Dupo to Millstadt

Point of Interest

This railroad line was built in 1883 by the St. Louis and Cairo Railroad, which later became the Mobile & Ohio Railroad. According to local history, on April 2, 1912, a derailment occurred on the line west of Millstadt in which the engineer, William Strauss, and the brakeman, Arthur Swinderman, were killed.

The tracks were abandoned in 1961 as railroad service to Millstadt ended.

The Millstadt branch, as it was known, left the mainline of the Gulf Mobile and Ohio Railroad at Millstadt Junction, just a few miles southeast of Dupo, Illinois. It was a difficult line to build, in regard to the karst landscape which it crosses. In January of 1945, the branch was sold by the GM&O to organizers from the Millstadt area and became known as the Columbia and Millstadt Railroad Company. Indeed, in 1961, the tracks were finally abandoned back to Millstadt Junction. The mainline through Millstadt Junction, which crossed the Missouri Pacific line near Dupo, and continued north to st. louis on its own right of way, saw its final train on August 2nd of 1985. This route was known as the "Sparta district" and hosted primarily coal trains and light local freight traffic. The rails at the once busy Millstadt Junction were lifted in April of 1986, ending over a century of service and tradition.

Brian Daniel
Labadie, MO
1/26/2012

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