Students, faculty, school children, and townspeople were the bread and butter of the Dinkey’s passenger operation.  With only three passenger cars, overflow riders often had to cling to platform and steps.  Besides carrying passengers, the Dinkey carried mail from the downtown post office to campus for sorting into pigeon holes at the campus terminal.  A major contribution during the Dinkey’s reign was the transporting of a considerable quantity of building materials and equipment during the building boom on campus.  New construction of the era included: Campanile (1897-1898), Marston Hall (1903), Alumni Hall (1904-1907), East Hall (1905), and Beardshear Hall (1906).  The electric trolley that succeeded the Dinkey carried materials for Mechanical Engineering Building (1908), Curtiss Hall (1909), Engineering Annex (1910), MacKay Hall West (1911), and Veterinary Quadrangle (1912).  A less serious contribution was the transport by flat car of empty boxes, crates and waste wood to the athletic field for a victory bonfire when an important home game was won.

One of the most challenging jobs for the Dinkey involved carrying visitors to the College during Excursion Day.  This early public relations effort to showcase the college eventually evolved into Veishea, and was the brainchild of Pres. Beardshear.  People from around the state took trains into Ames and rode the Dinkey to campus to tour the buildings, watch a parade and athletic events, and enter contests.  Home-packed lunches were brought and enjoyed in a picnic setting on the ever-beautiful central campus.  Records show that as many as 15,000 visitors swarmed over the campus.  The flat car, normally reserved for hauling freight, was even pressed into service to carry passengers, whose legs dangled over the sides as they rode.  OSHA would be horrified today at such a practice.  Many visitors simply walked the tracks to campus, or hitched a ride on an enterprising farmer’s wagon.

Frank Lange, the engineer, has a story related by Gladys Meads in her book At the Squaw and the Skunk.  “One of the things that made Frank’s life hard was young Seaman Knapp, son of Registrar Herman Knapp.  Seaman had a deep and unsurpassed longing to ride in the cab of the engine, and while it was so filled with passengers and making so many extra stops was Seaman’s opportunity to sneak on the forbidden spot on the Dinkey.  So at the start of every trip, the engineer would have to snoop out the boy from whatever spot he had chosen to hide till the train was in motion.  It became a game of wits with sometimes Frank and sometimes Seaman winning.”

Functioning as a “school bus,” the Dinkey carried 4th Ward children to downtown school, placing the boys in one car and girls in another.  Still, the children bedeviled the train personnel.  One large boy in particular, Morrill Marston, son of Dean Anson Marston, was a menace.  Quoting again from Gladys Meads book: “The trainmen tried to discipline him by pulling out ahead of time so as to make him hike to town, but he only came earlier and efforts not to stop for him brought his worst stunt.  He simply laid down on the track, much to everyone’s horror.”

An accident involving another boy on the track did not have a positive outcome.  One time the Dinkey ran over a young boy and severed his leg. The railway was sued and financial backers were nearly ruined.

One last story from Dinkey engineer Frank Lange involves transporting a forbidden keg of beer for a student celebration.  “The Dinkey engine had two water tanks, one on either side.  The keg was to be carried here and when the Dinkey pulled up past the depot to turn the engine around the keg was to be eased off into some trees that were there in a kind of grove.  All went according to plan, except someone else besides the assigned student got the keg.”  It was entirely possible that Pres. Beardshear, known for his uncanny way of knowing everything that went on, had confiscated the keg.  He believed that, where alcohol was concerned, an ounce of prevention was worth a pound of punishment.  Apparently nothing ever came of the affair.

1858

Iowa Agricultural College and Model Farm established

1864

Town of Ames platted.

1865

First Ames Depot built near Duff Avenue.

First scheduled passenger train passes through Ames in June.

1866

Ames population: about 100.

1868 Oct. 21

First students attend special preparatory sessions at I.A.C.

1869 Mar. 17

I.A.C. classes start.  College enrollment: 93.

1872 Nov. 13

First I.A.C. graduation held.

1874

Narrow gauge Des Moines & Minnesota Railroad built its line from Des Moines to Ames.

1875

Ames population: 820.

1880

Ames population: 1,153; College enrollment: 281.

1890

Ames population: 1,276; College enrollment: 297.

1890 Sept. 20

Ames Street Railway Company, known as the Ames & College Railway, was incorporated.  The line was more commonly known as the Motor Line or the Dinkey.

1890 Oct. 15

Town Council granted a franchise to Ames & College Railway to operate on Ames streets.

1890 Nov. 12

A special committee of Ames reported that a proposition by Ames Street Railway Company to provide a horse-car railway “would not meet the demands for rapid transit.”  A “steam motor or other improved motive power” was preferred.

1891 January

Trustees of the College granted right of way across the I.A.C. campus to the Ames Street Railway Company, their successor or assigns.  An agreement was also entered into between the College and the Railway for the rail company to pick up college mail at the Ames Post Office and make delivery to the College.

1891 July 4

Ames & College Railway made its first run between downtown Ames and the campus via tracks on 5th Street.

1891

H.L. Munn established Munn Lumber Company.

William M. Beardshear appointed president of ISC and serves until 1902.

1892

Campus terminal for Dinkey built between Old Main and Morrill Hall (known later as the Hub).

1900

Chicago & Northwestern Depot built.

1900 Dec. 10

North wing of Old Main destroyed by fire.

1902 Sept. 14

South wing of Old Main destroyed by fire.

1903

Albert B. Storms appointed president of ISC and serves until 1910.

College enrollment: 1,334.

1906

Beardshear Hall completed.

1907

Ames & College Railway sold to Ft. Dodge, Des Moines & Southern Railroad in September.

Dinkey tracks on 5th Street torn up and new tracks laid down Main Street.

Line built from Kelley north into Ames. Interurban made its first run down Ames’ Main Street in July.

Central Station built for electric trolley opposite Chemistry Building; tracks running on south side of Morrill Hall moved. Cinder path constructed between downtown Ames and campus. Scenic Theater, Ames’ first movie house, opened at 121 Main St.; Name changed to Twin Star in 1913 when acquired by Joe Gerbracht.

1908

Dinkey depot relocated just west of Morrill Hall.  Railroad built a second foot bridge over Squaw Creek and north of the railroad bridge to prevent students from climbing the railroad company’s fences east of Squaw Creek.

1909

Newton and Northwestern Railroad was sold and merged with the Ft. Dodge, Des Moines & Southern line.  Connected with the Fort Dodge Line at Midvale south of Ames.  Line was then electrified, extended to Des Moines from Midvale.  Newton connection discontinued.

1913

Street car carried 133 people per hour.

1916

Dinkey track crossing central campus rerouted to encircle campus

1920

Addition made to Dinkey station.

1929

Bus service replaced trolley.

1933

Central Station razed, but Dinkey station continued in use as a postal substation and book store.  Additions made in 1946, 1952.

1958

Automated snack service begun in station by utilizing space vacated by removal of book store to Memorial Union.

1959

Station named the Hub.

1963

Snack service expanded and ticket box office added in Hub by removal of postal substation to new off-campus building.