Annandale Depot &
Train Wrecks
Presentation to the Annandale History
Club
March 7, 2011
Carol Weir
Carol Weir has been a Pioneer Park volunteer since 1981.
This is Carol’s third presentation to the Annandale History Club.
The other presentations were a Tour
of Pioneer Park in 2009 and the History
of Pioneer Park in 2008.
Annandale Depot
The Minneapolis & Pacific Railroad, predecessor of the Soo Line, built the
Annandale Depot in November and December of 1886 using their standard 20 x 48
foot depot plan. The same depot
plan was built at Maple Lake, South Haven and Kimball.
The Annandale depot was at the present location of Lyman Lumber on
Highway 55. The original depot was
situated on wood blocks with wooden planks and featured the following:
20’ x 16’ waiting room with three windows and a door with transom.
20’ x 9’ 1” office with a bay window and business counter opening to the
waiting room.
20’ x 22’ 11” freight room with sliding doors on three sides.
The construction cost for the 20 x 48 foot depot was about $1,250, material and
labor. The first station agent was
E.J. McConnell (January-April 1887). W. L. Haggerty was station agent from 1891
to 1893 and 1895 until his death in 1921.
In 1908 the depot was lengthened by 24 feet to provide for an additional 20
x 16 foot waiting room. One waiting
room was for women and children and the other for men, because the men’s
spittoons and smoking and chewing were very disagreeable to women.
The freight room was also lengthened.
The enlarged depot was 20 x 72 feet.
There was an outdoor toilet.
The depot was wired for electricity in 1916.
In 1949 the Annandale depot was badly damaged by poles that released from a
passing train, and
temporary repairs were made. At
that time the village of Annandale requested that the Soo Line
construct a modern station to comply with the village ordinance that no outside
toilets are
permitted in Annandale. In 1950 the
Soo Line complied with the ordinance and provided
modern toilet and water facilities consisting of one toilet located off the
men’s waiting room.
Also in 1950 the depot was sided with Insul-Brick, a brick-look asphalt
material, to help curb heat loss.
The decorative roof brackets were removed.
$5,326 was authorized for the work.
The last passenger train to stop for passengers in Annandale was on May 2, 1959,
and on March 25, 1967, the last passenger train passed through Annandale.
The Annandale depot closed in 1971.
In 1972 the depot was moved down Highway 55 to Pioneer Park.
The brick-look siding was removed and the depot was painted its original
colors.
Annandale Train Wrecks
Carol recounted several Annandale train wrecks as reported in newspapers.
In 1922 there was a major train crash where 10 people died and 32 were
injured.
Annandale Advocate, August 7, 2002 (Excerpts)
- By Chuck Sterling:
“The worst disaster in Annandale history occurred
in a few moments of mayhem at a railroad crossing 80 years ago.
Twelve people died and 35 were injured (Note: These numbers were from an
early report and later revised to ten dead and 32 injured) on August 12, 1922,
when a Soo Line passenger train slammed into an oil truck at what is now the
South Myrtle Drive crossing just east of downtown.
“Soo Line No. 107 out of Minneapolis was enroute to the West Coast about 2:30
that Saturday
afternoon when an oil truck driven by Fred Lamar of Maple Lake drove in front of
it. He had
apparently been watching an eastbound freight on the siding and didn’t see the
passenger train
coming the other way. The train
threw the truck into the switch stand, tearing it loose and
opening the switch. The locomotive
and mail car continued on the main line, but the baggage
and smoker cars and a day coach ran onto the siding and smashed into the freight
engine. The
impact knocked it on its side in the ditch with the baggage car on top of it.
The wooden smoker
car was hit by coaches from behind, and one of them plowed through the side.
Several other
coaches derailed, one box car was demolished and several others were badly
damaged.
“The dead and seriously injured passengers, all men, were found in the smoker,
which carried
about 40 people. Another 140 or
more passengers on the train were unhurt, according to a story
in the Buffalo Journal. The truck
driver and a passenger, who had hitched a ride, were killed. So
was the freight engineer, who was scalded by the steam from his boiler.
“Mrs. Harry Kurz, who lived near the crossing, saw the crash and immediately
phoned two
Annandale doctors, A. M. Ridgway and George H. Norris, and the fire department,
the Journal
story said. ‘It was the latter that
saved the loss of many lives,’ the Journal said, ‘as the
wreckage of the smoker caught fire almost immediately, and the fire department
was soon on the
scene and quenched the flames.’
“The wreckage attracted thousands of onlookers.
‘All day Sunday, from early morning until late
at night, every road leading to Annandale flowed with automobiles and
pedestrians coming to
view the wreckage’ the Advocate said.”
Annandale Advocate, August 17, 1922 (Excerpts)
– Firefighters E. Sykes, Fred Hart, Amazel
Bently, George Kurz, Carl Lundeen, Oscar Kurz, Neil Bahr, Ed Dunton, Walter
Lundeen, and
Chet Sparks worked with blow torches to recover the injured and the dead.
As soon as word was received in Minneapolis, a relief train, doctors and nurses
and a wrecker
were rushed to the scene. Injured
people were taken to the Cleveland, Kurz, and Towle homes
and when the relief train came were sent to city hospitals.
Buffalo Journal, August 17, 1922 (Excerpts)
– “Appeals for help were sent to every village nearby and as soon as possible
physicians and nurses were rushing to Annandale from all over the county.”
The following physicians who responded were listed in the Journal
article:
Dr. J. J. Catlin, Soo Line surgeon in Buffalo
Dr. B. F. Swezey of Buffalo
Dr. John Warner of South Haven
Dr. V. M. Rousseau of Maple Lake
Dr. George Sherwood of Kimball Prairie
Dr. J. H. Rischmiller, chief surgeon of the Soo Line
Dr. Rose Valley of Fairview Hospital, Minneapolis, who was a passenger on the
train.
Persis Taylor, a graduate nurse, motoring to Tuelle’s Resort, arrived at the
scene about one hour
after it happened. She reported to
the physicians and assisted in caring for most of the serious
cases.
Dr. A. G. Moffatt of Howard Lake, coroner of Wright County, was one of the
earliest
professional men on the scene from a distance.
He arranged for the use of a business place for a
morgue and made every effort to identify the dead as rapidly as possible.
The injured were cared
for in homes of generous Annandale folk until it was possible to get a train to
carry most of them
to Minneapolis for hospital care.
The train brought additional doctors and nurses from
Minneapolis.
Those who lost their lives in the wreck:
Fred Lamer, 34, Maple Lake, oil truck driver
Christian Wallace, 52, Minneapolis, freight train engineer
Robert Becker, 44, St. Paul, baggage man on passenger train
Arne Thompson, 72, Cambridge, passenger in oil truck
Emil Myllykangas, 19, Annandale
Bert Clark, 36, St. Paul, Salesman
Albert Zollner, 64, Adrian, Farmer
Raymond Ulrich, 20, Horicon, Wisconsin, going to the N.D. harvest fields
Edmund Ulrich, 18, Horicon, Wisconsin (brother of Raymond)
Unidentified man, clothes completely torn off, no means of identification
Among the 32 injured were Robert Norris, Annandale, Dr. Norris’ son, and the
following Soo
Line employees:
Charles H. Mathews, Minneapolis, conductor of passenger train No. 107
Chadwick Hulton, St. Paul, assistant baggage man on passenger train
L. W. Johnson, Minneapolis, fireman on freight train
E. L. Palmer, Minneapolis, brakeman on passenger train
J. B. Mauer, St. Paul, brakeman on passenger train
Annandale Train Derailments
St. Cloud Daily Times, August 28, 1980
– Mayor Wally Houle was going for his morning
coffee Wednesday when he saw a large freight train buckle and fold ‘like a match
box.’ At
8 a.m. a Soo Line Freight train bound from Glenwood to the Twin Cities flipped
off the track
crashing into itself and spilling its cargo near a grain elevator at the center
of Annandale. During
the derailment seven grain cars, two cars of potash and two carloads of lumber
went off the
center track, which runs along Minnesota Highway 55.
Minneapolis Star & Tribune, Friday, August 22, 1986
– A Twin Cities-bound Soo Line train,
carrying lumber, paper and container products, derailed Wednesday evening from
tracks along
Highway 55, east of Annandale. No
one was injured when 15 cars near the back of the train left
the tracks, said John Bergene, a Soo Line spokesman.
Equipment used to clear debris broke a
telephone cable and severed long distance calling for about 6,000 Lakedale
Telephone Co.
customers. Bergene said a
preliminary investigation showed that the derailment was caused by a
broken coupling mechanism that connects the train cars.
Buffalo Journal Press, March 24, 1988
– It all began about 7:40 a.m., Saturday, March 19.
An eastbound freight train was rumbling through Annandale.
Suddenly a car in the middle of the train jumped the rails.
Twenty-eight box cars and tankers toppled over and slid toward the
business places along the tracks.
The Homestead Family Restaurant building, temporarily out of business, was hit.
Cars folded together like an accordion.
Those that struck the restaurant smashed some electrical equipment.
The whole place was destroyed by fire.
A short distance away, volatile methanol was leaking from a tanker.
Another tanker contained potentially deadly sulfur dioxide gas.
Still other tankers were reportedly holding anhydrous ammonia.
A fireman told Mel Niewind, a produce manager who had opened Perry’s Jack and
Jill that morning at 7, about the leaks in the tankers and said he better clear
the store. Electricity went out
throughout most of Annandale for much of the day.
Police and firemen moved in very quickly.
They had streets blocked off in a matter of minutes.
The firemen set to work on the restaurant and the tankers near the fire.
The sheriff’s department called in the Minnesota Pollution Control
Agency’s (PCA) hazardous materials (HAZMAT) specialty team.
The decision to evacuate the city was made at a little after 11.
The task was completed about noon. (Note:
Bendix Elementary was an evacuation site and moved to Maple Lake High
School when Annandale was evacuated.
The local chapter of the Red Cross helped at the evacuation sites.
The evacuation was called off at 6 p.m.)
Lt. Don Hozempa of the Wright County Sheriff’s Department would not even hazard
a guess as to how big an explosion might have been if the methanol tankers had
been set off by the fire. He added,
the Soo Line was “much impressed” with the emergency actions, especially
considering the accident was potentially the most dangerous in Soo Line history.
Annandale Advocate, March 1, 1998
March 19, 1988. It was 7:35 a.m.
Soo Line train No. 940, a general service freight train, approached
Annandale from the west at 39 mph.
The train consisted of two locomotives and 85 cars.
It weighed 9,592 tons. The
two locomotives rolled smoothly past the Homestead Restaurant, Peery’s Jack and
Jill Store, and then the engineer experienced a strange sensation, a lurching.
He radioed the Soo Line that his brakes had gone into their emergency
mode. The train slowly screeched to
a halt. Something was wrong.
Everything was quiet.
Twenty-eight of the train’s cars had derailed…
Three of the derailed cars were carrying methanol.
One tanker was carrying fuel oil, and one of the largest concerns was for
a severely damaged tanker car that was carrying sulfer dioxide…
Each tanker contained about 20,000 gallons of material and some of it was
leaking. In addition to the
derailed cars carrying chemicals, some cars were carrying lumber and started on
fire along with the blaze from the Homestead.
Help cleaning up
– Volunteers worked a 43 hour shift over the course of the weekend.
Fire fighters from South Haven, Maple Lake and Buffalo pitched in to
help, along with emergency rescue crews from Clearwater and Cokato.
The Wright County Sheriff’s Department had about 30 deputies on hand
throughout the weekend representing 23 on-duty squad cars.
The State Patrol dispatched 11 troopers to the scene at different times
over the course of the weekend.
Seven Department of Natural Resources officers helped to evacuate the town and
helped secure it after it was empty.
They also provided night shift relief at the road blocks leading into
town.
In addition to the fire fighters, law enforcement officers and rescue crews from
the area, special hazardous materials clean-up crews came from as far away as
California, Ohio, Nebraska, Canada and the Upper Peninsula of Michigan to help
in the effort…
Aftermath
– After the fires were out, the methanol leak had been plugged, and verification
was received that the sulfur dioxide tank wasn’t leaking, the people of
Annandale were allowed to return to their homes.
Officials estimated that the wreck caused about $400,000 in damage to the
28 cars that derailed and that there was another $30,000 in track damage.
Lateral pressure on the rails is said to have been the probable cause of the
accident. The rail on the north
side of the track was most likely pushed out slightly by the force of the train
as it passed, just slightly, but enough to cause the wheels of that 33rd
car to jump the track and derail the train.
The track had been inspected by a rail inspector on March 18, the day
before the derailment. That
inspection found the track to be in compliance in every respect.
Looking back
– Looking back on the event, there were many reasons for residents of Annandale
to consider themselves lucky.
The wreck happened early enough in the morning that very few people were in the
grocery store’s parking lot. If the
accident had happened later in the day, it could have been cars and people
buried by the wreckage rather than just dirt and pavement.
The wreck, when it jumped the tracks, missed the Lamplighter Motel, missed the
trailer where Henry Lundeen was sleeping, and struck the only building in the
vicinity that was unoccupied, the Homestead Restaurant.
The fire, when it started, did not ignite the highly flammable methanol that was
leaking from the damaged tanker cars.
There was no explosion, no escape of toxic gas, and no deaths or
significant injuries.
Notes by Annandale History Club
Secretary
Links:
Soo Line Railroad and Annandale Train Depot, October 2, 2006