| CN local heads southwest via former joint MILW/SOO rails enroute back to the former SOO yard at Neenah, WI on 21 May '15. The corporate headquarters of Plexus, partially visible on the right, occupies part of the site of the former P. H. Glatfelter Co. paper mill, which stood here for 132 years, the oldest part of the original mill was constructed in 1874. Glatfelter purchased the mill from Bergstrom Paper Co. in 1979. Bergstrom had purchased the mill, originally Winnebago Paper, in 1904. Glatfelter moved the jobs to Ohio in June 2006, the mill stood idle for about two years until it was torn down, demolition was completed in May 2009. The vertical steel structure on the left used to carry steam pipes over the tracks to the paper mill from the defunct Fox Valley Energy Center (formerly Minergy Fox Valley Glass Aggregate Plant). The ca. 1871 WC (later SOO) depot stood on the south (right) side of the tracks at the west end of Wisconsin Ave., right about where the middle of the train is. It was built on pilings in the south end of Little Lake Butte des Morts, these tracks were originally on a trestle over the water. All of the earth under and to the left (north) of these rails is landfill, deposited in the south end of the lake by the paper mills starting in the 1950s. That former landfill is now Arrowhead Park. The depot was converted to a freight house when a new depot was constructed on Sherry St. in 1891. The depot that stood here was demolished or moved between 1906 and 1913. |