The Sioux City Railroad Museum and the Siouxland Historical Railroad Association are planning a new archaeological dig next month at the Milwaukee Railroad shops historic district.
Museum spokesman Larry Obermeyer says the most recent dig was three years ago and they discovered the construction workers camps. “And they were segregated camps. There was an Italian worker camp, a Caucasian, other Caucasian camp, and then on the South Dakota side was the black African American camp,” he says.
They are partnering with the state archaeologist on the 110th anniversary of the building of the repair shops terminal. He says the dig takes place from September 24th to October 2nd . “We’re looking for anything that can tell us their daily work life and then what they did during their off hours. The last dig, we did find medicine, bottle fragments,” Obermeyer says.
He says they have some early photos of the site. “And it was like a tent city. And then there was also some rail cars that had been converted for living quarters for like the railroad’s superintendent and families were living in the box cars. So they had a school and they had a hospital car,” he says.
They are looking for volunteers to help the professional archaeologists at the site which originally housed workforce camps for 350 to 400 laborers.. “We will be digging a couple trenches and then the volunteers that come on board will work right next to the archaeologists and they’ll sift through the dirt and see if they can find any type of fragments or bottles or fabrics,” Obermeyer says. The archaeological study kicks off a three-year commemoration. Anyone who is interested can volunteer at railwayarchaeology.org.
(By Woody Gottburg, KSCJ, Sioux City)