The Iowa Central Air Line Rail Road, also derisively known as the "Calico Railroad", is a historic railroad that operated in Iowa.
The railroad operated from Lyons, Iowa to Council Bluffs, Iowa and was organized in 1853.
Iowa residents purchased stock and Iowa counties voted bonds to help build the road. Early in 1854 work on the track between Lyons and Iowa City was begun and progressed rapidly.
The funds, however, were inadequate and some were misappropriated. As a result, work was stopped in June and engineers, contractors and laborers, involving some 2,000 persons in all, were left without their pay and without work. The Iowa counties, however, were compelled to redeem their bonds.
The railroad company had a store at Lyons, and the goods (including a supply of calico) were distributed in partial payment to the workers; hence the nickname.
Famous quotes containing the words iowa, central, air, line and/or railroad:
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“Et in Arcadia ego.
[I too am in Arcadia.]”
—Anonymous, Anonymous.
Tomb inscription, appearing in classical paintings by Guercino and Poussin, among others. The words probably mean that even the most ideal earthly lives are mortal. Arcadia, a mountainous region in the central Peloponnese, Greece, was the rustic abode of Pan, depicted in literature and art as a land of innocence and ease, and was the title of Sir Philip Sidney’s pastoral romance (1590)
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A huge remembering pre-electric horn....”
—Philip Larkin (1922–1986)
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Yet if it does not seem a moment’s thought,
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—William Butler Yeats (1865–1939)
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—M.F.K. Fisher (1908–1992)