Currie Line Railroad

Railroads played an important role in the development of Cottonwood County. The 38.6-mile railway called the Currie Line hastened the growth of agriculture and establishment of towns in the northern part of the county in only a decade.

In 1870 the St. Paul & Sioux City Railroad arrived to serve the Bingham Lake area in southeastern Cottonwood County. On July 28, 1875, the village was incorporated. The 38.6-mile Currie Line, built in the 1890s, originated in Bingham Lake and stretched north to Delft.

The unincorporated community of Delft is a direct result of the Currie Line, a branch of the Chicago, St. Paul, Minneapolis, & Omaha Railroad. Delft had been established in 1892 as a railway station and named after a city in the Netherlands. After the railroad came through, the Inter-State Land Company platted the village on June 18, 1902.

The new line angled northwest toward Jeffers, the next stop. The village was platted on September 19, 1899, and incorporated on September 28, 1899. A post office opened in 1900. Storden, six miles west of Jeffers, became the next stop for the Currie Line.

The community of Copenhagen had been established a mile west and a mile north of Storden’s eventual location on Minnesota Highway 30. As the railroad gradually expanded farther west, many Copenhagen business owners tore down their buildings and rebuilt them closer to the rail line. Three elevators and three lumberyards were built as soon as the railroad was certain to pass through the area. The village of Storden was platted on July 8, 1903, but was not incorporated until 1920.

Five miles farther west, the village of Blue Eagle had begun in 1870. The arrival of the Currie Line caused the small village’s demise. It was replaced with the village of Westbrook, named after one of two creeks flowing through the eastern and western edges of the township. The first year of the twentieth century saw the completion of the railroad, the platting of Westbrook on June 8, and the sale of lots on July 11. In July and August, the De Moines Valley Railway Company built a railroad depot for the village.

Stations in the Murray County communities of Dovray and Currie completed the Currie Line. A turntable in Currie reversed the direction of the engine so the train could make the return trip to Bingham Lake.

Communities developed under the direction of railroads and were laid out in similar patterns. Grain elevators, business districts, and a freight house were built in relationship to the railroad tracks and depot. Towns throughout southwestern Minnesota follow a similar pattern.

The Currie Line, short though it was, transformed life in the four villages of northern Cottonwood County. They grew because of the role played by the trains stopping each day. The depots of yesteryear can be compared to the airport terminals of the twenty-first century. A local depot was the gathering place to bid farewell to departing family and friends or to eagerly await the arrival of long-lost family from back East.

A glimpse at business in Westbrook conducted through the Currie Line reveals the benefits of using the railroad. During the first quarter of 1902 forty-five rail cars of livestock and nearly six million pounds of merchandise left the area by train. Close to five million pounds of merchandise reached Westbrook and was unloaded. Chicken farmers lined up with wagonloads of crated birds awaiting shipment to the Chicago market.

The arrival of trucks and cars on the transportation scene gradually eroded the major role railroads played in the growth of agriculture and other businesses of Cottonwood County. In January 1972 the Chicago & Northwestern Railroad closed the Westbrook and Jeffers depots, the last of the six original depots along the Currie Line. Eight years later the Chicago & Northwestern Transportation Company, owner of the Omaha railroad, abandoned the track and sold the right-of-way.

In 2017, the depot in Westbrook is the only one on the Currie Line still standing on its original site. The building is on the National Register of Historic Places and houses the Westbrook Heritage House Museum.