BEST-OF-MENOMONIE-2024

menomonie Best Of

TRACKS THROUGH TIME

COLFAX TRAIN MUSEUM CELEBRATES ANNIVERSARY, FEATURED ON PICKERS words and photos by TOM GIFFEY I t’s tempting to call a place like the Colfax Railroad Museum his father returning from the Korean War with a toy train set and bringing him to watch the rail yards in Phila delphia when he was 5 or 6. On a recent summer afternoon,

1915 TRAIN DEPOT

terns (including some made to burn whale oil), typewriters, a telegraph, paperweights, play ing cards, photographs, maps, and much more. The “much more” includes 2,000 pieces of dining car china, the largest publicly displayed collection in the world. It includes about 600 of the roughly 950 patters ever cataloged in the United States. Sakalaucks proudly points out specific china artifacts, like nearly 200-year-old pieces used on the Bal timore & Ohio (the nation’s oldest railroad) to those from numerous countries around the world. These “service plates” frequent ly had ornate designs unique to an individual railroad, and they were used to mark spots in a dining car. However, they were never actually eaten from, Sakalaucks said; in stead, they were whisked away once a passenger’s order arrived on a dif ferent plate. Outside, alongside tracks once use by the Soo Line – and still used for freight by the Canadian National – is where visitors’ imagination re ally gains steam. Whatever your age or familiarity with trains, it’s hard not to feel a surge of wonder and nostalgia stepping into the 1911 Soo Line caboose (complete with bunks and even passenger seats for passen gers), a 1914 Fowler-design boxcar (full of vintage tools and other arti facts), and a 1911 Soo Line passenger car (complete with a display of rail road uniforms and seats). Other artifacts can be admired outside as well, including an authen tic 1911 steam engine, a Soo Line diesel engine, a Northern Pacific

a hidden gem, but that’s not exactly accurate. It’s a gem, certainly, but not hidden: For one thing, it’s right off Main Street in the Dunn County village of Colfax, about 18 miles from Menomonie. For another, the museum has been around 25 years and the former train depot that houses it is more than a century old. And while the museum has been a destination for train buffs and his tory lovers for a quarter century, it’s drawn even more attention this year thanks to an appearance on the popular History Channel series American Pickers . Herb Sakalaucks, the museum’s founder, says visitors range from young children who may have never seen a train to 90-year-olds who worked with some of the equipment preserved there. “The best way to say it is we get kids of all ages,” says Sakalaucks, a lifelong lover of trains. He remember

Sakalaucks offered tours of the mu seum and its collection while other volunteers promoted the museum at the Northern Wisconsin State Fair a few miles away in Chippewa Falls. The nonprofit museum officially opened in 1999, but the depot – a sandstone structure emblazoned with the word “Colfax” – was built in 1915. Originally, Sakalaucks ex plained, the building was larger, but it was damaged by the deadly tor nado that struck Colfax in 1958. The twister hit the freight house on the building’s west side, which wasn’t rebuilt, although stones were used to fix the exterior wall of what was then the women’s waiting room. (Yes, women and children were segregat ed from the swearing, smoking, and carousing of the menfolk.) Inside the historic depot you’ll find an eye-popping collection of railroad memorabilia such as lan

BAGGAGE CAR

coach car, and even a mail car that was used as a house in Altoona until it was relocated to the museum and restored. Last summer, the museum was visited by a crew from American Pickers , who ended up recording a segment and buying some excess memorabilia. The episode aired last spring on the History Channel, and the publicity has helped raise the museum’s profile, spurring a boost in visitors and donations, Saka laucks said. That’s good news for those who work to promote this not-so-hidden gem and promote the love of trains. “You have so many different things there that you can look at, concentrate on, between the steam and the diesel and the electrics,” Sakalaucks said when asked why trains capture his imagination. “But a lot of them are works of art, when you get down to it.” Colfax Railroad Museum, 500 E. Railroad Ave., Colfax • colfaxrrmu seum.org and Facebook • (715) 962 2076 • open 11am-4pm Wednesday Sunday, May 1-Oct. 31 (or by appoint ment) • adults $10, youth (ages 7-14) $5, children (ages 2-6) $2, children under 2 free • miniature train rides on first, third Saturdays for extra fee

RECORDING FOR AMERICAN PICKERS

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Best Of menomonie

July 25, 2024 | www.volumeone.org

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