Railroads ushered in economic opportunity in the Byway area, just as they did in so many other parts of the country.  From their beginnings as a means of moving logs out of the vast pine forests to their transformation into movers of tourists to resorts that sprung up where logging camps had once stood, railroads were economic engines for the Paul Bunyan Scenic Byway area.  Learn all about them at Northern Trackers on CSAH 3 south of Crosslake.

Paul Bunyan himself saw the importance of railroads, especially for folks without a Big Blue Ox. Here's his experience with a railroad snafu.

How in tarnation do you make 25 miles of railroad with just 1,000
feet of track? That’s a tough one... but Ole, the Blacksmith, figured it out! 

When it was time for me and my boys to move on to another forest, the new lumber crew just had regular guys...and they were gonna need a railroad.

Well, the new guys brought in a steam locomotive and a few flat cars, but somebody messed up and only sent 1,000 feet’s worth of track! That wouldn’t do.

The next day, Old had all his blacksmith guys lay that track out and they spiked it together. Then he asked me to set it up so it stretched between the tops of two big hills, like a bridge. I thought that was kind of strange, but I figured Ole had something up his sleeve, so I did it.

Here was Ole’s bright idea. He told Babe that he had blacksmithed out a brand new bench that was just Babe’s size, and would he like to try it out? Naturally, Babe was as pleased as a big blue ox could be, and he walked right over and sat right down in the middle of those railroad tracks.

You should’a been there to see it! Those tracks moaned and groaned and squeaked and
squealed... and they bowed around into a great big railroad track circle, Babe and all.

That’s when I realized what Ole was up to. He welded the ends of the track together, and we set that train right inside. It looked kinda funny, but it worked! That thing choo-choo-chooed its way along, hamster-style, all 25 miles into the woods— then back again with a full load of logs— and never ran out of track. That Ole was pretty clever, by gum. I almost gave him a raise.

Of course, the Crosslake Lumber Company eventually got enough regular track to go the whole way, and over the years they hauled about half a forest-ful of logs out of the woods on that train. In 1903, old Swen Hanson built a store and post office and hotel halfway along the route, and that became the town of Swanburg. Funny, but I never could figure out why they didn’t call it Swenburg.