Additional Material: Getting Around chapter, Trains

In the "Getting Around" chapter of the book, the "Trains" sections talks about a couple of major train trips that Mary took during the time she kept her diary. For the trip to visit her daughter and son-in-law in South Dakota, 1906, she detailed in her diary the times she caught trains at which stations. 

What I wrote about that journey in the book is as follows:

Based on train schedules published 1907 – 1908, Grimes to Des Moines took roughly 25 minutes; she arrived around 1 am. She waited until 1:30 am to leave for Madrid. Des Moines to Madrid was 1:25 travel time. Then, she had about an hour’s wait until 4 am for her next train. The Madrid to Sioux City trip took about six hours, with a 20-minute layover in Manilla. Sioux City to Mitchell took 5:25. Mitchell to Chamberlain, where she spent the night, was another 2:45. The following day, the train to Presho took 1:50. All of that together makes about 18 hours of train time plus the overnight in Chamberlain and waits between trains in stations— approximately 30 hours of total travel time to cover 484 miles.

What I could not include in the book, was the map I used to help me visualize the journey. I was able to access the physical train schedules and a wall-sized map of train routes courtesy of the Dana Grefe Collection of Midwest railroad memorabilia. 

I highlighted her journey on an image of part of the 1907 map. Unlike a printed book where this image would be unreadable, in digital format it's zoom-able.

Railroad map of northwest Iowa, southeast South Dakota, and northeast Nebraska, 1907


Location: 603 W Park St, Sheldon, IA 51201, USA

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