Iowa Almanac
Iowa Almanac -- Monday, September 09, 2024
riding the rails more from the Iowa Almanac in a moment make plans to attend the annual camp courageous waffle breakfast and open house Sunday September 29th from 8 a.m. until noon at the camp courageous main lodge enjoy made to order Belgian waffles and pork sausage and tour this unique facility train rides live music zip-line rides and more see you for the waffle breakfast and open house Sunday September 29th at Camp courageous near Monticello, Iowa campcorages.org today the city of Ames and Iowa State University are integrated to the point it's hard to tell where one starts and the other stops back in 1890 though the Iowa agricultural college campus as it was then known was separate from the town of Ames and the only transportation linking the two was a stagecoach line in an effort to bridge this distance there was great interest in connecting the town and campus with a railway on September 9th 1890 the Ames Street Railway Company began soliciting subscriptions to pay for the two-mile rail line by the next spring grading for the line was underway and testing was done on Independence Day 1891 with regular service beginning soon after the rail car carrying passengers itself was called the dinky ultimately the roster of cars used included three passenger cars and a multi-purpose flat car the flat car was used to carry freight and baggage complete with steaks set in pockets and ropes to keep suitcases from falling off the dinky operated to connect the campus with the town until 1907 when it was retired the equipment was stored at the Chicago and northwestern facility in Boone until it was scrapped in 1917 to provide material for World War One the train is remembered fondly today with a beer named in its honor at a local brew pub the fundraising effort for Ames in town train the dinky began on this date in 1890 and that's Iowa Almanac for September 9th follow us on Twitter at At Iowa Almanac. Until tomorrow, I'm Jeff Stein.