This page contains a Flash digital edition of a book.
A STEAM REVIVAL IN SOUTH DAKOTA BY JEFF TERRY/PHOTOS BY THE AUTHOR EXCEPT AS NOTED


I


TS THROATY SIX-CHIME WHISTLE can be heard all over town. “Listen to that!” remarked the waitress at the Madi-


son, S.D., Pizza Ranch. “They’ve got the steam loco running over at the Village. I haven’t heard that sound in years!” Last summer Duluth & Northeastern 0-6-0 No. 29 returned to regular service at Historic Prairie Village, a recreation of an 1890s pioneer town located in this small grain belt community of 6500. No. 29’s revival after an absence of 13 years capped an effort by volunteers to bring steam back to the museum’s Prairie Vil- lage, Herman, & Milwaukee Railroad, which operates over a segment of orig- inal Milwaukee Road track. This sum- mer the 0-6-0 will be one of the primary attractions during the Village’s annual Steam Threshing Jamboree, scheduled for August 27-30.


38 JULY 2015 • RAILFAN.COM History of Prairie Village The creation of Prairie Village has


been the work of countless numbers of volunteers, yet it never would have come into existence without the efforts of one man: Joseph Habeger. Born in rural South Dakota, Habeger left the farm country during World War II. He flew 34 B-24 bomber missions (and survived one crash landing) with the 15th Air Force before returning home to Madison as a part-time farmer and full-time math teacher at General Beadle State College. Never one to remain idle, an interest in machinery got him tinkering with a 1915 Case tractor he found abandoned in a shed. After bringing the antique back to life in 1961, Habeger decided to thresh grain on the farm using the Case and an old separator. He and his friends had such a good time that two years lat-


er they organized a local group to spon- sor an annual farm show. In 1963 some 6000 people showed up


for Madison’s first-ever “Steam Thresh- ing Jamboree.” Word of the show spread, and 8000 people attended the next year. Attendance grew every year, and by the late 1960s the Jamboree had outgrown Habeger’s farm and was moved to the Lyon Family’s 120-acre property along- side Lake Herman, just west of down- town Madison, where the town of Her- man (long since abandoned) had been founded in 1878. On the hills where Sioux tribes had camped, a 19th century pioneer settle- ment was recreated with historic build- ings brought in from all across South Dakota. Railroads that had been a vital part of the area’s growth were not for- gotten; the 1905 two-story station from


Page 1  |  Page 2  |  Page 3  |  Page 4  |  Page 5  |  Page 6  |  Page 7  |  Page 8  |  Page 9  |  Page 10  |  Page 11  |  Page 12  |  Page 13  |  Page 14  |  Page 15  |  Page 16  |  Page 17  |  Page 18  |  Page 19  |  Page 20  |  Page 21  |  Page 22  |  Page 23  |  Page 24  |  Page 25  |  Page 26  |  Page 27  |  Page 28  |  Page 29  |  Page 30  |  Page 31  |  Page 32  |  Page 33  |  Page 34  |  Page 35  |  Page 36  |  Page 37  |  Page 38  |  Page 39  |  Page 40  |  Page 41  |  Page 42  |  Page 43  |  Page 44  |  Page 45  |  Page 46  |  Page 47  |  Page 48  |  Page 49  |  Page 50  |  Page 51  |  Page 52  |  Page 53  |  Page 54  |  Page 55  |  Page 56  |  Page 57  |  Page 58  |  Page 59  |  Page 60  |  Page 61  |  Page 62  |  Page 63  |  Page 64  |  Page 65  |  Page 66  |  Page 67  |  Page 68  |  Page 69  |  Page 70  |  Page 71  |  Page 72