Winton page links  Winton School     Winton Train Station

I found Winton……Well sort of……It is kind of scattered all over…….

First I found the road sign, it was easy, Winton Road. It is just East of Coles corner and it leads right into the now defunct Long Fiber timber mill. Winton road runs East and West (generally speaking) behind Coles Corner

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On the next pages available thru the links, below and above, I will continue to add information about Winton as it is received, retrieved gathered, collected or stumbled upon.

This last fall I had the pleasant opportunity to  meet Connie Nichols. George, and Jimi had invited me on a ride to Quincy for lunch, and other things, and on the way down we swung onto Palisades road and then into Connie's driveway. We had a great visit, unfortunately also a short visit, as we were on a time schedule for an appointment in Quincy.

Connie was a School Teacher in the Winton School from 1981 thru 1996.

Though our visit was short, I let her know my interest in Winton, and she showed her interest in getting me information so I can share it on these pages with people that may also be interested.

This last week I received a 7 page letter from Connie. I will be posting the letter, though it will be broken into a couple of sections.

The first section is below, the other section will be on the Winton School page as that is what most of it pertains to.

I want to take this opportunity to personally thank Connie for her input, and for taking the time to put it to paper. I also want to thank her for her offer of continuing input and support in my endeavor. I am sure I will see Connie many times, in the near and distant future. Tim G

The following is quoted from Connie's letter to me.

"Regarding Winton, I made it my business during my 15 years there to delve into as much of the history as I could. I was fortunate to have as my friends and neighbors Kay and Orville Richards, as they had been there since the 40's and Orville especially was a wealth of knowledge about the entire area. My horses lived at Orville's, and he and I spent many days riding in the mountains during the years before cancer affected him to the point that he could no longer ride, although I continued to head for the mountains any chance I could.

Orville and Kay lived in the log house at the lower end of Winton Rd.., the house where Longview Fibre later had their office. Orville had worked for Great Northern for years, and had retired from what was by then Burlington Northern in the mid-80's.

He and Kay told stories of when the depot was still operational. The depot was located across the road from their house where the Winton mill is now.

The building itself was situated on the other side of the tracks and to the right of the present crossing as you enter. At that time there were sheep pens behind the station, as they would haul the sheep in and out of the mountain summer range.

The Winton 'section' was once a going concern, and any old railroad buff can fill you in on that. There were several cabins on the Winton road side of the crossing, as well as on the depot side of the tracks, and RR employees lived in those cabins. There were also a few cabins over on Orville and Kay's property which they rented out to railroad employees before Great Northern abandoned the station there.

After the station was abandoned, Orville bought the property, which included the depot. Orville and several buddies then commenced to move the building across the tracks and over to it's present site.(the stories of that move were quite comical, as it was the project to end all projects, and of course, all done on the cheap.....brute strength, huge log rollers, etc.)

Orville used it as his barn from that time forward. The main part of the building was used for hay and tack storage. I have stacked many tons of hay into that building during the years I was there, and always thought it was quite classy to have hardwood floors under the hay. (of course Orville always chose the hottest day of the year to haul hay, and it was always about 1 PM, never in the early morning or the cool of the evening. It was the way the good old boys had always done it, and by God, that was the way we would do it as well!) Hardwood floors also made it easy to hook a bale, and then slide it behind oneself until reaching the stack. We fed out the windows, as the old lean-to roofs on the SR 2 side of the building sheltered the horses when they came up to eat. The front part (Winton road side) of the building was a large room that we used for tack and grain storage. That side of the building was the freight and baggage loading side when it was a depot."

Winton Train Station link