St Olaf College - Viking Yearbook (Northfield, MN)

Page 22 text:

The coming of the railroad in the sixties was a big event in the lives of Northfield citizens: to them it meant quicker and easier transpor- tation of farm produce and flour from the mills.

Page 21 text:

COLLEGE Out of the dimness of Yesterday, Out of fantastic shadow-play. Softly at dusk the old mill sings Of Winters it knew, and rebellious Springs When the trickle of water now spatting the wheel Shot foaming against the wood and the steel; Of rumblings and shoutings noisily blended: And cartloads of wheat, by farmers attended. Hauled over the prairies with oxen and nags; Of flour dust sifting on hundreds of bags And wide-bulging casks of meal; of the days When numerous mills on white-water ways Made n ' lght into day when daylight was ended. Ghosts of forgotten and creaking wheels Mournfully whisper as Yesterday steals Out of the silence where lost dreams stay, Out of fantastic shadow- play ; Faintly at dusk the old mill sings. Dim in the starlight, drowsily, sings.

Page 23 text:

ADMINISTRATION The iron road leads on and on: twin lines Of steel laid down by straining, sweat-stained men. Who brought the crushing hammer to the rock. Laid paths in timberlands, and hip-deep, Wallowed in swamp-muck, through heat of day and chill Of night; and something more than dirt and stone Went in the heaping of the bed . . . the wood And iron bar crawled on: soon afterwards A harnessed Titan rumbled by and left. As With a sooty finger, in the sky An inky scrawl: the signal smoke of marching Time. Then cities, one by one. were threaded on The double line; and country towns touched hands. And strengthened, grew, and burst their platted bounds. And watched the iron road go on and on and on.