Mystery Tower

[Ron Marquardt]

Please refer to the attached picture.  When it first surfaced several years ago, a historian in Wanatah said she thought it was the Wanatah tower.  It may well be, but I don't remember any such tower in Wanatah.  There was also some discussion about it being Worth tower in LaCrosse which it clearly isn't.  Anyway, does anyone know where this tower might have been located?

It looks to be PRR, was situated on a double track main, and the single track main which crosses was obviously in train order territory.  That's all I can glean from the picture.  / Ron

[Tom Kepshire]

At first I thought it might be Hamlet on the PRR. Looking at this Jeff Strombeck photo. It is clearly not Hamlet.

[Ron Marquardt]

Tom, it may well be Wanatah and I just never saw it.  Mike or one of the other north enders should know for sure.  Where's Lowell when we need him??  I sure do miss him.  / Ron

[Ron Marquardt]

I just found a drawing of the Wanatah interlocking and tower, and unless the footprint in the drawing is wrong,  or the picture itself is printed backwards, this tower does not appear to be Wanatah.  / Ron

[Ken Weller]

Here is Wanatah in the early 1900s.

[Ken Weller]

And here is Wanatah tower in 1969.

[Ken Weller]

Attached is a map from our Archives showing Wanatah in 1922.
However, it does not disclose ownership of the tower.
Tower appears to be lined up w the PRR tracks.

[Ron Marquardt]

Ken, the map is awfully small......  / Ron

[Ken Weller]

I tried to post the 1922 map in a larger size, but the listserv had all sorts of fits about it.  So I used a smaller size...........sorry.

[Ken Weller]

Lets see if this 1945 PRR map of Wanatah goes thru.

[Rick Dreistadt]

Ken, the tower at Wanatah was PRR ownership.  The time or two that I worked at Wanatah I spent as much time at their tower as I did conducting business in the Monon depot.  The PRR had a hotbox detector closeby and the readout came to the PRR operator in the tower.  He would read the tape and notify the train via radio if all was OK.  This was new stuff to me.  I had never seen a hotbox detector at that time.
Rick