Asphaltum, Indiana
   HOME

TheInfoList



OR:

The Onion Belt, more formally known as the Chicago & Wabash Valley Railroad (C&WV), was a private railroad in Lake County and Jasper County owned and built by Benjamin J. Gifford for transporting crops, including the onions for which it is informally named, and livestock from his farmholdings in north-western
Indiana Indiana ( ) is a U.S. state, state in the Midwestern United States, Midwestern region of the United States. It borders Lake Michigan to the northwest, Michigan to the north and northeast, Ohio to the east, the Ohio River and Kentucky to the s ...
.


"The Swamp King" of the "Big Swamp Farm"

Gifford, who came from in
Kankakee, Illinois Kankakee ( ) is a city in and the county seat of Kankakee County, Illinois, United States. Located on the Kankakee River, as of 2020, the city's population was 24,052. Kankakee is a principal city of the Kankakee-Bourbonnais-Bradley, IL MSA, Kan ...
, started purchasing what was originally
marsh In ecology, a marsh is a wetland that is dominated by herbaceous plants rather than by woody plants.Keddy, P.A. 2010. Wetland Ecology: Principles and Conservation (2nd edition). Cambridge University Press, Cambridge, UK. 497 p More in genera ...
land in July 1891, dredging channels for drainage and then leasing it out to tenant farmers, and decided to build his own railroad, using only his own money, for the crops that were grown by them. In addition to his lands in Indiana, he also owned around Kankakee. In the first five years of dredging with a steam dredge he dug of main line ditches, ranging from deep and wide, crossed by several hundred miles more of tile drains; and he had 250 tenants producing over 1,000,000 bushels of corn and 400,000 bushels of onions in 1898. In 1899 he was farming of his own at Pinkamunk marsh and projecting 250,000 bushels of onions that year, planting Yellow Danvers at of seed. He had gained the nickname "The Swamp King".


Development of the railway

The C&WV began on 1898-08-10 and connected to the "Old Coal Road" (the Chicago, Attica and Southern Railroad) at Zadoc. By 1899-07-01 it already stretched south to Comer station (near Lewiston). This grew by 1900 to track going from Kersey, north of Zadoc, to Pleasant Grove, and then by 1901 further south to connect with the
Monon Railroad The Monon Railroad , also known as the Chicago, Indianapolis, and Louisville Railway from 1897 to 1971, was an American railroad that operated almost entirely within the state of Indiana. The Monon was merged into the Louisville and Nashville R ...
at McCoysburg. When a steel foundry developed at Gary, Gifford changed his ideas and decided upon Gary as the line's intended northernmost destination, as a way to transport coal north from the Old Coal Road to Gary. Dinwiddie, named after a local family in Lake County was reached by 1906, but the C&WV never quite reached Gary, being short of it when construction stopped in 1912. Gifford died in 1913, and his railroad vanished with his death, the stocks and bonds being sold by his estate to the Chicago, Indianapolis & Louisville Railway and the Monon Railroad taking charge of the railway on 1914-03-15. Monon finally abandonded the line in 1935.


Asphaltum and the Old Field Branch

Asphaltum, later renamed Crescent, was the terminus of the C&WV's only, and short lived, branch line, the Old Field Branch running from Gifford station (named after Benjamin Gifford, who founded a village there in 1899) to an oil field in Jasper County. Although it had 100 wells in 1900, the oil drilling had dried up by 1904; the refinery closing that September, a mere 1 year after the branch line had been completed. Asphaltum's post office lasted from 1901-08-23 to 1904-09-15.


Other stops

In addition to the aforementioned, stops on the line included Laura, which flourished as a small village from 1897 with a post office of that name from 1902-05-03 until 1913-09-15; Kersey, named after a local family and also having a post office from 1900-05-25 until 1955-02-28; Moody, named after Granville Moody in 1893 and served by the Pleasant Grove station's post office; and Randle. Lewiston was platted on 1901-09-09 by Gifford himself. Pleasant Grove post office had been established on 1842-11-11, and was renamed to Moody on 1914-07-23, finally closing on 1923-07-14.


See also

* List of Indiana railroads * List of private railway stations


Footnotes


References


Bibliography

* * () * () * * * *


Further reading

* * * * * * () *


External links

* * * {{flickr, id=photos/55797950@N00/1837337386, name=Timetable of trains between McCoysburg and Dinwiddie from a railway guide Jasper County, Indiana Lake County, Indiana Private railway stations Railway lines opened in 1898