The Marshfield & Texas Railroad
Marshfield, Wisconsin
SooLineHistory Group Index and Map 1 - The Story 2 - Pictures
3 - Pictures 4 - Pictures 5 - Pictures 6 - Pictures
7 - Pictures 8 - Pictures 9 - Pictures 10 - Pictures
11 - Pictures 12 - Pictures 13 - Pictures 14 - Pictures
15 - Pictures 16 - Pictures 17 - Pictures 18 - Pictures
19 - Pictures 20 - Pictures 21 - Pictures 22 - Pictures
23 - Pictures 24 - Speculations

Previous Page To see the pictures full-size, right-click and select "View Image."
M&t-86.jpg (below)
This is mid-way between West 5th Street and West Street. Mid State Cheese Co. used to stand in that open area to the left.

Keith

M&t-87.jpg (below)
West 4th Street Crossing. The Run Around track used to snake along to the right; until the Soo got rid of the run around, straight ahead in this photo the track was "East Armor", so named because Mid State Cheese Co. was once owned by Armor & Co.

Keith

M&T-88 Mid State Cheese 1974.jpg (below)
Mid State Cheese Co. in September of 1974, 1 year and 3 months before this section facing the camera burned to the ground.

This is one of those photographs that make me wonder what pocessed me to walk out on to South Spruce Avenue and point the camera at this building and take a shot of it.

Keith

M&T-88.5-1 Mid State Spur.jpg (below)
I've back-tracked a bit to where the Mid State Spur came off the M&T and snaked up along the west side of the Mid State Cheese Co. The spur went off to the left.

Keith

M&T-88.5-2 Mid State Spur.jpg (below)
This is about mid-way to west 4th street where the Mid State Spur ran. You can't tell it in the photo, but this was easy to shoot because there was a path in the weeds that followed where the tracks once were.

Keith

M&T-88.5-3 Mid State Spur.jpg (below)
If you look at the concrete in the street, you'll see where the Mid State Spur crossed the street as it ran in alongside the building that was here. That's Mitten's Home Appliances warehouse to the left; on the night the Cheese Factory burned, the Firemen were worried sick about bottled LP stored outside on a covered-but open--loading dock farther up the building. We had the scanner on during the fire; there was talk of evacuating houses!

Keith

M&T-88.5-4 Mid State Spur.jpg (below)
This looks like nothing, and, technically, it is. Where this is is behind Mitten's Warehouse, approximately where Blodgett's ice house stood. At one time, another spur split off the Mid State Spur and paralleled that spur to it's end. There was a creek that ran between the spur and the Ice House. Whether this ice house iced railroad cars is another story entirely. Judging by maps, Blodgett's ice house was for home use, I doubt that they iced railroad cars, but you never know.

Keith

M&T-89 The Morning After-1.jpg (below)
Looking at the eastern side of what was left of the Mid State Cheese Co. after the fire of January 2, 1976. This photo was made about 7 a.m.; the wreckage is still smoldering.

I was never able to find the shots taken at night when the second story began to collapse into the first, or the first shots taken before the entire building became engulfed. Those were shot with a 4 X 5 Speed Graphic, but the negatives were never found among those donated to the Upham Mansion.

Throughout the night, you heard "Boom.......Boom.......Boom" as barrels of Cheese exploded. The next day, the birds had a field day picking out charred cheese from the wreckage from the exploded barrels.

Note the M&T. Also take note that when the Firemen got here, they fought this fire at -15 BELOW Zero with a stiff 15 mph southwest wind driving through the night. The M&T was BURIED under about a foot of ice at the 4th street crossing---from the water used to fight the fire.

The City brought in a Grader with scarifying teeth lowered and tried to knock off this ice but only succeeded in breaking off the scarifying teeth instead! It was three days before the Switch Engine was able to crawl past this spot; in digging through the rubble later in the day, the backhoe used managed to get even more wreckage strewn on to the tracks, more than shows here.

The Section Men had to pick-axe the flangeways open on the crossing the day before the Switch Engine could go to the Power Plant.

Sparks and cinders from this fire floated as far as 8 blocks north, carried by that stiff southwest wind. Even the Operator at the Soo Line Depot called the Police to note that he had "Flaming Pieces Of Something" floating down at the Depot.

Keith

M&T-90 The Morning After-2.jpg (below)
Actually, this is like 3 days after the fire; note that some wreckage has been cleared away, but a lot of exploded cheese barrels still lay in among the wreckage.

This is the "Mid State Spur" side, but you'd never know it. The spur is still there in this photo. Anythong loaded out here was done on this side of the building.

Keith

M&T-91 Looking East Across Ice Skating Pond.jpg (below)
Looking northeast across the old Oak Street Ice Skating Pond (It's a parking lot for Jack Hackman Field, our new Baseball Field), you can see the rear 1/3rd of Mid State Cheese Company, Weinbrenner Shoe Co., the City Garage, Johnson Garment, The Milling Company and Stock-gro.

The M&T is there, too, but, as always, you can't see it because it didn't make much of a scar on the landscape.

Keith

SooLineHistory Group Index and Map 1 - The Story 2 - Pictures
3 - Pictures 4 - Pictures 5 - Pictures 6 - Pictures
7 - Pictures 8 - Pictures 9 - Pictures 10 - Pictures
11 - Pictures 12 - Pictures 13 - Pictures 14 - Pictures
15 - Pictures 16 - Pictures 17 - Pictures 18 - Pictures
19 - Pictures 20 - Pictures 21 - Pictures 22 - Pictures
23 - Pictures 24 - Speculations

To see the pictures full-size, right-click and select "View Image." Next Page

The content of this page was created by Keith Meacham, and he retains the copyright.
Photographs are from the collection of Keith Meacham.
Ron Kohlin compiled Mr. Meacham's work for publication on the World Wide Web.
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Created on October 10, 2004
Last changed on September 22, 2006
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