Transportation played key role in city's development

Breanna Bisek, Sesquicentennial Writer

The earliest means of transportation didn't cause people to meet with a banker to take out a life-sized loan. They didn't get to pick from various styles and colors for a new set of wheels. They were attached to their way of getting places, their feet. A foot went a long way in early times, a lot longer than twelve inches. We all know our feet get tired, to our relief arrived horse-drawn buggys, cars, and the legendary railroad, opening our town to miles of opportunity.

Our lives started with baby steps, and transportation also started with steps. People did not just trot around the dusty path of Main Street, which had tree stumps left from clearing the woods to make way for the road. Mail was carried weekly to and from Shakopee. Settlers followed trails marked on trees. Animals began taking steps for us, oxen would pull carts to town from rural areas and they were later replaced by horses.

In 1853, wheels became the new feet. The wheels of trains whisked goods and people to new heights. At this time, The Minnesota Western, which later changed to the Minneapolis St. Louis Railway, was incorporated. The funding was from the Washburn family, who were high status flour millers in Minneapolis. The railroad went through many transformations. In 1881, small railroads in Iowa merged with the Minneapolis & St. Louis, including the Minneapolis & Duluth. A year later the tracks of the Tootin Louie