The CGW railroad line between Oelwein and Waverly opened on October 17, 1903. The first depot was a railroad car. Depot agents included Milan S. Jackson -1905, C. Swenson was recorded on June 3, 1906 and October 1, 1906, and J. N Getz was listed on August 1, 1909. Getz is also listed in 1916 and may have been the agent when the depot closed on February 6, 1931. No other information exists about a company house for the agent that was retired in 1940. The 22’ x 56’ depot was retired in 1946. Community members reported that the depot was dismantled and used to build Lawrence “Fat” Youngblut’s house at 24821 Maple St.
Many locals talked about riding the “Dinky” passenger train.
In 1946 the Oelwein newspaper interviewed John Reith. He was 78 years old and recalled when the town of Oran didn’t exist. The first railroad surveyors came to study and measure the land in 1902. Reith first heard of the surveyors when he was assisting a neighbor drilling a well. There was a lot of speculation concerning the men and their work. Reith recalled 1902 as one of the wettest years ever when the railroad work began. The prior year had been so dry that there had been crop failures. On May 18, 1902 a torrential rain storm caused flooding and took out all the bridges in the county. By 1903 the steel had been laid and 75 mules had been used for this job. John Reith and his wife were among the first to ride the first passenger train that went through in December of 1903. They took a trip to Waverly in honor of the occasion.
Reith recalled a town site man from Omaha who wanted to purchase 80 acres south of the railroad, but owner Dick Rundle would not sell his good land for $70 an acre. The man gave up remarking that it made little difference to him if there was a town or not. So, the railroad condemned five acres of Rundles land for a a depot. The depot stood alone for two or three years. Oran started to become a reality when the creamery was built by the depot and Shippey and Harwood moved their store from Minkler to Oran. It was then the town of Oran named after the township became a reality.
Farmers felt the absence of a stock yard and were forced to take hogs and cattle to Readlyn, Fairbank or Oran. One of the two stock buyers at Readlyn approached Reith with a plan that required $1700 for a building, in which case he would come to Oran and practice. Reith supported the plan, hand over $20 and encourage other to do the same. Four hundred dollars was hand over the first day. The sum was gathered in two weeks at which the cattle buyer journeyed to Waverly and reminded the lawmakers the the law required the railroad to build a stockyard where every they erected a depot. The cattle buyed skipped out with the $1700. Oran did get the stockyard but had no buyer.
