The Forest City and Gettysburg Railroad was a small, short-lived railroad that ran between the South Dakota towns of Forest City and Gettysburg, a distance of 19 miles. The line was constructed in 1890, and in part transported agricultural products to Forest City for transshipment on Missouri River steamboats. Commercial traffic on the river was already in decline by that time, however, and the railroad was not financially successful; it was abandoned in 1911, one of the first rail lines in the state to be discontinued. The line was financially supported in part by the Chicago and North Western Railway, which connected with the line in Gettysburg.
Small segments of the former railroad grade remain visible today. The line's former western terminus at Forest City is now beneath the waters of Lake Oahe.
Famous quotes containing the words forest, city, gettysburg and/or railroad:
“Our democracy, our culture, our whole way of life is a spectacular triumph of the blah. Why not have a political convention without politics to nominate a leader who’s out in front of nobody?... Maybe our national mindlessness is the very thing that keeps us from turning into one of those smelly European countries full of pseudo-reds and crypto-fascists and greens who dress like forest elves.”
—P.J. (Patrick Jake)
“The City is of Night, but not of Sleep;
There sweet sleep is not for the weary brain;
The pitiless hours like years and ages creep,”
—James Thomson (1834–1882)
“The Gettysburg speech is at once the shortest and the most famous oration in American history. Put beside it, all the whoopings of the Websters, Sumners and Everetts seem gaudy and silly. It is eloquence brought to a pellucid and almost gem-like perfection—the highest emotion reduced to a few poetical phrases.”
—H.L. (Henry Lewis)
“The worst enemy of good government is not our ignorant foreign voter, but our educated domestic railroad president, our prominent business man, our leading lawyer.”
—John Jay Chapman (1862–1933)