General Discussion

Well there is an entire book on Minnesota logging railroads which i have seen but do not own.

http://www.upress.umn.edu/Books/K/king_minnesota.html

A bit of research into Spring Valley suggests it was farmland before the era of the big logging railroads.  While there is, or was, a Forestville, it was named not for abundant trees but rather after a man named Forest, according to Wikipedia:  http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Forestville,_Minnesota

Dave Nelson

The terrain in SE Minnesota along the Mississippi is quite rugged, in the 19th c. there were several narrow-gauge railroads built there to run from the river west into the countryside.

I do have the King book (the old hardcover version) at home...I can check it tonight, but although the railroads in that area may have hauled some logs and/or pulpwood, I don't think there were any major lumbering operations in that part of the state. Farther north along the St.Croix river there was a lot of logging.

Boyd,

  I am not aware of a 'logging' operation around there.  This is pretty rugged land(lot's of schist geology), and the CGW did have a branch to iron mines SW of Spring Valley.  What is not down in the river valley area(lot's of limestone/sandstone bluffs) is 'high prairie' with lots of farming(corn fields).  The MILW, C&NW, and CGW all have several small branches/secondary line through the area and may have hauled out logs at one time.

  To the east is Winona, MN and at one time it was a large lumber sawing town(until the turn of the century).  Most of the lumber was floated down the Chippewa & Mississippi rivers, there was no rail operation feeding the mills.  Rail was used to move milled product out of the mills.

Jim

The first RR built into Spring Valley was the Southern Minnesota RR in Oct. 1870. This RR eventually became part of the Milwaukee Road. There is an excellent book about RR's in this part of Minnesota by John C. Luecke titled "Dreams, Disasters, and Demise: The Milwaukee Road in Minnesota".

The only narrow-gauge logging RR in Minnesota that I know of was the "Gull Lake & Northern" located in the Brainerd area. (as-per Frank King's book)

Dan

By the way the Minnesota Historical Society website has a database search function where you can narrow your search to photographs.

http://collections.mnhs.org/visualresources/search.cfm?bhcp=1

Searching for "logging" turns up hundreds of images they have, evidently for sale, some actually on the website.  I did not go through all of them!  Searching for Spring Valley came up with about 80 images.  Here is one example, assuming I do this correctly:

Dave Nelson

dknelson wrote:

Searching for Spring Valley came up with about 80 images.  Here is one example, assuming I do this correctly: Dave Nelson

Why are all the people wearing such heavy coats?

What is that white stuff on the ground?  Looks like a hard way to run a railroad.

Bill in South Carolina

Beach Bill wrote:

dknelson wrote: What is that white stuff on the ground?  Looks like a hard way to run a railroad.

They use that white stuff to kill Kudzu. Quite effective!