(rshsdepot) New Buffalo, MI

[Jim Dent <jdent1_@_optonline.net>]

Some, not all, aboard for railroad history
Museum preserves New Buffalo's rail-rich heritage

By LOU MUMFORD
Tribune Staff Writer

NEW BUFFALO -- There's no doubt Lake Michigan has had a major impact on the
development of New Buffalo.

But Nadra Kissman says it wouldn't be a stretch to say that railroads have
had as much impact, if not more, than the lake.

To recognize the railroad's extensive influence on the town, Kissman and her
husband, Al, the owners of New Buffalo-based Nadra K Real Estate, joined
with four others 14 years ago and founded the New Buffalo Railroad Museum at
530 S. Whittaker St.

Although the museum is known to some -- Kissman estimated as many as 100,000
have toured the facility -- it has flown under the radar screen of many area
residents. Even some in New Buffalo are unaware of its existence, said Sue
Harsch, administrator of the Harbor Country Chamber of Commerce that shares
office space with the museum.

But that situation could soon change. Kissman said an endowment fund was
established five years ago, in conjunction with the Berrien Community
Foundation, and her hope is a full-time curator will be brought on board to
help promote the museum.

She said some of its biggest fans are school children, many of whom are
captivated by the model train layout that serves as the museum's main
display. The layout features two trains that wind through New Buffalo as it
might have appeared in the 19th century.

The set includes the old Pere Marquette roundhouse, a Quonset hut that now
houses Oink's Ice Cream Shop, an old drug store and school that were
destroyed in separate fires, the Dairy Queen that's believed to be the
oldest still in operation in the state and Pelican Pond, where railroaders
once disposed of boiler wash.

The pond is still visible from museum windows, but Kissman said the model
train is the main attraction.

"The kids just love it,'' she said. "We have people that come back once a
month with their kids.''

Built from scratch by the Berrien County Model Train Club, an organization
that no longer exists, the set has been taken over and expanded by the
Duneland Model Club of Michigan City.

The museum is housed in a replica of the Pere Marquette depot and stands on
the same property that once served as the Pere Marquette Railroad Yards.
Next door stands what remains of the railroad's roundhouse, converted into a
Gold's Gym by Dr. Paul Madison, the Kissmans' son-in-law.

Nadra Kissman said she and her husband, with assistance from Ron and Hollis
Oselka and Roland and Pamela Oselka, bought the former railroad property and
created the museum. She said the project grew out of her despair as she saw
the roundhouse fall apart.

"My ancestors were pioneers in the area. They settled in Lakeside in the
1850s,'' she said. "It always bothered me that this old roundhouse was here
for so long ... and then was abandoned totally.''

Research compiled by Nadra Kissman revealed that the Michigan Central
Railroad arrived in New Buffalo in 1849, when the fare was 3 cents a mile,
and there were so few stations that trains could be flagged down anywhere
along the line. Almost overnight, New Buffalo became a boom town.

The spurt ended just four years later, however, when the tracks were
extended west to Chicago and New Buffalo lost its standing as an
end-of-the-line station.

But the town received another boost in the early 1920s, Kissman said, when
the Pere Marquette established another line on South Whittaker Street and
built the roundhouse, a 50-room hotel and a depot.

"There was hardly an area family without at least one railroader,'' she
said.

The Pere Marquette later became the C&O (Chesapeake and Ohio) and finally
the CSX. But by the early 1980s, railroad operations had been moved to other
locations, and New Buffalo's glory days as a railroad town had ended.

The museum preserves that reputation, in part through the Chessie boxcar and
World War II Pullman Troop Sleeper that stand next to the museum. Kissman
said it was her daughter, Katha, who hounded the CSX until it donated the
cars to the museum.

"I wanted a caboose, but getting them here is a problem,'' she said.

Photographs in the sleeper car show what travel was like for soldiers in the
1940s who took trains to their embarkation points. One depicts youthful
servicemen in full song as they crowd next to an accordion player and
another shows an aisle-walking soldier dispensing grapes to fellow GIs.

The photos provided by Stan Cohen, owner of Missoula, Mt.-based Pictorial
Histories Publishing Co., were originally published in the 1996 tome
"America's Fighting Railroads.''

Staff writer Lou Mumford:

lmumford_@_sbtinfo.com
http://www.southbendtribune.com/stories/2004/04/04/local.20040404-sbt-MICH-A1-Some__not_all__aboar.sto


=================================
The Railroad Station Historical Society maintains a database of existing
railroad structures at: http://www.rrshs.org

------------------------------