Here are photos I shot in 1964 of the downtown Sioux Falls rail yard. I was in 9th grade at the time. These were shot with a Kodak Brownie Starflash 127 so the resolution is not real good. The rail yard was a busy place in those days. Watching the action was exciting. At this time there was only the 10th street viaduct. – Charles Luden
Great photos, thank you! My father worked there, first in the yard and later in the depot, for the Great Northern Railroad, which eventually became the Burlington Northern Railroad, for 36 years. It was his first job after serving for four years in WWII in the Pacific – and it was a good paying job too. It was the kind of job that helped to create the strong middle class that Sioux Falls had in the middle of the last century.
#EndTheWageCollusionNow!
Simpler times when the land had little value. No 100 car coal trains. No street people. No graffiti. No price per square foot of wasted tax dollars.
Spin, you bring up a good point that some of us have been wondering about. Okay, so we used Federal money ($27 million) to buy this land at $62 a square foot, a payback we will never see, I think we will be lucky to get $15-$20 a square foot back. But here is the kicker, this was Federal easement land to begin with (The RR may have owned a small portion of it) So Federal taxpayers basically spent $27 million to buy THEIR land back they owned to begin with. Utter stupidity.