In July 1881 the Chicago, Milwaukee and St. Paul Railroad built a branch line connecting Mazomanie with Sauk City and Prairie du Sac. The July 30 issue of the Mazomanie Sickle proclaimed the event with the headline: "Ho, for Sauk! Iron-way is Under Way." The story continued: "The peaceful dream of the frog in the big marsh is at an end. The fond hope of the Mazoite at last is to be realized."
The line was completed in six months at a cost of $180,749. The Sauk City German newspaper, the Pionier, exclaimed: "Finally, what we have waited 25 years for has finally arrived! Last Sunday, Dec. 11, the first train on the west side of the Wisconsin River entered Sauk City. In one or two more days the train will be at the depot location in the center of town."
Typical service consisted of one coach, one baggage car, and several freight cars. The train made the eighteen-mile round trip twice daily. In Prairie du Sac it became known as "Uncle Jake's Teakettle," named for Jacob Pugh, a local engineer, who drove the first train into Mazomanie in 1856 and who as later assigned to the branch line.
In 1942 the line was extended from Prairie du Sac into the Badger Ammunition Plant north of that village. At the same time, a wye was added at Mazomanie so that trains approaching from east or west could go directly onto the branch line. The roadbed was rebuilt by the Wisconsin River Rail Transit Commission in 1992 at a cost of 4.2 million dollars.
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