Iowa Central Railway papers from Eldora, Iowa

A box of Iowa Central papers was donated to the Eldora Welcome Center/Railroad Museum from a previous agent who worked in Eldora. I'm currently cataloging and copying them for the museum and would like to put together a report of the contents once it's organized. The papers seem to be from 1895-1900. They consist of all of the agents correspondence between shippers, passenger dept., mechanical dept., freight dept., accounting dept., other railroads, passengers, track gang and more. My guess is that there is about 700 pages in all.

Item covered are passenger ticketing, excursions, handling of special cars and loads, changes in policy from the railroad regarding rates. There are no train orders but there are notes between the agent and the the conductor regarding local car movements. Commodities at the time consist of coal, livestock, coal, tile, coal, L.C.L., coal, salt, lumber, cadavers, and more including coal.

There is even a series of notes relating to the repairs of a broken down circus car. Some of the more interesting letters seem to be from the agent's supervisors bemoaning the decrease in revenue and traffic from his station and their admonition to go after additional traffic.

Check this page for updates on the progress. I'll be posting the database of items here as they are cataloged.

Eldora Welcome Center/Railroad Museum

More Eldora RR history

Iowa Central Railway Page

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