Olympian Hiawatha

Olympian Hiawatha

The Olympian and its successor, Olympian Hiawatha, was a named passenger train operated by the Chicago, Milwaukee, St. Paul and Pacific Railroad as train Nos. 15 and 16 from 1911 to 1961...

), operating between Chicago and Tacoma, Washington

Tacoma, Washington

Tacoma is a mid-sized urban port city and the county seat of Pierce County, Washington, United States. The city is on Washington's Puget Sound, southwest of Seattle, northeast of the state capital, Olympia, and northwest of Mount Rainier National Park. The population was 198,397, according to...

. The Milwaukee depot in Clinton closed December 12, 1969.

The line was discontinued March 1, 1980, and the track torn up a year later. By 1980 the Chicago, Milwaukee, and St. Paul Railroad was bankrupt and the survival of the line depended on heavy subsidization.

Historic Clinton Depot

The interior has hardwood floors and decorative wainscoting in the waiting room, an office in the middle and a freight room at the south end. It is now known as the Clinton Depot, and serves as a local history museum for the Clinton area. It was added to the National Register of Historic Places in 1985. Exhibits include military memorabilia, farm and agriculture displays, train memorabilia, and photos, posters, newspapers and historic items about Clinton.