Cape Girardeau Northern

Company History: The CGN was built in 1905 under the name Cape Girardeau & Chester from Cape Girardeau in the southeast corner of Missouri to a connection with the Missouri Pacific in Jackson to the north. The Cape Girardeau Northern name came a bit later. The line’s builder Louis Houck had a reputation for building railroads on the cheap and this was no exception. Houck usually built lines with the intention of selling them as quickly as possible. In the case of the CGN, it was 1913 before he could interest the Frisco in the line but when Frisco fell into receivership, the deal fell through. CGN stuggled on and began abandoning segments on the Jackson end of the line until there was only a bit of industrial trackage in Cape Girardeau. In 1925, Missouri Pacific bought what was left. The last former CGN trackage was abandoned in 1986.