Day 98: How do you build a community? Run a train through it: The Story of the UP Northwest Line

     When the ancestor of today's UP North line was chartered in 1851, the State of Illinois authorized the Illinois and Wisconsin Railroad to lay tracks between McHenry County and another point in Cook County. The first passenger train to go down the line steamed away in 1854. As was the case with many early railroads, the nascent line helped sprout up communities along its path. Case in point: William Dunton gave some of his land to the railroad to ensure that it would take a route through his area. The tracks did indeed enter his area, but they also entered his house. After Dunton bought a new house, the community sprung up around the depot. After two earlier attempts at naming the town, Dunton took the advice of developers to give the town an attractive name in order to attract residents, and thus the town of Arlington Heights was incorporated in 1887.

     Meanwhile, the Illinois and Wisconsin had merged with another railroad and had added stops in towns such as Palatine, Woodstock, Harvard, and Crystal Lake. In 1857, the line was being extended near Crystal Lake, and the town did not feel the need to put any money into the development of the line. So, the railroad responded by bypassing the town. At the same time, the Fox River Valley Railroad was laying track in Crystal Lake. There were frequent clashes between the two work gangs, at times culminating in violence, which did nit filly abate until the intersection was bridged. A town named Nunda was founded at this intersection, and then the bad blood started anew, this time between Nunda and Crystal Lake. All bad blood was finally resolved in 1914 when Crystal Lake absorbed Nunda.

     The merged version of the I & W RR went bankrupt in 1859 and was reformed into the Chicago and North-Western Railway, which would go on to be a major player in the next century of Chicagoland railroading(including the construction of the first iteration of what is now Ogilvie Station.) The post-1871 railroad boom led to more expansion of the line, including into the small hamlet of Brickton, which had earned that name from the brick factory that made bricks for several different train depots. When the town wanted to incorporate in 1873, the city fathers made the same choice that Bill Dunton would make 15 years down the road and renamed their town Park Ridge. After that, the line had its basic foundation, and the 20th Century went according to plan. Eventually, the Union Pacific Railroad acquired the line. Today the trackage rights are leased to Metra, who operates the line under the UP Northwest name. Along with the other two UP lines, the Northwest still uses Ogilvie Transportation Center, the descendant of the first depot build by the C & NW all the way back in 1911.