The Iola and Northern Railroad began in 1892 as a project of the Green Bay, Winona and St. Paul Railroad to build a line from Scandinavia north to Prentice in Price County, but only 4.7 miles were ultimately completed, ending just west of Main Street in Iola, where the depot was designated Station No. 66 because it stood 66 rail miles from Green Bay. Built in 1894 at its original right-of-way location, the depot was an impressive Victorian Railroad Gothic structure with eaves accented by scroll-sawed gingerbread brackets. Although one source placed the first scheduled train into Iola from Scandinavia on an 1893 summer evening and a Time Table No. 1 is dated July 16, 1893, the first arrival likely did not occur until sometime in 1894, when the depot was built and occupied. The line's original and longtime motive power was engine number 1, a 4-0-4 steam locomotive built in 1871 by Danford and Cook and locally called Ole Heddahl. The railroad formally became a branch of the Green Bay and Western Railroad in 1901 and was merged into the Green Bay as of Dec. 29, 1914. From the mid-1930s to the mid-1950s, railway officials repeatedly initiated petitions to discontinue the road. In 1942-45, however, the line saw its busiest period as Iola processed, sorted, graded, and sacked potatoes as a war-effort contribution, with 35 to 40 boxcars of potatoes regularly arriving from the Red River Valley and monthly freight charges averaging in the $30,000 range. Passenger service ended in 1949, the station agent's office was moved into the former passenger area the following year and the partition between the office and freight area was removed, the last train departed on May 30, 1958, and after 21 years of use as a fertilizer storage warehouse, the depot came under the protection of the Iola Historical Society on October 23, 1979.