20th-Century Railroad Worker Camp Found in Iowa

SIOUX CITY, IOWA—Siouxland Public Media reports that traces of a worker camp have been uncovered at the Sioux City Railroad Museum by Mike Betsinger of the University of Iowa Office of the State Archaeologist. Workers lived on site to build the Milwaukee Railroad Repair Shops Terminal from 1916 to 1918. The repair shop terminal served the Chicago, Milwaukee, St. Paul and Pacific Railroad. More than 500 people were employed at the repair shop and its roundhouse of 30 stalls during World War II. But when the railroad began to use diesel engines in the 1950s, the repair shop became obsolete. The Siouxland Historical Railroad Association acquired the property in 1995 and reopened it as a museum. To read about immigrant railroad workers in the American West, go to "America's Chinatowns: Labor."