Union Traction Company of Indiana - 1912 dated Stock Certificate - Indiana Railroad

Stock printed by American Bank Note Co., Phila Litho. Yorktown, Indiana has been served by the Big Four Railroad and its successors: the New York Central, Penn Central, Conrail and CSX. The town was also served by an electric interurban line, the Union Traction Company of Indiana and its successor Indiana Railroad, in the early twentieth century. Read more at https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Yorktown,_Indiana

The Indiana Railroad (IR) was the last of the typical Midwestern United States interurban lines. It was formed in 1930–31 by combining the operations of the five major interurban systems in central Indiana into one entity. The predecessor companies came under the control of Midland Utilities, owned by Samuel Insull. His plan was to modernize the profitable routes and abandon the unprofitable ones. With the onset of the Great Depression, the Insull empire collapsed and the Indiana Railroad was left with a decaying infrastructure and little hope of overcoming the growing competition of the automobile for passenger business and the truck for freight business. The IR faced bankruptcy in 1933, and Bowman Elder was designated as the receiver to run the company. Payments on bonded debt were suspended. Elder was able to keep the system virtually intact for four years, and IR operated about 600 miles (970 km) of interurban lines throughout Indiana during this period. During the late 1930s, the routes were abandoned one by one until a 1941 wreck with fatalities south of Indianapolis put an abrupt end to the Indiana Railroad's last passenger operations. Read more at https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Indiana_Railroad

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