ARNOLDS PARK, Iowa — Okoboji historian Jonathan Reed likens it to finding King Tut's tomb.Â
This past fall, Reed, Arnolds Park Amusement Park CEO Jon Pausley and Hussong Classic Cars owner Dudley Hussong ventured two hours from the Iowa Great Lakes to Otho, Iowa, to assess a miniature train that had formerly operated at Arnolds Park as early as the early 1930s. When Hussong saw it, the longtime collector almost couldn't believe it.Â
"This is probably close to No. 1 for me as far as finding something that belonged to someplace else a long time ago," he said. "It was a great surprise to a lot of people. Once I got it up to my shop in Milford, people found out and we had a lot of visitors come to the shop to look at it."
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Dueling trains
The timing on the trio finding out about the train's location was a bit of serendipity.
Last fall, Reed gave a talk at the amusement park about how important trains were to Okoboji and mentioned a hand-built locomotive that ran in Arnolds Park in the 1930s. Jon Pausley said within a week of the presentation Brandon Toftee popped up on Facebook claiming to be in possession of that very train. It had taken decades for the engine to make its way into his possession.
According to research from Reed, originally published in The Okobojian: Two entrepreneurs, Dr. A.L. Peck and C.P. Benit, operated separate businesses in what is now the unified Arnolds Park Amusement Park and competed with each other for customers.
In 1931, Homer E. Watson brought a miniature train to Peck's operation, which then got Benit itching for one of his own. That same year, a train built by Milwaukee Railroad engineer Earl Holdridge of Perry, Iowa, and his brother, Ray Holdridge, was covered in an Aug. 24, 1931 Perry newspaper article. In time, Earl Holdridge's family would bring the train, on a trailer built by Milwaukee Railroad coworkers, to the park to run for parkgoers. When Earl had to tend to his job, Ray would substitute.
The train ran as part of Benit's attractions until the late 1940s and bounced around to other venues before it was sold around 1955. Ames, Iowa, businessman Glenn Miller would eventually get hold of the train and show it off as part of a "museum of curiosities." After Miller died, the train then passed to Harold Ault of Ames in about 1983. When Ault died in 2022, his personal effects were auctioned off. Toftee purchased the train in 2023 and made a post about it on social media, which got the attention of Reed, Hussong and Pausley.Â
"Mainly he wanted to find that out (the owner and where it came from) so he could sell it back to us," Hussong said. "He said I want enough money out of that so I could buy a Model A car. And I didn't mention it at the time but I just happened to have a Model A car that I was trying to sell. And, as we got into it further and further, he wanted a lot of money for that train and the park wasn't willing to give that amount so I stepped in and asked the gentleman if he'd be interested in the Model A I had."
Coincidentally, Hussong first got involved with doing major repair work for Arnolds Park because of a Model A engine. It was 2018 and an entirely different train wasn't running.Â
"When I found out it was supposed to have a Model A Ford motor in it I got very much involved because I'm kind of a Model A buff," Hussong said. "Anything to do with trains from that point on, I was the one they called."
The shape it's in
Hussong said the engine for the missing train was in very good shape when the trio saw it (the locomotive part was covered with a dense black sheet).Â
"With some effort, we could make that motor run and it could go back on the track and work again," Hussong said.
The passenger car wasn't quite so lucky. It wasn't covered and had totally rotted as it was made of wood.Â
"I saved the bottom foundation, the wheels and the frame, that’s all I could save, most of that has been completely rebuilt," Hussong said.
On the whole though, Reed said the train doesn't look remarkably different from when it would've first pulled into Arnolds Park in the 1930s.Â
"There's still rust. There's still dents. There are still handmade things on it from the 30s, 40s and 50s. Not a lot of change from pickup and delivery time," he said.
What lies in store
With its condition, Pausley said the immediate plan for the train is to have it be a picture spot for customers. The future could be even brighter.
In Reed's opinion, having such a piece back further connects Arnolds Park to its storied history.Â
"The Arnolds Park Amusement Park has been important to families for entire generations," he said. "You can talk to any 'old timer' who might be wandering around the park and the odds are really good they were there as children and if you were to find out why that old timer was there as a child it was because their parents and grandparents brought them there. We have this huge reservoir of memories ... "The train is important because: Hey, guess what? My mother might've ridden on that train. Somebody else's great-grandmother certainly did. Those formative memories make the Iowa Great Lakes and Arnolds Park Amusement Park worth coming back to."