I was talking the other day about history being right under your nose. Well in my case, as in many other people's as well, I am living in a piece of living history. I live above the Main Depot Bar on W. Main St., right next to the railroad tracks, which are in themselves pieces of living history.

In fact, after talking to several old-timers who patronize the bar, I've learned that it's history and that of the railroads are closely tied together as from what I understand, this building was essentially built to serve the railroad workers coming off duty, both as a place for those who lived in Madison to grab a drink and possibly a meal on their way home as well as providing a place of lodging for those that were "tying up" from their runs away from home. That is why the upstairs rooms in the building, mine included exist. Downstairs, in the bar the remains of an old dumbwaiter built for carrying food upstairs to the lodgers still remains. i'll have to ask my landlord if he knows the exact year of the building's construction, but I did find an old photo online someplace which I'll have to try and find again of the building at the turn of the last century,

And as I was saying, the railroads that brought this establishment into existence are pieces of living history in their own right. For this entire area around the bar was the principal yards of both the Milwaukee Road as well as the Illinois Central roads, with the Milwaukee Road having built a large roundhouse being built right about on the site of the Kohl Center, a block away from where I live

There were three lines converging here-that of the Milwaukee's original route from it's namesake city of Milwaukee to Prairie du Chien, entering Madison on the causeways across Monona Bay. It is interesting to note that all of this route, with the exception of a small segment within the Milwaukee city limits is still being used by the Wisconsin & Southern Railroad today.

The second line was another Milwaukee route also came in coming from Milwaukee via Watertown. Most of this route into the city remains, with the segment from by the Goodman Community Center to the intersection of Williamson St with John Nolen Drive across from Machinery Row Bicycles having been torn up years ago and made into a segment of the Capitol City Trail.  

And finally the third route was that of the Illinois Central, which entered the city along the route of what is now the Southwest Commuter Path, crossing the Milwaukee Road in what is now a parking lot between Mills and Dayton Streets and on into it's own yard, with a roundhouse of their own, paralleling the route of the Milwaukee with it's main line passing through what is now CVS Pharmacy on W. Washington Ave., part of the apartment complex directly next door to my building, if not through then directly behind the WORT radio station building and finally joining the "wye" connecting track between the Milwaukee's two routes mentioned above at the intersection of S. Bedford and W. Wilson Sts.

It was a bustling place with a beehive of activity, to say the least and my place of residence ws at the heart of it all. The only clue that this once bustling railroad empire ever existed here are the two depot buildings from the opposing railroads, that of the Milwaukee Road being the home of Motorless Motion Bicycles on W. Washington and the IC depot now housing a U-Haul moving and storage building. Several pieces of abandoned rail are also visible peeking up through the blacktop in the parking lot of the former Kroger Foods warehouse across the street from my building a swell as freight doors both in the side of that building and a couple of neighboring ones to give away the spots where freight cars were once loaded and unloaded at these facilities.