Lake Superior
Railroad Museum

From the Archives: GN Train Order 105, May 31, 1916

by Anita Zager, LSRM volunteer

From the Collection of Wayne Olsen, railroad correspondence file at the Lake Superior Railroad Museum Archives. It’s been a fascinating project this winter to catalog another collection from Wayne Olson, one of the founding members of LSRM. This file happened to be a collection of over 150 items, mostly railroad correspondence from the 1880s. Most are handwritten letters regarding possible deals, requests for passes, rights of way, etc but then I came across this extremely fragile, difficult to read piece of paper. My initial evaluation is that it’s too far gone, too hard to read but then I slowed down to decipher it character by character and experienced goosebumps.

Great Northern Railway Company, Train Order No. 105, Havre, May 31, 1916. To Conductors and Engineers, at Glasgow Station. Funeral of Mr. James J. Hill set for one o’clock, 1:00pm Wednesday, May 31 our time at that hour all trains in transit and all employees will stop for 5 mins.


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  • May 4, 2026

    by Anita Zager, LSRM volunteer From the Collection of Wayne Olsen, railroad correspondence file at the Lake Superior Railroad Museum Archives. It’s been a fascinating project this winter to catalog another collection from Wayne Olson, one of the founding members of LSRM. This file happened to be a collection of over 150 items, mostly railroad correspondence from the 1880s. Most are handwritten letters regarding possible deals, requests for passes, rights of way, etc but then I came across this extremely fragile, difficult to read piece of paper. My initial evaluation is that it’s too far gone, too hard to read but then I slowed down to decipher it character by character and experienced goosebumps. Great Northern Railway Company, Train Order No. 105, Havre, May 31, 1916. To Conductors and Engineers, at Glasgow Station. Funeral of Mr. James J. Hill set for one o’clock, 1:00pm Wednesday, May 31 our time at that hour all trains in transit and all employees will stop for 5 mins.

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