Bill Hirt mention the CGW Industry List and his own list. For those who are
interested I know of the following:
In my book collection I have a C&NW Shippers Directory from 1923, which
lists each shipper on the C&NW, plus a sperate listing for the Omaha road.
Listings are by commodity, not by town which makes if difficult for modeling
purposes. It is 175 pages.
I also have a MLWK Official Freight Shippers Guide and Directory, published
sometime after 1943. It lists shippers, again by commodity, plus MLWK
stockyards, and brief demographics for every town served by the MLWK. It is
500 pages.
I once saw a 1957? Industry Guide for the M&StL, but someone else beat me to
the punch at the silent auction. I have not seen one since. Other railroads
should be out there.
Bill Jewett and others of the NMRA's Operating Sig (their list is tied with
the LDSIG list) is in the process of compiling a major industry list for the
entire country for the steam transition period.
Also the Layout Design Sig (LDSIG) has a file with over 6000 listings of
current Industries on their egroup list, which can be downloaded.
I wish the directories in my collection were on computer, so I could sort by
town,and make them available for others. But the amount of data entry is
tremedous. If I ever learn to coordinate the scanner and OCR software I may
try to get them in computer format. Photocopies of selected information
could be made, but I will let you know I will only do very limited requests.
It would be impossible to photocopy the entire directory for everyone who
wants one. I don't have that much time nor do I want to destroy the
bindings, the C&NW is hardbound.
The best source of online shippers/industries is the Sanborn Fire Insurance
Maps and/or City Business Directories. The Fire Insurance maps are quite
detailed as to buildings, type of business, etc. And they show the relation
of buildings to tracks. The earliest maps I have seen were first generated
in the 1860's and were periodically update about every 5-7 years. Microfisch
of all these maps are at the National Archives. In Iowa I know the complete
set covering the state of Iowa is available at the Iowa State Historical
Society in Des Moines and Iowa City, plus the University of Iowa Library in
Iowa City. All these facilities have copiers set up for Microfisch so you
can make copies to take home. Other states or University/Research libraries
may also have the Microfisch covering their areas. Caution, in the 30's the
Sanborn company began sending out tissue overlays instead of complete maps.
A person was to paste the overlay on the map over the industry/building that
had changed. The microfisch will often be hazy where these tissue overlays
were applied. Copies of Microfisch maps I have show these corrections were
made up through the 60's. I have also occasionally found an original map in
a local library, for a given town. I believe most insurance offices had
copies for their community.
Doug Harding
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