In June 1886, the Burlington, Cedar Rapids and Northern Railroad was contracted to build a short rail line to Waverly from its main north-south line, running from what became known as Waverly Junction about 5 miles southwest of Waverly in Jackson Township, south of Shell Rock. Entering Waverly at 4th Street and 8th Avenue SW, north of Harlington Cemetery, the rails ran eastward, crossed the Dry Run on a wooden trestle at 7th Avenue SW, crossed 1st Street SW, and then ran northward along the Cedar River toward Bremer Avenue, ending at the original red wood-framed Burlington, Cedar Rapids and Northern depot. The Rock Island Railroad Company, which leased the short line in 1901, purchased it in 1902, and the route, officially the Rock Island Waverly Short Line and colloquially called The Stub, handled both passenger and freight traffic. In September 1904, twelve trains arrived and departed daily except on Sundays, bringing lumber, Oriental carpets, and high quality livestock, including rare breeds of horses such as Belgians and Percherons, while horse-drawn drays hauled goods to local merchants. After a fire at Knott's Livery on Bremer Avenue, the railroad bought that land and extended the tracks two blocks north from the original depot. In 1905, railroad agent Alson L. Philieo learned that a new passenger depot would be built, and when it was completed in June 1910, the old depot became the Rock Island freight depot. In the 1920s, automobile use reduced business on the short line to five trains arriving and departing daily, and in the 1930s the Great Depression deepened Rock Island's financial troubles, with operating costs at 45 cents per mile against returns of 23 cents per mile, only 5.5 cents of that from passenger traffic. At a Bremer County Courthouse hearing, Rock Island proposed ending passenger service while continuing freight service under advisement and even suggested carrying passengers and freight on the same train, but Waverly objected on the grounds of a valid passenger contract dating to 1886. A compromise briefly preserved minimal passenger service, but by the beginning of World War Two passenger traffic had declined further, and in April 1943 the Bremer County Independent reported that there was no longer any passenger business out of Waverly over the line. By the 1950s, diesel engines were replacing steam nationally, and in January 1959 the short line ran only three times a week before the freight station closed and abandonment followed. The City of Waverly then offered to buy the land and later built a park there in 1968.