1893 Railroad Time Tables

The development of early settlements depended on access to water, rivers being the best but a good creek would work (School Creek).

But very quickly, the railroad became even more important. The Harvard Courier newspaper carried this railroad time tables weekly for the two railroads through their town. The top time table is for the Burlington & Missouri River Railroad, the lower one is for the Fremont, Elkhorn & Missouri Valley route.

The Burlington came through Sutton. The F. E. & M. V. went through York, Henderson, Harvard and Hastings. 

It's easy to see how our people were able to travel comfortably via rail. My great, grandfather went to Chicago to visit his son often. Newspaper ads promoted vacations on the west coast or to Chicago at reasonable prices, even for those days.

We have items showing that merchants, the Stevens & Curtiss millinery shopkeepers made seasonal trips to St. Joseph, Missouri to buy stock, normally down and back in two days - one account makes it sound like the left early in the morning, conducted their business and were back in Sutton that evening.