[1][2] The vision of creating a mid-continent north-south railroad line between Canada and the Gulf of Mexico was first promulgated by Herbert Sydney Duncombe, a Chicago lawyer, and Frank K. Bull, president of the J.I.
This was an extension of a line of the Chicago, Milwaukee, St. Paul and Pacific Railroad (reporting mark MILW) running from Aberdeen, South Dakota and terminating at Edgeley.
Certain of its investors set up the Midland Townsite Company in October 1909 to speculate in land at four future railroad town sites on the route: Franklin, Nortonville, Sydney and Millarton.
It was forced to build around the east side of the city from a wye south of the terminal station, leaving the latter on a stub, crossing the NP main line where the latter was on a fill which could be easily bored through to create a narrow bridge.
[9] It was finished in October 1913,[5] apart from a very short extension of 0.3 miles (0.5 km) to a location called Frazier north of the Wimbledon station to serve a grain elevator.
He found that J. Bruce Ismay, former chairman of the White Star Line and Titanic survivor, was interested in buying all of a new bond issue to finance further extension.
Although mule carts could cope with dirt tracks in wet weather, the newly developing motor vehicles could not.
[7] In 1920, immediately on getting its railroad back, the company moved its Wimbledon passenger station downtown from its former location on the city's eastern outskirts.
The railroad's subsequent history was primarily as a short line serving local agriculture and its service industries.
[11] The company continued to be owned privately by the Seiberling family until it was purchased jointly in 1966 by the Northern Pacific and Soo Line railroads.
One was the spur to the North Dakota State Hospital, which was operated by the BNSF Railway until taken on by the Red River Valley and Western Railroad.
The RRVW railroad also took over the former Milwaukee Road depot at Edgeley, along with a short length of MICO track from the junction curve with the former Northern Pacific line to Streeter.
The surviving former station building in Wimbledon, at 401 Railway Street, is now the Midland Continental Depot Transportation Museum opened in 2012.
[11] The route as built started in Edgeley at an end-on interchange with the Chicago, Milwaukee, St. Paul and Pacific Railroad.
Also there was an interchange curve east to south from this, where the MICO crossed just outside the northern city limits, north of 72nd Street SE.
[17] From Edgeley, passenger stops were at Winal, Franklin, Nortonville, Millarton, Sydney, Kloze, Homer and State Hospital.
[13] Winal was just south of where the MICO crossed the NP line to Streeter, on 71st Street SE, and does not exist as a place any more (the location is just west of a mobile phone mast).
The junction spur, south to north, begins at 11th Street SE and forms a triangular wye with the NP line from Jamestown to LaMoure.
From there, the 1916 extension paralleled the NP line for the short distance to the terminal station, depot and roundhouse at the east end of 2nd Street SE.
Not a single building is there, but the road crosses the line via a bridge built in 1936 which is now listed on the National Register of Historic Places as the Midland Continental Overpass.
Clementsville is a grain elevator on 26th Street SE accompanied by a small farmstead, and tracks were in place here until 1982 being operated by the Soo Line.
[23] After crossing the Soo trunk line, the MICO had two reverse junction spurs running back to connect with it east and west.
The west curve had a wye at its junction with the MICO line, allowing trains from Jamestown to run directly to Wimbledon downtown.
Just before the junction of this curve with the Soo, a short stub ran to the Wimbledon terminal station which was erected at 401 Railway Street in 1920.
The MICO main line ran on the east side of the city to the grain elevator at Frazier, on 16 1/2 Avenue SE.
In February 1926, for example, each had one train each way: Edgeley from Jamestown left at 11:30, and arrived at 13:53 having taken 2 hours 23 minutes to travel 33.7 miles (54 km).
After the war until abandonment, Wimbledon station was processing freight shipments which accounted for over half the railroad's revenue.
[11] The MICO operated as a terminal railroad for the Milwaukee Road from Edgeley, allowing that company to solicit freight in Jamestown and Wimbledon.
The other route was from the Milwaukee Road's Pacific Extension via Aberdeen and Edgeley, then eastwards on the Soo Line from Wimbledon.
It showed this connection on its publicity maps in the 1950s, e.g. in 1952,[24] indicating that the MICO then had a trackage arrangement with the Milwaukee Road from Edgeley to Monango.