The Daviess County Rail Fest will be Friday and Saturday in downtown Washington.
The event is a celebration of Daviess County’s railroad heritage, said Vince Sellers, director of the Daviess County Museum.
The museum will be open to the public free of charge and will have railroad displays along with showings of railroad history films. They will also have a raffle for a model train. The museum, which is also hosting the “Faces of Lincoln” exhibit, will be open from 10 a.m. to 5 p.m. both days.
Train rides will be offered from downtown to the depot by Gene Horning of Odon and the city will also provide a train from 11 a.m. to 2 p.m. Saturday.
Other activities include model train displays at the McDonald’s Chevrolet building, across from the railroad depot.
The depot, which now houses the Daviess County Chamber of Commerce and the Daviess County Economic Development Corporation, will be open for the Rail Fest and have displays on B & O Railroad as well as the earlier Ohio & Mississippi Railroad.
At 12:30 p.m. Friday, Terry Lee & The Rockaboogie Band will perform in the city parking lot at Main and S.E. Third streets.
The event, in its fourth year, is a fund raiser for the Daviess County Historical Society, Sellers said.
He said trains go all the way back to 1857 in Daviess County’s history. Washington is halfway between Cincinnati and St. Louis, Sellers said, and was a stop along the way. In 1888 a railroad repair yard was built here.
“That became a critical growth element for Washington and Daviess County,” Sellers said, adding that the city seal for Washington features a train.
He said there was a time when four or five passenger trains passed through Washington a day and passenger service continued until the early 1970s.
“The growth and size of Washington and the importance of downtown is tied directly to the railroad,” he said.
Sidewalk Days will occur simultaneously with Rail Fest as 37 local businesses, mostly downtown, participate through special sales and events. Also this weekend is the 10th annual nationwide “Great U.S. 50 Yard Sale.” Known as “The Nation’s Yard Sale,” the event encourages anyone who lives near U.S. 50, which stretches from Maryland to California, to have a yard sale.
Running Friday through Sunday with no set hours, the sale often finds people deciding to set up their own sale a day or two before the event, said Tom Taylor of North Vernon, Ind., the national coordinator.
Sellers said U.S. 50 in Daviess County has had a few different routes over time. Old Hwy. 50 ran through Washington and spurred off on State Street, proceeding northwest to 11th Street, then north to Walnut Street, then west to Meridian Street, then north to Apraw Road, which cuts northwest to Front Street, then north to Old Vincennes Road, where it headed out of town to the old Vincennes Road bridge.
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Related Photos
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Vince Sellers, director of the Daviess County Museum, looks over railroad articles that will be on display Friday and Saturday during Rail Fest---Photo By Kelly Overton.
Discussion
City’s railroad history comes to life
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