mileage
268 COLUMBUS station, 359 N. Ludington Street. Elevation approximately 850. The city is named
after Christopher Columbus. The first settler in the area was Major Dickason, who built a cottage on the bank of the Crawfish
River near the present AMTRAK station. Downtown Columbus was used to film several scenes, including a bank robbery, for the
2009 Johnny Depp movie Public Enemies. The downtown was made to look like the 1930’s for the film. The historic Poser
House was used as a brothel for the film.
The winding course of the Crawfish
River through town is controlled by the locations of several drumlins, both north and south of the railroad; however, the drumlins
in town may not be readily apparent from the train in the built up urbanized area of downtown.
Shortly after we leave the station (eastbound), we enter DODGE County, ad cross the Crawfish River. Dodge County was named after
Henry Dodge, the first territorial governor of Wisconsin.
269.5 We are crossing a SW-NE trending drumlin here; however, it may not
be readily apparent from the train. Look for sand and gravel deposits visible in railroad cuts.
271 Crossing
another drumlin, with sand and gravel visible in railroad cuts.
272 Pass through the small community of Astico. The Crawfish River is flowing between drumlins to the south of the railroad (right if eastbound). These drumlins are quite apparent
now on either side of the railroad.
275 We are continuing to pass drumlins on either side of the railroad.
277 Pass through Reeseville, which was named after Samuel Reese, who came to Wisconsin in 1844. The townsite was surveyed and platted
by Reese’s son Adam. who was a farmer in the summer and a schoolteacher during the winter. The railroad came through in 1858,
and the station at Reeseville was originally called Lowell Station,. It was changed to Reeseville in 1865, and the younger Reese
became postmaster and grain buyer.
279 Cross Beaver Dam River. Drumlins are again visible on either side of
the railroad.
280 Cross another branch of the Beaver Dam River. We are in the Mudd Lake State Wildlife Area.
282.5 Pass
through Richwood. The railroad is now running north to south, and is traversing between two drumlins on either side of the tracks.
283 There is an abandoned quarry on the left (eastbound) here, which likely produced sandstone or dolomite from the Ordovician-aged Ancell
Group in the area.
286 Enter JEFFERSON County, which was organized in February 1839, and named after President Thomas
Jefferson.
287-288 Pass through Watertown, which was settled both by Germans and by New Englanders who used the power of the
Rock River to provide hydroelectric power for sawmills and other enterprises in the area. Timothy Johnson, from Connecticut,
was the first settler, and he originally called the place Johnson’s Rapids. The Native Americans in the area called the place
“Ka-Ka-Ree,” which means “oxbow,” in reference to the double bends in the Rock River in the area. Timothy Johnson may have later
changed the name to Watertown, after his home in Connecticut.
Watertown was
the home of the first kindergarten in the United States, established by Margarethe Meyer in 1856, who was a student of German infant
education pioneer Fredrich Froebel. Also on the grounds of the first kindergarten is the 5-story Octagon House, built in 1854.
In 1853, a plank road was completed from Milwaukee to Watertown. After plank roads were no longer used, the route was replaced
by Wisconsin Highway 16 and the railroad. A street named "Watertown Plank Road" survives in Milwaukee. It is referred
to in the "Plank Road Brewery" family of beers, produced by Miller Brewing Company in Milwaukee.
287.5 Cross Rock River.
290 Cross Rock River again. We are still traversing an area containing numerous drumlins.
294.5 Pass through Ixonia. This name
came about after the Town of Union was divided. One part of the former town was named Concord, but since the residents were
unable to come up with a name for the other part, they put letters into a hat, and reportedly a young girl named Mary Piper drew letters
until a word was formed which could be used as town name, and the word she came up with was Ixonia. No other populated place
in the United States has this name.
296 Cross the Rock River once again. We are gradually leaving the area
of drumlin development of the Green Bay Lobe.
298 Enter WAUKESHA County, which was split from Milwaukee County in
1846. Waukesha was the Potawatomi Indian word for “fox,” in honor of the Fox River which flows through the county.
299 Cross Oconomowoc River.
299-301 Pass through Oconomowoc. The name of the city is from the Winnebago Indian word coo-no-mo-wauk,
which is believed to have several translations, the most prevalent being “river of lakes,” referring to the numerous lakes in this
area along the Oconomowoc River. The first white settler was Charles B. Sheldon, in 1837. Until 1845, residents of Oconomowoc
had to go to Summit to get their mail. The first locomotive came into Oconomowoc in December 1854.
During the late 19th century, Oconomowoc was a resort town catering to the wealthy, and numerous summer homes were built on the lake.
In 2003 Oconomowoc acquired Pabst Farms from the Town of Summit. Pabst Farms, which had previously been owned by the Pabst family,
is being developed as a mixture of commercial and residential property.
On April
2, 2008, a gas line exploded just west of downtown, destroying the First Baptist Church on West Wisconsin Avenue. The church,
which was built in 1910, was completely destroyed, except for its bell tower frame. The cause of the explosion was from an old
capped off gas line collapsing due to a construction machine as utility work was being done on Wisconsin Avenue in preparation for
reconstruction of the street.
Oconomowoc is the home of the Oconomowoc and Lake
Country Museum.
301 For the next 5 or 6 miles, we will be passing through an area characterized by numerous lakes. We are traversing the area between the Green Bay and the Lake Michigan Lobes of the last Pleistocene-age ice advance during the Ice
Age. This interlobate area between the 2 major glacial lobes is known as a kettle moraine. As the ice sheets retreated
to the north, they deposited large volumes of outwash sediments between the 2 lobes, which occasionally also carried with them a block
of ice. As these blocks of ice become buried by additional sediments being carried off the receding ice, they eventually melt,
and they leave behind shallow lakes with flat bottoms known as kettles.
The
Wisconsin kettle moraine extends almost to that Illinois state line from this area. A few miles south of Oconomowoc is the Kettle
Moraine State Park.
Beneath the glacial materials and the kettle moraine in
this area, the bedrock is now Silurian-aged bedrock of the Niagara Escarpment, which is not visible from the railroad.
301.5 Cross
the Oconomowoc River. Oconomowoc lake is located to the south (right if eastbound).
303 Pass through Okauchee. The name is an Indian word meaning either “something small,” “pipe stem,” “very long,” or “the chief has come.” A sawmill was
built here in 1840 by Orson Reed, and, and it furnished much of the lumber for the Watertown-Milwaukee plank road. A stagecoach
stop soon followed, also built at Orson Reed’s sawmill. In 1844, a caucus was held by Reed and his brother Curtis; they met
in a hollow under a hill, and elected Curtis Reed as Town Chairman.
Oconomowoc
Lake is visible on the south (right if eastbound).
304 The lake on the left (eastbound) is another lake within the
kettle moraine.
305 Nashotah. The name is an Indian word for either “twins” or “one of a pair,” and was applied
to the “upper” and “lower” lakes on either side of the railroad. Originally, this settlement was a terminal of the Watertown-Milwaukee
Plank Road.
308 Cross Bark River and pass through Hartland. Hartland was settled by Steve Warren in 1838, and
he called they place Warren. In 1842, Chris Hershey bought the property and named it Hersheyville. The Indian name was
Sha-ba-qua-nake, which means “a growing group.” The modern name Hartland is a corruption of ”Heartland.” The city was
incorporated in 1892.
A quarry north of the railroad quarries Ordovician-aged
Maquoketa Formation.
311 Pewaukee Lake is visible south of the railroad (right if eastbound).
312-313 Pass through
Pewaukee. The name comes from an Indian word meaning “swampy earth.” The first settlers were Asa Clark and Charles Bell,
who built a dam at the outlet of Pewaukee Lake. The village was located along the Watertown-Milwaukee Plank Road, and was incorporated
as a village in 1876. During the Civil War, Pewaukee’s Octagon House was a stop on the Underground Railway.
The Clark House Museum in Pewaukee was originally a stage coach inn on the Watertown-Milwaukee Plank Road. The inn was built
by Mosely Clark, the son of Asa Clark. The Clark House remained in the Clark family until the death of Marietta Clark Larson,
great-granddaughter of Asa, in 1984. In 1992 the Pewaukee Area Historical Society purchased the property. The museum displays
include an extensive exhibit on Native American settlement with emphasis on the Potawatomi, as well as an exhibit on Waukesha Beach,
a popular amusement park on the shore of Pewaukee Lake. Pictures and artifacts portray a way of life from the early 1900’s in
the village and city. The exhibit building on the Clark House grounds, opened in 2007, houses larger artifacts, including farm
machinery and a mail wagon.
315 We are nearing the edge of the kettle moraine now, and will be traversing primarily
brown sandy and silty till from the Lake Michigan Lobe of the latest Wisconsin age glacial ice advance.
316 Pass
through Duplainville, and industrial suburban community of Milwaukee.
318 Enter Brookfield, a large suburban community
to Milwaukee, which was incorporated in 1954. It was likely named after its abundance of brooks and wide fields.
321 We are actually still in Brookfield. With the urbanization of the Milwaukee area, it will be difficult to see any geologic features
for a while. Between here and Milwaukee, we will be crossing several north-south trending ridges of glacial till deposited by
the receding Lake Michigan Lobe. These north-south trending hills are a part of the Late Wisconsin-aged Lake Border Moraine system. Between Milwaukee and Chicago, we will again see these landforms.
323 As we pass through Elm Grove, note the Notre
Dame Health Care Center on the left (eastbound), which is a health care facility for elderly nuns.
Elm Grove was named for its abundance of elm tees. Like other towns we have passed through, it was also located on the Watertown-Milwaukee
Plank Road.
323.5 Enter MILWAUKEE County, which is named after the Milwaukee River. The word Milwaukee is an Indian word meaning
“good earth.”
324.5 Pass beneath the Watertown-Milwaukee Plank Road, although it is no longer made of planks!!
325 Sholes Park, on the right (eastbound), is a part of the Late Wisconsin-aged Lake Border Moraine system (see MP 321 above).
326.5 The
Menominee River is adjacent to the railroad on the left (eastbound).
327 Cross the Menominee River and pass through
Wauwatosa. This name came from the Indian word wau-wau-tae-see, which means “fireflies,” as the locale abounded with fireflies
and wild game. In 1835, the first settlers moved in from New England, and a grist mill was built by Charles Hart. In 1841,
the town was organized., The name Wauwatosa was proposed by Daniel Proudfoot, after an Indian chief by that name.
328 The hill visible behind the Metcalfe’s complex on the left (eastbound) is known as Schoonmaker’s Reef. This was a Silurian-agedcoral reef composed of a formation known as the Racine Dolomite. As stated earlier, during the lower Paleozoic Era, this part
of the upper Midwest was located near the tropics, and has moved several thousand miles to the north over time due to continental
drift. There was a quarry here at one time; however, the quarry has been filled in. Such Silurian reefs are characteristic
of the edges of the Michigan Basin, the western part of which we have now entered.
329.5 Pass beneath U.S. 41, cross the Menominee
River once again, and note the large Miller Brewing Company complex on the left (eastbound). Miller Brewing Company was founded
in 1855 by Frederick Miller when he purchased the small Plank-Road Brewery. The brewery's location in the Menomonee Valley provided
easy access to raw materials produced on nearby farms. On October 9, 2007, SABMiller and Molson Coors agreed to combine their
U.S. operations in a joint venture called Miller Coors. SABMiller is to own 58% of the unit, which is to operate in the U.S. and Puerto
Rico but not Canada, where Molson Coors is strongest. Molson Coors is to own 42%, but the parties are to have equal voting power. At the present time, several beer brands are manufactured and marketed by the Miller group.
330 As we round the sharp
bend here, Miller Park is visible on the right (eastbound). This complex was completed in 2001, and replaced the older Milwaukee
County Stadium, which was built in 1953. Miller Park features North America's only fan-shaped convertible roof, which can open
and close in less than 10 minutes. Large panes of glass allow natural grass to grow. It was one of the largest construction
projects in Wisconsin history. Miller Park is the home of the Milwaukee Braves and Brewers.
Miller Park has also been a recent concert venue, and has hosted such popular acts as George Strait, Bruce Springsteen, Bon Jovi,
Aerosmith, and Kid Rock.
The complex is built at the site of an old quarry,
and, from the southwest side of the parking lot (not visible from the train), you can see another Silurian reef exposed in the hillside.
331.5 A
couple blocks north of the railroad is the Pabst Mansion, once the home of Captain Frederick Pabst, who started the Pabst Brewing
Company.
332 Just north of the railroad (left if eastbound) is the campus of Marquette University, a private, coeducational,
Jesuit, Roman Catholic university, which was founded in 1881, as Marquette College, by John Martin Henni, the 1st Catholic bishop
of the Archdiocese of Milwaukee. The university was named after 17th century missionary and explorer Father Jacques Marquette,
S.J. The highest priority of the newly established college was to provide an affordable Catholic education to the area's emerging
German immigrant population. Marquette College officially became a university in 1907. Marquette University High School,
formerly the preparatory department of the university, became a separate institution the same year. Initially an all-male institution,
Marquette University became the first coed Catholic university in the world, when it admitted its first female students in 1909.
332.5 MILWAUKEE station,
433 W. St. Paul Avenue. Elevation approximately 590. The station is located at the junction of the Menominee, Milwaukee,
and Kinnickinnic Rivers, immediately upstream of their junction with Lake Michigan. There are several theories concerning the
origin of the word Milwaukee, one of the being a word meaning “good land, and another translation meaning “beautiful meeting place
by the waters.” The Potawatomi Indians occupied this area as early as 1649. It is the largest city in Wisconsin, and is
also a major Great Lakes seaport.
Milwaukee was populated in the 1800’s by immigrants
from several European countries, the country providing the most immigrants of course being Germany. Starting in 1848, the “48’ers”
began arriving from Germany in an effort to escape several repressive German monarchies. Later in the century, Milwaukee was
known as the “German Athens,” and several German-only newspapers were printed and circulated in the area, especially on the northwest
side. And, of course, along with the Germans, the beer brewing industry also came to Milwaukee. Other industries are also
headquartered in Milwaukee, and the city is often referred to as the “machine shop of America.” These other industries include
the electrical power industry, motorcycles, mining machinery, and combustion engines. In the 20th century, Milwaukee has also
developed as the “model railroading capital of America,” with such companies as Walthers and Kalmbach Publishing.
Milwaukee is the home of the Betty Brinn Children’s Museum, Milwaukee County Historical Center, Milwaukee County War Memorial, Milwaukee
County Zoo, Mitchell Park Horticultural Observatory, and Schlitz Audubon Nature Center, as well as several breweries, as previously
stated.
333 Cross the Menomonee River at its junction with the Milwaukee River. Lake Michigan is visible on
the left (eastbound). Between here and Chicago we will be traversing glacial deposits of the Lake Michigan Lobe of the Late
Wisconsin glacial advance. The bedrock between here and Chicago is primarily Silurian-aged, but it is not exposed anywhere in
this area except in occasional quarries.
334 On the right (eastbound) is the Rockwell Automation Headquarters building,
home of the Allen-Bradley Clock Tower, which is visible from the train. The clock tower is owned by Allen-Bradley, a product
brand of Rockwell Automation, and has long been a landmark in Milwaukee. The original tower opened in 1962, and in the mid-1970’s,
was converted into the Temperature Tower while an even larger, taller clock was erected 400 feet to the northwest. The current
clock tower is 283 ft tall, and is listed in Guinness World Records as the world’s largest 4-faced clock. Because the octagonal
faces are nearly twice the size of the faces of London’s Big Ben, chimes were never added in order to allow Big Ben to remain the
largest 4-faced chiming clock in the world. Each hour hand is 15.8 feet long and weighs 490 pounds. Each minute hand is
20 ft long and weighs 530 pounds. The hour markings are 4 ft high.
334.5 Cross Kinnickinnic River. “Kinnickinnic” is a
Potawatomi Indian word for ceremonial tobacco made of toasted willow or sumac bark.
335.5 The Kinnickinnic River is again visible on
the right (eastbound).
336 Cross former Chicago & Northwestern (now Union Pacific) tracks and pass beneath Interstate
94.
337 Pass through St. Adelbert’s Cemetery.
338 Pass beneath Interstate 94 again.
339.5 MILWAUKEE
AIRPORT Rail Station, 5601 S. 6th Street, at Airport Spur Freeway. Elevation approximately 730. The Chicago to MilwaukeeHiawatha Service trains are the only AMTRAK strains which stop at this station. The station was established in 2005 for the
purpose of connecting AMTRAK passengers from the Chicago-Milwaukee area to Milwaukee’s General Mitchell Airport. The airport
itself was established in 1920 and named after General Billy Mitchell, a Milwaukee native who is often known as ”the father of the
United States Air Force.” General Mitchell Airport is a hub for Midwest and Air Tran Airways.
341 Although
we have left Milwaukee and are crossing the prairie now, industrial expansion of the Milwaukee-Chicago corridor remains very much
in evidence as the railroad continues to pass numerous industrial complexes along railroad sidings.
343 The West
Branch of Oak Creek is adjacent to the railroad here on the right (eastbound).
344 We are passing through Oak Creek,
a rural community which was incorporated in 1955. It was also known as "The Oak Creek Law,” to prevent its annexation by neighboring
Milwaukee. Midwest Airlines' headquarters were formerly located in Oak Creek.
345 Pass through the small community
of Oakwood.
346.5 Enter RACINE County, which was named after the French translation for Root River. The county seat is Racine.
Cross Root River, so named by the Potawatomi Indians because the river was often tangled with roots which impeded the progress of
their canoes through the waterway.
347 Low ridges in the distance on either side of the railroad mark the Lake Border
Moraine, which was deposited by the receding Lake Michigan Lobe (see MP 315 above) of glacial ice at the end of the Pleistocene Ice
Age.
349 Pass through Caledonia, which was named by Scottish settlers in the area. This area was also settled
by Welsh, Irish, Bohemian, and Germans.
352 Pass through Franksville. The town was originally known as Skunk
Grove. It was established in 1791, when Frenchman Jacques Vieau opened a trading post here. Later the town was a switching
point for the Chicago & Northwestern Railroad, and a brakeman named Frank was said to have often left his train to go into town
and court a girl, so the settlement became known as Frank’s Villa, then later Franksville.
353.5 Cross Hoods Creek. We are traversing
the western fringe of the city of Racine, which was started as a trading post by Jacques Vieau in 1794.
The low hills on the left (eastbound) are part of the Lake Border Moraine system (see MP 347 above).