Casco Junction: Created by the Railroad

Ahnapee & Western and Green Bay, Kewaunee & Western trains 

meeting at the Casco Junction Depot

When the Ahnapee and Western rails were laid to meet the Kewaunee, Green Bay and Western railroad at Casco Junction on Saturday, August 20, 1892, it was the completion of a dream that started with Casco’s Edward Decker before the Civil War. Trains began running on the day that track was completed, two years after the project started.

Edward Decker was given credit for the railroad, and he served as president. As early as 1860 Mr. Decker was applying to secure a railroad from both Ahnapee and Kewaunee to Green Bay. While Decker was serving in the State Senate in 1861, his relative W.S. Finley was a member of the Assembly. Finley introduced a bill to incorporate the Kewaunee and Green Bay railroads, a plan interrupted by the Civil War.

Years later – 1868 – Edward Decker was about to go forward with an idea that could have been the first railroad from the Northeast to the Pacific. With his business associate C. B. Robinson, editor of the Green Bay Advocate, Decker and lumberman Anton Klaus obtained a charter and were organizing a railroad line from Green Bay to St. Paul when the unthinkable happened. On May 22, 1869 Decker was trying to control the horse he was driving when the horse seized Decker’s arm, chewing it and the hand almost to a pulp while nearly trampling the man to death. Decker’s arm was amputated and his life was in jeopardy. It was a year before he was again seen on the streets. In an ironic twist of fate, U.S. railroad history was made 12 days prior to Decker’s accident. The Golden Spike was driven at Promontory Summit in the Utah Territory on May 10, 1869.

After Decker’s health forced his withdrawal and resignation as railroad president, the railroad was built instead to Winona, Minnesota. It was years before Decker completed a freight and passenger line, but this time it was from Casco Junction where it connected with the Ahnapee & Western – and Sturgeon Bay from Ahnapee- and the Kewaunee, Green Bay & Western lines.

Ahnapee & Western Railroad was incorporated on August 18, 1890 and began service in 1892. Financed largely by Decker, it serviced his business interests while serving both Kewaunee and Door Counties. Built without federal subsidizies, the company did secure about $76,000 in assistance from the county and the communities on its route. The Village of Ahnapee voted to contribute $23,000 in support of the bond issue, and to provide $10,000 in depot and dock privileges. Providing most of the capital, Decker eventually acquired most of the railroad’s stock and was its first president. His company was short-lived however as when his family fortune collapsed in 1906, Green Bay & Western purchased controlling interest in the Ahnapee & Western, although kept its name.

Location of Casco Junction, 1912 Plat Map

It was the railroad that put a place called Casco Junction into the annals of Kewaunee County history. Surprisingly there was no big celebration the day the track was extended to Ahnapee, in part because of possible delays. There was a special train made up of the construction engine and a caboose, and when it came into Ahnapee factories blew steam whistles and flags were flown from hotels, buildings and boats. Even though it was stipulated that the track would be laid within two years, few believed it would happen. When the Ahnapee Record editorialized on the new line in August 1892, it said the success that would follow was in the hands of the city. Edward Decker, George Wilbur, Maynard Parker and Frank McDonald were on the train and attested to that.

By May 1885, Casco Junction was touted as a meeting spot for trains and for passengers. The place really was a junction and not much else. Both morning and afternoon trains met there, offering a convenience for the traveling public that wished to visit for a few hours with those along the line and yet return home the same day. Checking the schedules in the county papers meant folks didn’t have to plan in far in advance and could make plans as opportunities arose.

During May 1899, the Record told readership about the wild ride that passengers to Green Bay had. Coming from Sturgeon Bay, the train had an accident thus was delayed in leaving Ahnapee. The delay prevented the connection at Casco Junction prompting orders given to Conductor Decker to take the train through to Green Bay. Engineer White opened No. 2’s throttle, thus making the distance of 35 miles – including 3 stops – in 50 minutes. A stop at Casco let a passenger off. A switch was turned at Casco Junction and orders were gotten at Luxemburg. It was the fastest trip ever made between Ahnapee and Green Bay with running time about a mile a minute.

Taken at the Pony Express Museum

News was made again in August 1900 when 275 passengers were aboard at Casco Junction, all going to Green Bay for Buffalo Bill’s Wild West Show. The train opened a new world, and Casco Junction was the portal to Green Bay and the world beyond. Buffalo Bill drew the whopping 274 on the train, however as early as 1893, the railroad was announcing excursions to Green Bay for the Ringling Brothers Circus.

Maybe it was because Casco Junction was out of the way that theft seemed easy. A young man brought before Casco’s Justice of the Peace Bohman was charged with stealing potatoes. Fifteen bags of potatoes being taken from Sturgeon Bay to Kewaunee were left on the Casco Junction platform to await the next train. The young man standing before Bohman was a section hand who took two of the bags and hid them under the platform. He returned at night to get them, but the potatoes were missing and others felt the man’s actions were suspicious. The railroad had enough of the thievery at the Junction and announced the place would be closely watched in an effort to stop it. Who knows if the survelience stopped it?

Perhaps the 1904 telephone installation at the Junction’s depot helped. Kewaunee’s William Rooney was working for Ahnapee & Western stringing telephone wire from Casco to the Junction in order to connect both depots. The railroad felt the service would be invaluable and would be used by the traveling public as well. A story about a traveling man using the depot phone was most likely what happened to others. While waiting at the Junction, he decided to make a call. He noticed the train moving but felt it was backing up. It wasn’t and the fellow walked to Casco a few miles north.

Door and Kewaunee folks got used to the world at their beckoning, but by November 1917, Casco Junction meant delays. Chicago and Northwestern Railway made changes to its schedule, changes that affected both the A & W and the Green Bay, Kewaunee and Western. Passengers were forced to wait at Casco Junction for two hours, in essence because the line was “small potatoes.” As the paper pointed out, patrons of the C & NW would not desire to have their Green Bay connections broken. There were, however, positive things happening at the same time.

Algoma Record sketch

In late November, also in 1917, the paper reported on the new “Y” being built at Casco Junction to replace the turntable that would be removed and taken to Maplewood where some trains had to run backward. It wasn’t the only turntable moved. During July 1893 a turntable was built near the veneer plant in Ahnapee. A year later it was moved to Sturgeon Bay.

The Casco Junction turntable saved a life during a 1912 train collision when a Kewaunee train was switching tracks. What was called a catastrophe with nobody at fault, wrecked the Algoma train, damaged the Kewaunee train and badly shook up passengers. A brakeman on the Algoma train was in the baggage car when he spotted a signal from the Kewaunee train’s conductor. Knowing what it meant, he jumped from the train into turntable pit thus saving himself from being crushed to death as the baggage would have all gone forward.

It was the railroad that created Casco Junction and gave it much of its history. The trains are long gone, but mention Casco Junction and most people know where it was.

Sources: An-An-api-sebe: Where is the River? C. 2001; Decker files at the Area Research Center, UW-Green Bay; Here Comes the Mail, Post Offices of Kewaunee County, c. 2010;  Doug Larson Door County Advocate, 9/18/1998; Kewaunee New Era.