The story of Lanesboro begins with the story of a railroad. Without trains the town we know wouldn’t exist. A century later, without a new vision for using abandoned railroad tracks, the re-birth of this town wouldn’t have happened. From its first day to the present, a railroad has been the driving engine of this amazing little town!

By the time of the Civil War, the Southern Minnesota Railroad had reached La Crosse, Wisconsin, and was heading towards Rushford, Minnesota. Settlers throughout the Root River region eagerly lobbied for train lines to be extended to their newly-forming villages. Lanesboro was among those chosen, and a train whistle first echoed off the bluffs here in December, 1868.

Local train traffic changed everything. Almost overnight, small village became mini-boomtowns. By 1881 two passenger and three freight trains passed through here daily, moving lumber, farm goods, and people, including thousands of immigrants. The Lanesboro Depot, with a telegraph office open 24 hours a day, was manned by a crew of five. While most of those immigrants headed west, more than a few, struck by the area’s beauty and fertile farmlands, made Lanesboro their new home.

In the 1930s all that changed. The Depression hit. Highways and trucks transformed freight traffic. Immigration slowed. Passenger numbers declined. In the early 1970s after the last train rolled through, Lanesboro’s vacant Depot was demolished. The railroad had disappeared from here…or so it seemed.

In the 1980s, a new vision called “rails-to-trails” gained support nationally and locally, the idea of turning abandoned railways into recreational trails. After the Root River State Trail was completed in 1988, thousands of people were soon visiting Lanesboro each year to enjoy this beautiful and well-maintained paved trail by foot and on bike.

Lanesboro’s founders had a vision to create a tourist destination in southeastern Minnesota’s bluff country. That dream came true once again—all because of a railroad!