Railroads in the United States expanded from the beginning of the railroad era in 1830 to a nationwide system that included transcontinental lines by the late 19th century. Within that broader development, Herber S. Duncombe set out in 1906 to create the Midland Continental Railroad from Winnipeg, Canada, to Galveston, Texas, and Frank K. Bull joined him the next year as the Midland Continental Railroad Construction Company was organized in Chicago to finance and build it. Financial panic and lack of funds delayed progress, but grading began in 1909 north of Edgeley, and the first section from Edgeley to Jamestown was completed on November 1, 1912, with regular trains soon carrying freight daily except Sunday. In 1913 the line reached the new Wimbledon depot, and in 1914 it carried 18,520 passengers, the highest yearly total in its history. Efforts to extend the railroad farther ended in 1916 after funding difficulties worsened with World War I, and Frank Sieberling gained ownership through a loan default, then hired Henry S. Stebbins to improve the railroad's finances. During and after World War I, the railroad saw new facilities in Jamestown, brief government control in 1918, a fatal washout wreck, and later the realization that it would not be extended beyond Frazier, leading to the Wimbledon depot's move in 1920. The railroad earned operating income for the first time in 1920, added motor-rail cars and diesel-electric locomotives during that decade, and hauled freight that was largely grain, coal, petroleum products, cattle, and other goods, though the Great Depression brought deficits and the loss of a mail contract in 1937 reduced regular train schedules. Its employees became unionized early in the 1940s, federal valuation of its property in 1943 exposed severe overcapitalization, and although the line continued to develop in the 1950s, passenger service ended in 1965. Flood damage in 1969 hastened the end, and after parts of the line were taken up by the Soo Line and Burlington Northern, the Midland Continental Railroad ceased to exist in 1970, when the Wimbledon depot closed on October 31; that depot was later listed on the National Register of Places in 2003 and dedicated in 2005.