Nerstrand Railway Station

From 1885 to 1982, the Minnesota and Northwestern Railroad significantly impacted the village of Nerstrand. For this rural, agricultural community in Rice County, the establishment of a station in September 1885 not only transformed the un-platted settlement into a quintessential “railroad town,” but also strongly aided in its population growth and development for decades to come.

A. B. Stickney, president of the Minnesota and Northwestern Railroad (M&NW), envisioned building a “granger railroad” in the early 1880s. The line, he planned, would haul agricultural commodities from the stations on the line that serviced local farmers to regional cities like Minneapolis, St. Paul, Omaha, and Chicago.

Construction of Stickney’s new road commenced in late August 1884 with the initial grading of the 110-mile eighteen-station M&NW line extending from St. Paul to Mona, Iowa. On average, a company of 150 men laid two miles of track per day in suitable weather.

According to newspaper reports, the track-laying crew started on May 13, 1885, at Cascade (renamed Randolph), fourteen miles north of Nerstrand. When the crew arrived in Nerstrand in the following days, some of the men boarded at the spacious home of Osmund Osmundson, an early pioneer and the town’s founder. In addition, thirty-five mules used to build the line were stabled there.

Osmundson had emigrated from Nedstrand, Norway, in 1850, making his way westward by 1853, when he prospected for gold in California. After striking gold, he migrated in 1856 to Wheeling Township, Rice County, Minnesota, where he lived as a farmer and businessman for the remainder of his life.

With foresight, Osmundson sought to build a community on a 240-acre parcel he had purchased years earlier. In 1877, he opened a general store at the foot of Main Street with hope of the railroad coming through in the near future. In 1878, he secured a US post office and named the village in honor of his hometown in Norway with a slightly anglicized name.

With M&NW’s right-of-way through Nerstrand, Osmundson’s store was moved slightly to the west to make way for the tracks. By June 3, the rails reached as far as Kenyon, six miles south of Nerstrand. For the remainder of the month, progress on the rail was steady and unhindered. By the first week of July, crews had reached the end of the road. Over the course of the next three months, the M&NW issued the official timetable for running the trains, fares between stations, and erections of depots.

On September 14, 1885, the Nerstrand station was completed, along with two grain houses on the east side of the tracks. The first recorded train service from Nerstrand occurred on September 23. Passenger and freight service occurred four times daily (two from the north and two from the south).

Soon after the Nerstrand station was established, the town of Nerstrand was officially platted. A hotel was then built to accommodate the growing number of visitors. Several businesses opened, and the railroad was recognized as the main lifeline to the community. Rail service provided passenger, freight, and mail delivery. Farmers embraced the opportunity to quickly sell their goods, particularly dairy products.

For many years, the railroad company maintained a loading station from which milk was shipped to the Twin Cities. The train, known as the “Milk Shake,” picked up milk as early as seven a.m. The train, on a strict schedule, did not wait for the farmers who from miles around had left their homes by horse-drawn wagons in the pre-dawn hours. Through seasonal elements like heavy snow and drifts or rainstorms and muddy roads, they found their way into Nerstrand by lantern light.

The demise of the Nerstrand station began on September 30, 1965, when passenger service stopped. In September 1982, the last freight train came to Nerstrand. The tracks were subsequently removed. However, because the elevator had beforehand ordered two cars of fertilizer, the railroad had to re-lay some of the tracks to complete the delivery. Ultimately, the train had to “back out” from the elevator as no tracks were available to go forward.