Wilson, South Dakota

A clipping from the September 26, 1979 edition of the Grant County Review of Milbank, South Dakota, opened up an inquiry as to the existence of a town in that state with the name, “Wilson,” which was identified as a station on the MSTL Railway that had existed somewhere between stations Revillo and Strandburg. The pertinent paragraph read:

“Ambrose and the Jim Webers, in writing a history of the once thriving Grant county town on the Yellowbank creek south of Milbank, discovered that the station agent at Wilson was a Mr. Sears who sold watches on the side. They speculated that he could have been the famous Mr. Sears who founded the famous mail order business.”

A quest for further information on Wilson was largely unsuccessful. With the introduction of an Internet web site for MSTL stations, it seemed the story of the Wilson station should be explored more fully to determine if it deserved a place on the site. A letter to the editor of the Grant County Review led to it being referred to a local resident, Patricia McCreary, who is interested in history and genealogy. She volunteered to undertake the research locally. She discovered the history the Webers were writing was for inclusion in, “100 Years of Grant County South Dakota, 1878-1978, published by the Grant County Historical Society. Excerpts (unless otherwise indicated) that follow are from that book. It is an outstanding history that covers very well the relationships between the railway and the town.

“Sometime, in about 1875, the Pacific division of the Minneapolis and St. Louis railroad sent a surveyor crew to Dakota Territory to a point approximately half way between Gary and Big Stone City which were the only towns in the area. They set up camp at T. B. Sparbers and prepared to plan the railroad west. They quickly ran into two obstacles. First, the bottom land around the present site of Revillo, which had an elevation of about 1,000 feet, was 800 feet lower than the present site of Strandburg, which meant a climb of 800 feet in nine miles. Secondly, they had to cross Wilson creek, now the South Yellowbank, which was formed by the Great Dakota Glacier.

[Note the location of the former town of Wilson has been drawn in on an excerpt of a current map. It is almost directly south of the lowest point of a Great Northern branch line that, in a round-about way, also goes to Watertown. They were separated by about 1.5 miles at that point. The right-of-way of the abandoned M&STL is not shown between the stations on this map as, apparently, it has reverted to adjacent farm owners. Elsewhere, if it still exists, it is indicated by broken red lines.]

The Trestle Over Yellowbank Creek

“The surveyors must have spent many days planning this route. They decided that the best place to cross the Yellowbank Creek was the southeast corner of Section 18, Adams Township. This crossing would be known as railroad bridge 95 to railroad crews, but area residents soon knew it as the Wilson Bridge.

“Bridge 95 became the ‘Wilson Bridge,’ because by crossing at this point they avoided the steep hills lying to the west. The roadbed would gradually curve westward to Troy to avoid a straight, steep climb, which would have stalled the locomotives of that era.

“A crew of men was sent to build homes, stables, and places to store equipment. A double section house was built just a short distance west of the future bridge location. This was the beginning of a new town, Wilson. It is said that families from miles around came every Sunday to see the progress of the Wilson Bridge. For many, it was the first time they had ever seen food in tin cans, which contained canned food for the working men.

“The grade-fill for the bridge was all done by oxen, horses, and scrapers. . . The bridge’s final dimensions were 68’ x 1200’ and it was built of cedar pilings. The cross ties and other parts were of fir. The tracks and bridge were completed by October 31, 1884, when the first train (Train #80) made the first run to Watertown, South Dakota. The Wilson Bridge was the largest trestle bridge between Minneapolis and Watertown. The railroad brought Wilson into being.

”(Cyrus) Woodbury recalls how terrified he was as a youngster when riding on the train across the Wilson bridge. ‘I used to hide my head in my mother’s lap,’ he recalls. He didn’t dare to look out to see how far it was to the ground below the bridge. He also remembers that speed on the locomotive was reduced to five miles an hour while crossing the bridge. At intervals along the bridge there were little platforms built out to hold barrels of water for use in case of fire, he states.”—from the Grant County Review article.

“Norma Haugan, who was born in 1899, tells how her stepmother (who was four years old) watched the bridge being built. Sunday picnics were held each Sunday during the progress. While Norma was growing up, Wilson Bridge served as a picnic grounds for Revillo. Each year on the last day of school, the children would go to Wilson Bridge.

“Mrs. Rose (Foss) Ronglien also remembers how the bridge was a main attraction. They used to walk on it. ‘It makes me feel dizzy now when I think of how high it was and to look down on the creek water running and splashing over the rock and the beautiful trees and bushes on the sides of the creek. It really was pretty.’

Yellowbank Creek

“The Yellowbank Creek has two branches; the north branch goes to the north side of Georgia Township and the south branch to the south side of the township.

“When the first pioneers walked from Gary and Big Stone at the end of the train lines and came to the Yellowbank Creek, they were very happy. The creek was a source of spring water and trees for lumber and firewood. The banks also were very steep and made a good place to build a dugout.

“The Indians also enjoyed the creek. The long thin willow trees that grew very thick along the creek made good poles for their tepees. There have been many Indian hammers, tomahawks, and arrowheads found in Georgia township. This also tells us that there was good hunting and fishing along the creek. In Section 23 on the highest hill is an Indian burial ground.

The Depot’s Agent / Telegraphers

“’Billie’ Howdershell was the first depot agent. Richard Sears succeeded him. It is believed that he is the same Mr. Sears who later in 1887 joined with Alvah C. Roebuck to form Sears and Roebuck. A. H. Defoe was agent in 1891. Charles J. Lindgren. father of Vera Johnson in Milbank (and grand uncle of Patricia McCreary) was agent from 1893-1894, before being transferred to Troy. On January 17, 1895, the railroad decided to close the depot at Wilson.”

From another section of the Grant County Centennial book, we found a brief biography of Mr. Lindgren, who appears, from the dates above, to have been the last Agent at Wilson. It is interesting also in that it gives an example of the career of a depot agent in the early days of the MSTL Railway:

“Charles J. Linngren was born in 1870 in Kandiyohi County, Minnesota. He moved, as a child with his parents to Dakota Territory in 1881, and homesteaded on a farm near Strandburg. His father having died at age thirty-nine, Charley was forced to seek employment away from home at an early age. When he had saved enough money, he went to a telegrapher’s school in St. Paul, Minnesota. His first job was in Stillson, Iowa (now a country grain elevator between Corwith and Britt) as a depot agent. He persuaded his childhood sweetheart, Matilda Carlson, to join him in Iowa. They were married December 10, 1892, in Forest City, Iowa.

“They returned to South Dakota in 1892, and he became the depot agent in Wilson, a thriving town on the Minneapolis and St. Louis Railroad. In 1895 they moved to Troy, another town on the same railroad. Their living quarters were in the depot. They were pleased to hear of an opening for an agent at Strandburg so they could be near both of their families. They moved there in 1900.”

As for Mr. Sears; in a park in North Redwood, Minnesota, a bronze plaque, with an etching of a two-story railway station on it bears the caption “The Richard Sears Memorial Park.” The inscription on the plaque reads:

“Richard Warren Sears, a 22-year old Minneapolis and St. Louis Railway agent, first sold a shipment of watches from North Redwood in 1886. His mail-order enterprises eventually grew into Sears Roebuck & Co., the nation’s largest retailer, and now a diversified financial services corporation.

“This park, located adjacent to the site of the former Redwood station, is dedicated to Richard Sears as part of the North Redwood Centennial, August 19, 1984.”

(For more on the story of the entry of Mr. Sears in the mail-order business, see the Redwood, Minnesota, site.)

The railroad, from Morton, MN, to Watertown, SD, that included the stations of Wilson and North Redwood, was built in 1884. We find Richard Sears left the MSTL at year end, 1986, to enter the mail-order business fulltime. What is missing is the date he reached North Redwood in order to confirm the Webers’ account of his assignment to the Wilson station within the first two-year period of its operation. It is highly unlikely there were two Richard Sears employed by the railway at that time. In judging the Weber article, one must gain an overall impression of confidence in the accuracy and thoroughness of their research. Therefore, it seems plausible to give credence to their inclusion of Richard Sears as the second depot agent at Wilson.

In order to give some acceptability to the following quotation, it would have been possible that Mr. Sears entered M&STL employment at Lake Mills, Iowa as the line through there was opened in 1882:

Frank Donovan, in his classic, Mileposts On the Prairie, writes somewhat skeptically on page 243:

“At Lake Mills, Iowa, the agent will point out a quaint desk, cut out in the center so the operator could lean forward to see the trains from the bay window, which is at least seventy years old. ‘That’s the desk Sears used when he worked at this depot before going to Redwood,’ the agent said, in much the way that the Daughters of the American Revolution elaborate on an antique bed in which Washington is reputed to have slept.”

The Town of Wilson—Growth and Demise

“On the Wilson Creek was a large grist mill which employed the Wilson brothers (Frank, Eugene, Willard, Joe, Fred, Emmett, and Edmond). The land still carries the visible scars of dams and locks, as the mill was powered by a water wheel. The dams held reserve water for times when the creek was low. Water was ditched for a distance of five miles to keep the dams full.”

The town took shape in the conventional way for its time. A plat was laid out by the railroad with a curved swath for the right-of-way nearly bisecting the town. The caption beneath a photo of the plat reads, philosophically, “Plat of Wilson. It represents the hopes and ambitions of an optimistic group of pioneers, but competition from other towns in the area finally made Wilson a ghost town.” Typical small-town business enterprises came into existence. There was a blacksmith shop, a lumber yard and coal shed, several storekeepers, and other activities as mentioned below:

“An early Wilson resident was Jack Cavanaugh who was an interesting character, a capable businessman, an honest competitor, but a friend of all. He was a wheat buyer, postmaster, hotel keeper and merchant. Three section men (Jack Burke, Mike Burke, and Jim Snee) worked for Mr. Cavanaugh part-time.”

On the town plat—(barely readable in the photo), the right-of-way has the name of the railroad., “Wisconsin, Minnesota and Pacific.” Being unfamiliar with that title, we went again to Mr. Donovan’s, “Mileposts. . .,” on page 65-66:

“The story of westward expansion concerns that half-legendary road, the Wisconsin, Minnesota and Pacific. This line never had a foot of track in Wisconsin and fell short of reaching the Pacific by a half continent.

“. . . About this time (1883), the WM&P became a reality in the West. Land was bought with funds provided by Rock Island interests to push construction of the ‘western end’ from Morton, Minnesota, to Watertown, South Dakota, a distance of 122 miles. The rails reached Watertown in 1884, and operations were taken over by the M&STL.”

The Webers’ article continues:

“The Yellowbank Creek was certainly in God’s plan of creation. It provided, water, and shelter for the Indians and also for the homesteaders. But man with his drive to go forward and prosper and improve his way of life effected changes in the area. The flour mill, with its minimum supply of water reserve, could only operate part time and the water wheel gave way to more modern ways of making flour. There was no longer a need for the mill so it was moved to South Shore. The silver mines and the old homestead dugouts leave their impressions in the Yellowbank Creek. The old wooden bridge was replaced by the county with a new bridge on the section line between Georgia and Adams Townships. Then in 1939 it was replaced with a state road and bridge.

“The town of Wilson started out to become one of the bigger towns of the area, but there were many things that stood in the way. Strandburg was six miles to the west; Revillo, four miles to the east; LaBolt, three miles to the northwest; and Albee, four miles to the northeast provided too much competition for the town of Wilson. The close proximity of the Great Northern and the Minneapolis and St. Louis railroads heightened the over competitive situation.

“As the business places started to move out, it was not long until all that was left was a store and post office run by Augusta Rabine. Her business place started June 14, 1904 and was located on Lot 1, Blk. 15. She closed her store March 9, 1916 and sold the remaining lot left from the plotted town of Wilson.

“The depot was sold. The lumber was used in the house and barn on a farm. The section house became part of Francis Greene’s house near Strandburg. In 1960 the train made its last run. In 1970 the Wilson Bridge was sold and taken down. Now the land has been deeded back to most of the adjoining farmers. The old mill ponds and foundation still stand. The stone walls for the old wooden bridge still are there. The railroad grade and Wilson Bridge fill are just a reminder that ‘once upon a time’ there was a flourishing community in Georgia Township.”

Wallace Woodbury, Jr. woodburywe@aol.com