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The Early History of Illinois Central Railroad Company in Waterloo (1860-1900)
1860: in the fall, the Dubuque & Sioux City Railroad Company planned to extend railroad to Waterloo.
1861: at 5:05 PM Monday, March 11, the Dubuque & Sioux City Railroad (East-West) was completed from Jesup to Waterloo and the first passenger train arrived in Waterloo station from Dubuque. The First Train arrived in Cedar Falls Station at 5:30pm Monday, April 1, 1861 (Hartman, 1915, pp. 363-364).
1867: On October 1, the Illinois Central Railroad Company leased the Dubuque & Sioux City Railroad, the Burlington, Cedar Rapids & Minnesota railroad company built the railway through Black Hawk and Waterloo as one of the principal station on the line (South to North) (p.363).
1870: On Saturday, November 12 the machine shops of the Iowa Division of the Illinois Central Railroad were moved from Dubuque to Waterloo. There were about one hundred and sixty workers employed by the workshop. The workshop were constructed of brick and made fireproof, including “a ROUNDHOUSE with fourteen stalls, machine and blacksmith shops, and carpenter and paint shops” (p. 365). Waterloo was the most central point on the railroad in Iowa. The people in Waterloo gave the IC $23,000 in cash and about seventy acre of land for the location in Waterloo.
1884: Wisconsin, Iowa & Nebraska Road (called the Chicago Great Western in 1915) constructed its rail road from Chicago to Kansas City and from Chicago to St. Paul. The Waterloo station was on the railroad of the Kansas City branch (Diagonal). For detailed information, please refer to http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Chicago_Great_Western_Railroad
1886: on August 27 an ordinance granting the right of way to the Illinois Central Railroad Company (IC), letting IC railroad go through, across, along and upon certain streets, avenues, alleys and public highways in the City of Waterloo, known as the “Waterloo Belt Line,” was passed (p. 364).
1891: on October 11 the downtown freight station was opened for business, such as the Station at Bluff and Fourth Street in Waterloo.
1892: on November 1 the downtown passenger station was opened for business.
1900: the Illinois Central Railroad Company planned to make the Waterloo central division the most important place on the railroad line between Omaha and Chicago, and to install improvement in the city to the amount of $700,000.
1911: at 8AM on October 11, the shopmen at the Illinois Central Railroad workshop in Waterloo joined the Strike organized by the System Federation (an association of unions)(Park, October 12, 1911; Waterloo Evening Courier, October 2, 1911). After the STRIKE, African American MIGRANTS started finding jobs at the Illinois Central Railroad workshop. The BLACK TRIANGLE residential area began emerging under the economic, social, and political conditions in Waterloo during the early 1900s.
Sources:
*Hartman, J.C. (1915). Roads and railroads. In J.C. Hartman (Supervising Ed.), Black Hawk County Iowa and its people, Volume 1 (pp. 355-365). Chicago: The S.J.
Park, W.L. (1911, October 12). The facts about shopmen's strike. Chicago: The Illinois Central Railroad Company.
*John C. Hartman became the Editor of Waterloo Courier in 1895, located at 186 West Fourth Street. In the John Hartman era the Courier acquired competing newspapers, the Iowa State Reporter, and the Waterloo Tribune (Corwin, & Hoy, 2000, p.63).
Corwin, M., & Hoy, H. (2000). Waterloo: A pictorial history. Rock Island: IL: Quest Publishing.
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