The origins of the S&L trace to the Middle Creek Rail Road, incorporating in March 1865 just as the Civil War was ending. Many such small railroads, driven by local speculators, were either quickly bought out or leased by larger railroads such as the Pennsylvania Railroad as they were completed, or were later bought out by larger railroads as traffic failed to meet initial projections, especially after the Panic (depression) of 1871. Another company proposed a line where state Route 35 runs today. In Mifflin County alone, at least six such “paper railroads” were chartered between 18, and the original Mifflin & Centre County Railroad, chartered in 1860, was originally projected to connect Lewistown with Milesburg, but never made it past Reedsville. Railroad companies were chartered prospectively to build lines in hopes of bringing more people and commerce, whether or not the plan was the least bit realistic or even feasible, much like many internet companies that produced nothing more than a website and an initial public stock offering. In a great many cases, they were right - to this day, old railroad towns and valleys continue to be more developed than ones that have never seen a railroad track. Communities and regions felt compelled to have a railroad line, lest they be left behind by the changing economy. It was an auspicious occasion of the time, on the order of what the opening of a new Interstate highway would entail today, with speeches, brass bands and towns turning out for the occasion.Īfter the American Civil War, the United States experienced a railroading boom similar to the dot-com craze of the end of the 20th century. The S&L rail line –more accurately, what’s left of it - operated its first through train between its namesake cities, and towns in between such as McClure, Middleburg and Selinsgrove, 150 years ago today. They even changed how people kept time (via the imposition of Standard Time), and allowed agriculture and production to be widely separated from commerce centers. They would change not only the way Americans traveled, but how their mail and packages were carried, and how their goods were transported. In an era when most Americans tend to think of railroads only as a train that blocks them at a highway crossing or a stereotypically late-running passenger train (delayed because they take a back seat to freight), it can be hard to conceive of a day when railroads were as important to the American economy and culture as the automobile would become in the 20th century and the internet is now.īut that is what railroads were in the mid-19th century. Lewistown’s Chestnut Street Station in the 1930s The station still operates today, the oldest still in existence on the Amtrak system. Image courtesy MIFFLIN COUNTY HISTORICAL SOCIETYĪbove, a postcard rendering of the train station at Lewistown, with an electric street car in the foreground. The train that made the inaugural run of the S&L getting ready to leave SunburyĪ share certificate from the S&L’s 1870 stock offering, one of three by the railroad in its brief history This map shows the Sunbury & Lewistown line between Lewistown and McClure (red, from right). Workers unload freight onto horse-drawn carriages at Lewistown’s Chestnut Street Station in the 1800s.

The S&L’s Juniata River bridge at Lewistown, just before it was swept away by the flood of 1889. Behind the station is the North American Tannery, destroyed by fire in 1950. Photo courtesy MIFFLIN COUNTY HISTORICAL SOCIETYīlock station on the Sunbury & Lewistown Line, located on East Chestnut Street near Shaw Avenue in Lewistown, in the late 1800s.

The Juniata Valley Railroad hauls gondolas for Krentzman and Son across Jack’s Creek, near Green Avenue, in 1998.

Lewistown sentinel open line