Railroads - Depots

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• I started at MCM&T in Sept of 54 and Graduated in June of 62. I took many rides between Chicago and Houghton. One memorial was returning for spring term 55 , I had taken my skis home after winter term and returned with my golf clubs. This started a lot of laughter from the locals at the station as the piles of snow where very high, but I was on the Tech coarse 2 weeks later.
1/9/2016 3:28:18 PM by Anonymous
• Looks like the DSSA depot in Houghton. In 2007 this building had Mattila construction in it. Right next to the new Portage library.
2/13/2008 9:31:54 AM by Anonymous
• I do remember the station. I took a train ride from Houghton to Milwaukee for a military physical. I guess it was cheaper that the Blue Goose which I later flew for a second trip to Milwaukee. I graduated in Summer 1968 and was trying to go Navy Civil Engineer Corps. I remember one of my civil professors, known for his rather prudent spending, was on the train also. But he (I do not recall his name now) was only going to Chassell with his granddaughter. I guess she wanted to ride on the train and grandpa could only afford the short few minutes of travel to Chassell. Maybe he was going to the frat house in Chassell also? It was a sad day for the UP when the railroad went away. -- Rick Martin, MTU Class of 1968
7/29/2008 5:31:21 PM by Anonymous
• I remember arriving at the Houghton depot in the morning after an all night trip from the Soo. It was the late 40's and after school ended at the Soo branch [Soo Tech] I had to get to Houghton for summer surveying class. The train left the Soo in the afternoon and went to Trout Lake for a long stop or perhaps we changed trains. Then it was on to Pembine Wisc, where we got off and spent a few hours in the station waiting for the train which came up from Chicago. Finally in the wee hours of the morning we left for Houghton and arrived about midmorning. Not the kind of trip easily forgotten. -- Larry Watson, 51
7/29/2008 5:32:33 PM by Anonymous
• I remember taking the 14 hour trip from Detroit to Houghton in 1957 for my freshman year at Tech hauling a large metal foot locker with all my belongings. We called it the square wheel express back then. -- Jim Roley, Michigan Tech Class of 1962
7/29/2008 5:33:06 PM by Anonymous
• I well remember the depot in downtown Houghton. My first year at Tech was 58-59. I was a transfer from Benton Harbor Jr. College pursuing a ME degree. I left my fiancé at home when I came up to Tech. When Winter Carnival time came around in 1959, she decided to come up for the event. I got her a room in the Union, and her brother drove her to Chicago to catch the train for Houghton. It sure was a wonderful day when I went to the depot to pick her up in a borrowed car, a wonderful week-end, and a sad time when I had to take her back to the depot to go back home. We got married the following September, and she came back up to Tech with me for the last two years. The last year, we lived in the brand new student housing up behind Wadsworth. This September, we will be married 49 years. You bet I remember that Depot. -- Andy Robinson, Michigan Tech Class of 1961
7/29/2008 5:34:10 PM by Anonymous
• I remember the depot and the Milwaukee Road train. Took it to Milwaukee and back to 'Da Tech' once during my freshman year. I recall, if my memory serves me correctly, it left Houghton at 7 PM and arrived in Beer town at 7 AM the following morning after numerous and lengthy stops along the way. It had earned the sobriquet of The Square Wheeler". The return trip, also overnight, was in the company of some fellow Wadsworth friends returning from Philly who had, and shared, a fifth of "antifreeze" (The conductor also shared in a nip or two) and we arrived in Houghton in the early morning darkness feeling quite mellow. After that trip I always "snared" a ride, splitting the gas cost, or thumbed. Once was enough!! -- Rick Mahringer, Forestry, Michigan Tech Class of 1966"
7/29/2008 5:35:17 PM by Anonymous
• In 1957 I traveled with the Tech Band on a special train from this depot to Colorado Springs for the NCAA hockey play offs. Many students and local fans joined us for an enjoyable journey to the West. Later I returned to this depot from an interview trip to US Steel in North Chicago. The train stopped in Baraga for a fresh roll and coffee for breakfast served on the train. -- Kyle R Ericson, BSME, Michigan Tech Class of 1959
7/29/2008 5:35:59 PM by Anonymous
• The only thing I remember about the train was that when we heard it go by on the railroad tracks below DHH, the day's mail would arrive at the dorm mailroom about two hours later. Back when dirt was young", without modern communications technology, we waited expectantly outside the wall of pigeon hole boxes, hoping there would appear in the little window a letter from the girl friend back home. Could today's student even imagine that each precinct of DHH shared one phone stuck in a cubby hole in the hall wall? I believe there was a buzzer in each room. The switchboard operator signaled the person being called to come to that phone. I got maybe two calls a year. -- Larry Doyle, Michigan Tech Class of 1964"
7/29/2008 5:36:49 PM by Anonymous
• In September 1948 I boarded a train in Providence, RI and headed to Houghton. I had traveled quite a bit by train in the East and had seen many large train stations. After 24 hours riding trains, I arrived in Houghton and was met by hockey coach Amo Bessone at the smallest depot I had ever seen. The depot looked smaller than our streetcar exchange station in downtown Providence. For the next nine months, I lived in the Dee flats above the Board of Trade Bar on Isle Royale St. about 100 yards from the depot. I heard the two trains a day arriving and departing for Chicago and Detroit. I have memories of boarding trains at the depot to go back home, traveling with the hockey them and meeting friends coming from out of town. My saddest memory is arriving back from Grayling in 1950 with Coach Bessone after the fatal bus accident. -- Bob Monahan
7/29/2008 5:37:43 PM by Anonymous
• The Milwaukee Road train from Chicago to Houghton was called the Copper Country Limited. I put my wife and three kids on that train in Chicago more than a few times. My wife was from Dollar Bay and wanted to spend more than my vacation time visiting her folks so they took the train and I drove up later. It was a neat way for them to travel as they would get a sleeping compartment and, since the train left Chicago in the early evening, when they woke up the next morning, they were in Houghton and the grandparents were there to meet them. -- Al Robertson, Michigan Tech Class of 1954
8/11/2008 10:12:11 AM by Anonymous
• I too remember the Copper Country Express on my first visit to Tech in mid January 1962 in the middle of a snow storm. We boarded in Chilton Wisconsin at 11:00 PM from a station smaller than the Houghton station. Chester Foster was gate agent at the Houghton Station at the time. Needless to say we arrived late for our appointment with the admissions office to check out the Campus. My cousin and I walked from the station to the old Ad building. After all that I still decided to attend Da Tech. -- Jim Woelfel (Michigan Tech Alum)
8/11/2008 10:15:20 AM by Anonymous