You are standing on what was Falcon, Idaho, a lonely but important Milwaukee Road siding named for the raptors that nested in the area. Train passengers gave the place scant notice, but by 1915, a depot, a section house and several other buildings sprouted along the tracks. One section foreman ran a jewelry store out of his house with stock left over from his days as a merchant. A post office established at Falcon in 1911 persisted until 1933 when the Avery Post Office took over its duties.
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"Ma" Van Antwerp and the Runawav Railcars
Cora "Ma" Van Antwerp, the first station agent at Falcon served here many years. A crusty, but respected lady, "a tough one" according to Milwaukee engineer and lifetime area resident, Harold Theriault. He recalled on anecdote about her.
A runaway car full of lumber sped by Falcon after escaping from a work site and derailed further down. She chewed out the Adair operator because he failed to notify her of the runaway in time for her to halt it at Falcon. She wanted to salvage the lumber for her own use. Shortly thereafter, the Adair operator called her to say that another runaway car had just sped by Adair, so Ma blockaded the track making it spill its cargo. The recently chastised operator didn't tell her, however, that it was the slop/garbage car from Roland that was the runaway.
Now she was really angry!
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"Do you hear that?" he asked in a hushed voice. "Listen! It's the wind from up around Adair blowing down the valley and through the tunnel. You can almost hear it here, particularly in the summer. Some say it sounds like a dying man's cry for help, a ghost from the big fire. Hard to say."
Feeling the hair rise on my head, I held my breath and listened. I could hear it, a soft expressive wavering sound, a sighing sound as low and melancholy as a dirge sung by a monastery choir. It made me uncomfortable.
The Milwaukee Road Revisited
Stanley W. Johnson
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