Community Corner

Extra! Extra! Hiawatha Speedliners Celebrate 10 Years

The Milwaukee Road's transportation service highlighted its contributions to War victory in a 1945 ad.

June 8, 1945: Introducing... the light rail of the 1940s. 

An advertisement in the Dakota County Tribune recognizes the 10-year history of The Milwaukee Road's Hiawatha 100-mile-per-hour speedliner trains, not only for their transport of passengers in the Twin Cities and throughout the Midwest, but as vehicles that improved military travel and the War effort.

Hiawathas "were talked about all over the country" when service began in 1935, according to a brief history of The Milwaukee Road; the first route was Chicago-St. Paul, and expansion followed in the next handful of years.

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All roads, according to the ad, seemed to lead to rail, a system that would be "further modernized and augmented" as peace time returned.

You can check out more events, exhibits and archives at the Dakota County Historical Society, 130 Third Ave. N., South St. Paul. Burnsville Patch will feature a local history item each week.

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