i am in midwest.
had 6 rairoads at one time
nick name used to be little chicago
al capone used to visit me
I’m gonna quess you are some where in wisconsin
First guess = Joliet.
CRIP, ATSF, EJE, IC/GMO, SP, NYC
–OR–
Johnson City, TN – But it had only three railroads.
–OR–
Moose Jaw, Sask. – RRs unknown
–OR–
Minot, South Dakota – but did not have six, did it?
Milwaukee, Wisconsin?
Later Bill
no
no
no
its in illinois
Not Cicero?
Funny, I found the same references Poppa Z did–probably from the same place. But isn’t Minot in North Dakota?
Hey, Pop–going to Eola tomorrow evening, weather permitting?
no cicero… though cicero was al caponies home town for years.
ah another hint to give it away before beddie time… once was known as glass container(bottle) capital of the world in 1940-1960’s.
were 2 round houses in town used by 5 rr’s. 1st railroad into town was illinois central rr.
had 3 towers at one time.
Alton, IL?
Now that was a First-Glass hint!
Streator.
(Never heard the Capone connection to the city before, but yes, there were in fact six railroads into town once!)
we have a winner! streator illinois… has a lot of interesting idustrial history…wabash had a car shop.
in fact may have had 7 rrs (not 100%sure though) illinois central had a branch off the freeport to centralia main line to the coal mines (streators 1st industry),new york central had a thru line,chicago and alton had a thru line,chicago burlington and quincy stubbed in streator,wabash stubbed there too,and of course the dominate atikison topeka and santa femain went thru with a branch to peoria off main at ancona,il. and of course a interuban from ottawa il. stubbed there.
up to the 1960s streator was known as little chicago cause of all the rr tracks thru out town,and all the industries. there was a automobile plant there in early 1900s,a factory that made seats for passenger rr cars,several brick plants,several tile plants,(lots of clay available) and others. the largest industry that at one time employed close to 4,000 was the 3 glass plants. since ottawa il was known as silica sand capital of the world, streator took advantage of cheap transportation costs of shipping sand around 12 miles from ottawa.
streator unfortunately had a dark side, as all the industries grew(blue collar) so did the crime. cat houses, open gambling casinos, and strip clubs, and in 1950 boasted 55 taverns. at 16,000 pop.1952 was not a good year, as there were 12 murders, one being a man stabbed to death a woman in a bar!streator was known as one of roughest towns in the usa. now 50 years later there are a lot of friendly folks,not like it once was. now going thru town over half of stores are empty. now many containers are plastic not glass hurt the glass plants. now only 75 work at glass plant,and coal and brick and tile pipe plants are gone too.
That is a very interesting peice of history! I never knew any of those things, except, that Streator is falling apart. It looked very sad when I
I knew what was left of his gang moved to Streator in the late 1930s, but thought it was years after Al Capone went to prison. As I understand, none of the leaders went there – it was mostly the footsoldiers who went to provide “entertainment” industries and also take over the unions so they could skim to their heart’s content.
I went through Streator about six weeks ago and it looked like it had seen better times.
It’s Moose Jaw, Saskatchewan, Divisional point on the C.P.R. mainline, and terminus of the Soo Line, the word is Capone used to cool his heels here when the heat was on in Chi-town.