The 101-A is a General Motors Model FP7 diesel-electric locomotive built in La Grange, Illinois, in 1951 and the first of that model sold to the Milwaukee Road, entering service in December 1951. It remained in service until 1980 and logged 2,217,816 miles. In 1984, after the Cresco Fire Department was asked to help obtain a caboose for Beadle Park, about 10 firemen decided instead to secure a complete train. The engine and box car were bought sight unseen from the Milwaukee Bankruptcy Court for $9,000 and $2,000, and because the line from Austin, Minnesota, to Calmar, Iowa, was already being torn out, they had to move the units quickly before the remaining track east of Cresco was removed. On July 2, 1984, both units were pushed from Calmar, 20 miles southeast, to Cresco, and the caboose and flat car were acquired later in 1984 and 1985 and brought in by truck with special boggy wheels. Purchased in non-operating condition by community-minded citizens of Cresco in 1984, the locomotive was completely restored under the direction of Cresco Fire Department volunteers and returned to operating condition, then given to the Cresco Park Board in ceremonies held on July 4, 1985, after more than 3,000 man-hours and $24,000 had been spent. The Milwaukee Road, a Class I railroad operating in the Midwest and Northwest of the United States from 1847 until its merger into the Soo Line Railroad on January 1, 1986, began as the Milwaukee and Waukesha Railroad, soon became the Milwaukee and Mississippi, ran its first train from Milwaukee to Wauwatosa after three years, and its first passenger train on February 25, 1851. Supported by significant land grants and investors including Alexander Mitchell, Russell Sage, Jeremiah Milbank, and William Rockefeller, it was renamed Chicago, Milwaukee, and St. Paul in 1874, and by 1887 its lines extended through Wisconsin, Minnesota, Iowa, South Dakota, and Michigan's Upper Peninsula. Though commonly called the Milwaukee Road, its headquarters were in Chicago, Illinois. Of 48 Milwaukee Road EMD Model FP7 units, 101-A is the only one left in running condition.