Postcard image of the station on the W-GB, which was once a Lutheran church.
After failed attempts to get either the Chicago & North Western or
Milwaukee Road to extend their lines to Waupaca and end the monopoly of the
Wisconsin Central, the Waupaca - Green Bay Railway was incorporated on January
8, 1907 to connect the city to the Green Bay Route's main line at
Scandinavia. The 9.8-mile railroad took a dog-legged path, passing near a
granite quarry northeast of town before turning west to the GB&W tracks.
W-GB's only depot was the former Holy Ghost Evangelical Lutheran Church which
remained standing until the late 1970's. The building, located on the
north side of Mill Street at State Street, had to be moved ten feet to make room
for the station tracks. From the depot, the W-GB line paralleled the
Wisconsin Central tracks to the potato warehouse district a few blocks east.
After years of financial hardship, the W-GB RR was purchased at public
auction and became a branch of the Green Bay & Western in 1922; it was
abandoned in 1947. After the railroad was abandoned the depot became a
storage warehouse for the nearby Gray Czeskleba Oil Company.
This was not the only rail line which carried the name "Waupaca" --
in 1898 the Waupaca Electric and Light Railway Company began supplying
electricity to the city, as well as providing a five-mile street and interurban
line to nearby King until it was abandoned on July 4, 1925.
This picture postcard is owned by my father-in-law, Dave
Baker. It is postmarked 1908, ironically the same year that asphalt
roads came to Waupaca.
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Notice: This image is owned by Dave Baker.
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