End-O-Line Railroad Park and Museum (Tour)

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This saltbox type house was built in 1899. It was located 40 miles east of Currie in Comfrey, MN. The last section foreman’s family lived in here and had one son and two daughters. The home was owned and built by the railroad company for the foreman and his family. The building was moved to the park in 1989. The Section Foreman was a railroad worker responsible for daily inspection of a specific section of track, generally 6-20 miles. The foreman was also the person in charge of a group of track workers who made repairs on the section. Some railroad companies would provide a free home to the foreman and their families. Currie had a Section Foreman assigned to the area, but a home was not provided to him.

2. Replica of the First Murray County Courthouse

This is a replica of the first Murray County Courthouse. Currie was the first village in Murray County, established in 1872. As such, it was designated the county seat by default. The original building sat in the middle of town less than a mile northwest from where the water tower is now located. This building is a replica of what it looked like. The completed building in 1882 cost $1,155. Prior to that time, county officials met in their homes, temporary buildings, and the Lake Shetek Mill. The county seat is the town or city in each county that serves as the home for the county government. Having your community designated as the county seat was and is incredibly influential to that town. County seat communities tend to be the center of commercial services in their area like banks, food processing, transportation, insurance, vehicle sales, etc. These towns also are often, though not always, the largest town in their county. In Murray County, Slayton currently serves as the county seat, though Currie held that from 1872-1887 and 1888-1890.Battles for county seat positions have been recorded as early as 1752 between Tower Hill and Kingston in Rhode Island and as recent as Dewey County Oklahoma in 1983. Most battles occurred here in the Midwest. Out of the 1,051 counties in the upper Midwest, there have been 49 conflicts for county seat position. In Minnesota alone, eight violent conflicts for county seat position took place between 1850-1899.

3. First Presbyterian Church

The Lake Shetek church was organized on September 3, 1871. The first members met in a grove west of town and then later in log cabins and homes until the first church was built in 1873 for $900. This is the first and oldest standing church in the county. The Neil Currie family donated land lots for the building and paid the remaining balance of the building costs for the church. The name of the church was changed to First Presbyterian Church of Currie in 1907. In 1929, the church had an addition added onto the front and a basement was installed. In 1953, the church was added on to again with enlargement to the sanctuary and an addition to the area where the organ and piano now sit to the South.In 2005 the church was moved from its location in Currie to End-O-Line Park. This was made possible by a generous donation from Zorada Silvernale Hoge and the effort of the park's Director Louise Gervais.After being moved the Church was still used for regular non-denominal serves during the summer months until 2021.

4. Sunrise School District No. 1

This building is a one room country or rural schoolhouse. Before automobiles were around or common in every family household, country schools were necessary for children to get a quality education, if transportation to the closest public school wasn’t available.The beautiful sunrise on the front and the sign denotes the building as being the first district in Murray County. It also originally had the sunrise on the back.They are called “One-Room” because of the small class sizes. The number of students in a single grade was usually in the single digits. Because of that, all grades, 1st through 8th grade, were taught in this one room by one teacher. (kindergarten was not common in schools until around the 1950s).

5. Grist Mill

This building is a replica of the original Currie grist mill which was built in 1872. A Grist Mill (also called a flour mill, roller mill, or feed mill) is the place where farmers would bring their wheat and grain to grind it into flour. At the heart of the gristmill are grinding stones. They are two stones, an upper and a lower stone, were made out of ordinary granite or sandstone. The top stone rotates on the bottom stone with a hole in the center of the top where grain was fed from a hopper. The grain was ground between the two stones. The stones, which could weight as much as a ton, were turned using water power. Most mills had a water wheel. This mill in Currie had a large turbine at the bottom of the river.

6. General Store

Neil and Archibald Currie, a father and son team, came to this area in 1871 and thought this was some of the most beautiful land they had seen. They came back in 1872 and built this first general store and grist mill. This became the first general store in Southwest Minnesota.Originally the store sat up by the Des Moines River by the bridge. It sold everything inside from food to clothing to hardware items. It also housed the post office and bank. According to Mabel Currie’s diary, she wrote that she could remember Native Americans trading in this store and how the young children liked the peppermint candies.

7. Currie Depot

The location to build the Currie Depot was selected in June 1899. Construction was completed later in 1900. This building was originally located across the highway from where it currently sits, near where the grain bins are today. It was in operation until 1968. In 1973, an ad published in local papers by the Chicago and North Western Railway Company, stated this building would be torn down, if not sold. The local 4-H club contacted the company and were able to “buy” the building from the railroad for $1, provided it was moved off the property. The building was moved to its present site in 1976. It remains one of End-O-Line Park’s most popular buildings.

8. Engine House

This building is called the Engine House. The original engine house was torn down in 1949. This building was built in 1978. The engine house was used to repair and maintain locomotives. There would have been a grease pit in the building. It would have been between the tracks in front of the tool display. Typically it was about seven feet deep and 30 feet long. The men were then able to do repair work underneath the rail equipment. A sand pit was also in the back of the engine house. They used the sand on the tracks in the wintertime for traction.

9. Grand Trunk Western Caboose

The caboose was typically the last car on a train. Use of cabooses began in the 1830s, when railroads housed trainmen in shanties built onto boxcars or flatcars. The caboose provided the train crew with a shelter at the rear of the train.The caboose in a lot of ways was a glorified staff break room. Usually three to five men would ride inside the caboose. The cots are where the trainmen would sleep. Some had seat belts that would fasten them in so they would not roll on the floor, as the train was moving down the tracks. The Currie line was so short that the men did not sleep in the caboose.

10. Chicago, St. Paul, Minneapolis, and Omaha Road Turntable

In 1900, the Des Moines Valley RailwayCompany completed a thirty-eight mile branch line extending from Bingham Lake to Currie. The line was immediately purchased by theChicago, St. Paul, Minneapolis and Omaha Railway—commonly called the Omaha Road.Rumors that the railway would extend westward proved untrue, and Currie remained theterminus of the line, known as the Currie Branch. Because there was only a single track on the Currie-Bingham Lake line, a hand-operated turntable was constructed in Currie in 1901, in order to more easily turn the steam engines around and return them east to Bingham Lake.

This Tour is a Walking Tour.

End-O-Line Railroad Park and Museum

Created by Nicholas Demuth on July 19th 2023, 7:29:05 pm.

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Description

Established in the 1970s to preserve the history of the arrival of rail service to Currie, the End-O-Line Railroad Park and Museum offers a variety of programs and exhibits, including the only preserved, hand-operated railroad turntable in the Midwest. Visitors to the museum can take a spin on the turntable and learn about the history of railroading both in Currie and in southern Minnesota in general. Exhibits and programs focus on the communities in the area and the impact of the railroad in the early 20th century. The park also houses a dozen historic structures, including the first general store in southwest Minnesota, a historic one-room schoolhouse built in the 1890s, and the original Currie depot building.

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End-O-Line Railroad Park and Museum

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