Now that I’ve got my first interview, a date for “A Prairie Home Companion” and a Couchsurfing host in Duluth (one down!) I guess it’s time to start making plans for train travel. If it’s between driving through icy mountains alone and flying while missing most of the states I’ve never been to… I’ll take option C.) train. Someone else can take the reigns while I sit back and spend 36 hours and 25 minutes eating junk food out of a backpack and riding through the northwest.
The Empire Builder
The highlights:
FARGO Named for Wells Fargo Express Company founder (and former resident) William Fargo, North Dakota’s largest town is in the heart of the fertile and famous Red River Valley. Bonanzaville, USA, a pioneer village reconstructed from original buildings, is at West Fargo. The area east of Fargo is a major livestock center where the Empire Builder crosses the Red River. During the night the train stops at Detroit Lakes and Staples. The Big Bopper, Ritchie Valens, and Buddy Holly died in a plane crash while bound for Fargo in 1959. Known as “The Day the Music Died,” the crash was made famous in the song “American Pie” by Don McLean. Fargo is an Academy Award winning 1996 film staring William H. Macy; the town is also the birthplace of 1960s pop singer Bobby Vee.
North Dakota/Minnesota State Line
ST. CLOUD In 1868, the area’s colored granite deposits were quarried for the first time to build the wall that surrounds the St. Cloud Reformatory, on the left. Completed in 1889, it was the first institution of its kind in the state. The wall surrounding the facility was built by inmates and is the longest granite wall in the world. In 1917, Samuel C. Pandolfo started the Pan Motor Company here. Claiming that the town would become the “new Detroit” for all the cars he would produce, he was later convicted and imprisoned for attempting to defraud investors.
ST. PAUL-MINNEAPOLIS Midway Station, serving the Twin Cities, is a service point for fuel and water for the train and therefore a good place to stretch legs, make a call, or buy a paper. This spot is not only midway between the two cities but also midway between the Equator and North Pole. Father Louis Hennepin arrived here in 1683 and claimed the territory for France. French rule was relinquished to the U.S. in 1803 with the Louisiana Purchase. Originally, St. Paul was known by the nickname of its first settler, trader Pierre Parrant, or “Pig’s Eye.” Blind in one eye, he opened a tavern on the river flats that grew into a trading outpost. Minnesota’s state capital, it was also the boyhood home of writer F. Scott Fitzgerald and the home of Empire Builder founder James J. Hill. The J.J. Hill Library here contains a meticulous record of his many dealings with business, political and religious leaders including over four hundred seventy linear feet of correspondence and documents – Empire Builder Route Guide 7 roughly the size of a filing drawer one hundred fifty yards long. Taken together – letterpress books, correspondence, financial records – the papers are among the most complete business and private papers of any major American economic leader of the period. The fairy tale castle on the right is the former Schmidt’s Brewery. St. Paul Cathedral is on the left, modeled after St. Peter’s in Rome. On the right, picturesque riverboats take tourists from Harriet Island to Ft. Snelling. Minneapolis is the larger and younger of the Twin Cities and was named using an Indian word “Minnie” meaning “water” and the Greek word “Polis,” meaning city, because of the 22 natural lakes within the city limits. A suburb boasts the largest shopping mall in the U.S., the “Mall of America.” A city of trade and industry, it is also known as the “Flour City” due to the great number of mills on the Mississippi. It is second only to New York in live theater per capita and boasts the best park system in the U.S. A statue of Mary Tyler Moore in the downtown Nicollet Mall commemorates the 1970s television sitcom of the same name based in the city.
Mississippi River For 140 miles, you see fertile farmland, riverbank towns, barges and restored paddlewheel boats – scenes that have inspired visitors for decades. You also see a system of federally-funded dams and locks that tame the waterway for current needs. The river is the second longest in the U.S., with a length of 2,340 miles from Lake Itasca to the Gulf of Mexico.
Hastings The train crosses the Mississippi entering Hastings; five minutes later it crosses the Vermillion River.
RED WING At the Saint James Hotel on the right, each room is named for a riverboat. The Minnesota State Training School, on the right, was modeled after a German castle. The town of Red Wing was named after a Dakota Chief who had adopted the custom of wearing a swan’s wing dyed scarlet. Red Wing Shoes are manufactured here. Frontenac This pretty town traces its roots back to an original French fort built here in 1723. Today it has its own ski area on the right. Lake Pepin As the Chippewa River meets the Mississippi on the Wisconsin side, the resulting backwaters – like an invisible dam – form beautiful Lake Pepin. In the winter, the lake is a home for eagles. It is also the birthplace of water skiing, invented by Ralph Samuelson in 1922 at the age of 18. Wabasha The Anderson House Hotel, Minnesota’s oldest operating hotel since 1856, provides complimentary shoe shines, hot bricks to warm your feet, and house cats to keep you company. The town was also the setting for the popular Grumpy Old Men movies. WINONA Sugar Loaf Mountain on the right was a ceremonial meeting place of the Sioux, who named this town “firstborn daughter.” Winona is also the stained glass capital of the U.S., and headquarters of the Watkins Corporation, featured in the TNT movie Door to Door starring William H. Macy.
minnesotalica 