St. Paul and Duluth Railroad

Introduction

The St. Paul and Duluth Railroad, a Minnesota and Wisconsin railroad, was reorganized from the Lake Superior and Mississippi Railroad in 1877. It was bought by the Northern Pacific Railway in 1900. It was nicknamed named the "Skally Line", based upon the likely Anglicization of the Swedish word "skulle" meaning "would." Many Swedish immigrants "would" take the line which operated from Saint Paul, Minnesota to Duluth, Minnesota, with branches to Minneapolis, Minnesota, Taylors Falls, Minnesota, Kettle River, Minnesota and Cloquet, Minnesota, and to Grantsburg, Wisconsin and Superior, Wisconsin.

Historic Role in the Great Hinckley Fire of September 1894

According to the [St. Paul Pioneer Press]] 1964 publication "The Story of Minnesota" by staff member Jerry Fearing, an unlikely hero-to-be James Root, engineer of the St. Paul and Duluth Railroad Steam Locomotive No. 4, was heading south to St. Paul from Duluth with 400 passengers aboard when the train arrived at Hinckley, Minnesota in the middle of the historic Great Hinckley Fire of 1894. Root rescued several people escaping from the fire and quickly reversed course racing through flames heading back north toward Duluth stopping at a swamp that locals called "Skunk Lake," now marked as a historical site on the Willard Munger State Trail (see below). The location is about 4.5 miles north of Hinckley and 8.5 miles south of Finlayson, Minnesota. At that site, the crew, the escapees and the passengers took a respite and cooled off in the water on that fateful day.

Root suffered cuts from flying glass that came from bursting locomotive and passengers car windows in the intense heat The engine was in reverse so its cars were in front of the open rear of the cab on his steam locomotive. Therefore, smoke, flames, embers, and debris would come directly into the cab without protection. Today, locomotives are required to have a fully enclosed cab for safety.

Upon arrival at "Skunk Lake," Root was incoherent and nearly unconscious from smoke inhalation and heat exhaustion. He also was severely burned when the engine, its coal tender and other cars were damaged when passing through the inferno. Note that 400 people were killed in the wildfire, an amount about equal to the number of souls originally aboard engine No. 4 that day before Root took on several escapees before heading back north. Root's and his crew's heroic efforts that day perhaps reduced the death toll by as much as 50 percent.

Today, the Willard Munger State Trail, named to honor a late, well-respected and known politician and I don't think the longest serving State representative in Minnesota history (as of 2024) from West Duluth, runs for about 65 miles along the original St. Paul and Duluth Railroad right-of-way from the north end in West Duluth just south of Grand Avenue's intersection with 75th Avenue West and Pulaski Street near the Lake Superior Zoo in Norton Park along the St. Louis River through the picturesque Jay Cooke State Park, named after the Northern Pacific Railway visionary and financier Jay Cooke, to its southern terminus in Hinckley at the intersection of 2nd Street NW and Old Highway 61 about two blocks north of the Hinckley Fire Museum at the site of the original St. Paul and Duluth Railroad Depot rebuilt after the fire and later named the Northern Pacific Railway Depot after the latter railroad purchased the former one (see also Disposition, below). The building today is on the National Register of Historic Places.

Disposition

The line was purchased by the Northern Pacific Railway in 1900 which was succeeded by the Burlington Northern in 1970 when the Chicago, Burlington and Quincy Railway a.k.a. "Burlington" or the "Burlington Route" merged with the Great Northern Railway, the Northern Pacific Railway, and the Spokane, Portland, and Seattle Railway and then on the final day of 1996, the Atchison, Topeka and Santa Fe Railway, a.k.a. the "Santa Fe" merged with the Burlington Northern Railway to form the Burlington Northern Santa Fe Railway. Most of the St. Paul and Duluth line became redundant after the 1970 Burlington Northern merger, as it paralleled lines of the Great Northern Railway and Northern Pacific Railway. Most of the line originally associated with the St. Paul and Duluth Railroad was abandoned and many segments were turned into rail trails.

The disposition of segments, all within Minnesota, is as follows:

St. Paul to Maplewood: abandoned; now part of the Bruce Vento Regional Trail
Maplewood to Hugo: now operated by the Minnesota Commercial Railway
Hugo to North Branch: abandoned; now the Hardwood Creek Regional Trail and Sunrise Prairie Trail
North Branch to Hinckley: now operated by the St. Croix Valley Railroad
Hinckley to Duluth: abandoned; now the Willard Munger State Trail (see above).

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