CHICAGO & NORTHWESTERN DEPOT
As the lumber industry grew the need for transporting freshly cut timber to the lumbermills of southern Wisconsin was need and the first Railway bridge in Eagle River was built in 1883 by the Milwaukee Lakeshore & Western Railway Co. The bridge was replaced in 1902 by the Chicago and North Western Transportation Co. (C. + N.W.) which had started a commercial and passenger train line as early as 1893 after merging with the M.L.S.W. Soon after, the first depot was built in 1888 (before it was a box car with no wheels) and was built on a standardized layout as other rural depots - the same materials and general functions such as a telegraph station, wood promenade, and out house. C.+ N.W. had earned the reputation of “Cheap and Nothing Wasted” given its uniform color schemes to save on paint costs and often hastily maintained buildings or equipment.
A TAD TOASTY
A TAD TOASTY
In February of 1923 the original depot burned down from an overheated woodstove and until a new one was constructed, a box car served again as a temporary depot. In November of 1923, the current depot was completed and under the design plan of Frost & Granger. The new depot was built on the street side of the tracks to prevent passengers from crossing the tracks to get into town and still followed a basic design and similar layout of rural depots. The Eagle River Depot however, was privileged to have been built in the popular Tudor Revival Style for the burgeoning tourist town.
However, as freeways became more established in the late-1930s and expanded drastically under Eisenhower's Administration in the mid-1950s for National Security and Economic Development, rail service became less popular. Especially in the wake of American Motor Car culture expanding. By the end of the First World War, 6.7 million cars traveled American roads, and as 1929 approached, 27 million cars roamed the nation- approximately one for every five Americans. In post-WWII America automobile manufacturing had increased tenfold, in 1950 alone 6,665,000 automobiles had been manufactured and by 1960 there were 61,424,831 registered drivers on the road and by 1970 there were 89,279,864.
All of this lead to a notable decline rail road traffic. The height of U.S. railroad traffic was in 1916 with approx. 254,037 +/- miles of railroad, come 1960 there is 207,334 miles and by 1970 there are 196,479 miles of operating track. Within this trend, Eagle River’s passenger service was discontinued in 1968 and its freight service went on until 1980, with the rails being removed by the turn of the 21st century.
