83. The Indianapolis, Bloomington & Western Railroad Through Southern Randolph County

Town-maker

Winchester Journal Herald.
February 17, 1979

     The Indianapolis, Bloomington and Western Railroad was formed from the Danville, Urbana, Bloomington and Pekin Railroad and the Indianapolis, Crawfordsville and Danville Railroad in 1869. Both of the parents had also been formed through various business hagglings and finagglings.
     The depression played hard with the new railroad and from 1874 until 1879 when it was bought by Austin Corbin, it was operated on receivership.
     To give some idea of the nature of railroad entrepreneurship, a railroad formed in 1881 called the Ohio, Indiana and Pacific was absorbed after a corporate existence of two days, and subsequently became the eastern branch of the I, B and W.
     By 1886 the doubled mileage of the new railroad began to take its toll, and in 1886 a receiver took over financial control of the corporation. In 1887, within eleven days the railroad was broken into three sections: those in Ohio, Indiana, and Illinois respectively, and sold to three different corporations, the Indiana and Illinois sections of which were subsequently stuck back together, followed shortly by the inclusion of the Ohio section. And so, in November of 1887 the railroad had metamorphosed back into the same piece of track under a new and different corporation: the Ohio, Indiana and Western.
     Following a bond foreclosure in 1890 and some heavy-handed financiering, the Peoria and Eastern Railroad was formed swallowing the Ohio, Indiana and Western, which in turn was gobbled up by the New York Central.
     In the wake of the financial haberdashery, towns created by the old I, B and W lay strewn across the fields of Randolph and similar counties.
     The town of Bronson provides a good example of what happened. Bronson was built next to the tracks with a depot. The already existent town of Losantville was left stranded 1/2-mile to the north. Because of the importance of the railroad, at the time, Losantville began a slow migration to Bronson. And for a time the settlement had two names, with "Losantville" winning out only after a considerable spell of time -nearly 25 years.
     Lynn was one of a few towns already established when the railroad bosses decided to run the rails through.
     Bloomingsport had their depot planted two miles west of town because of a federal law which prohibited railroad depots from being closer than seven miles apart. Bloomingsport was too close to Lynn. But Bloomingsport did not migrate to the depot; it stayed put.
     Carlos, or Carlos City as it is known on train schedules, allegedly got its name from the son of a William Coggeshall, a local farmer. the boy was named Corlistus -nicknamed "Charlie." People roundabouts started calling the town "Charlie's town" and the Post Office accepted the name with some minor revisions -Carlos City.
     Modoc is supposed to have gotten its name from the railway which passed through it. Rather than being named out of respect for the Modoc tribe of Indians; legend has it one day a train went by when some locals were discussing the need for a dignified name for the town. A passenger tossed out an old cigar box from a car window. Henry Conley picked the box up which was pictured an Indian chief and the sub-head, "Modoc Chief." To quote from Economy's historian C.E. Charles' account, Conley said, "Boys, let's call her Modoc!" 

(Noted for it's inability to stay on schedule the local folks along it's route called the IBW the "I'd Better Walk "railroad.) mh

Locomotive from the turn of the century.

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