The County Line
The train has been running again on the Nickel Plate if only for 10 miles or so through northern Hamilton County courtesy of the Nickel Plate Heritage Railroad. The Nickel Plate Express, after a series of popular holiday runs, is set to start a new season in February.
The excursion train gives folks young and old a taste of what traveling by rail is like. But, many don’t realize that it was the railroads that gave Hamilton County communities a start toward what they are today.
In the days before paved highways and air travel, it was only the railroad that could transport goods and people to and from their destinations if that destination was more than a few miles away.
In the 19th and early 20th centuries, if a community did not have a rail line, the community was not destine to thrive. A railroad depot was the nerve center of local commerce and communication with the outside world.
Within Hamilton County there were once three railroads. None survive although a portion of the Nickel Plate line, as mentioned, is being used as a tourist attraction. Financial assistance comes from the county innkeepers tax.
When the Nickel Plate, the Monon and the Midland were built between 1850 and 1900, these railroads were responsible for transporting everything from mail and freight to farm crops as well as passengers. Small industries and grain processing operations were found in the communities served by rail.
Telegraph and eventually early telephone lines followed the rail right-of-way and made a railroad station telegraph office among the most important place in town.
In Hamilton County two of these old depots survive and now serve as historical museums in Carmel and Arcadia. These modest board-and-batten frame buildings are well over 100 years old. Many newer residents don’t even know what these structures are.
The Carmel depot, aside the Monon Trail, is home to the Carmel Clay Historical Society. Rotating exhibits are displayed there. The Arcadia depot is the Arcadia Arts and History Center, and is located along the Nickel Plate tracks.
These depots are the last vestiges of a bygone era when the railroad was king, and along with the Nickel Plate Express, are reminders of the big part that trains played in developing the communities they served.