After receiving a grant from the Washington County Riverboat Foundation last fall, the Kalona Historical Society planned to add an antique boxcar to its facility. Last Friday, that boxcar arrived.

Managing Director for the Kalona Historical Society, Nancy Roth, tells KCII how they were finally able to make it happen. “We’ve been hunting for a railcar since we got that grant [and] didn’t realize how hard it was gonna be to find a wood car which would date about 1920s-30s. We were fortunate to come across a gentleman out of Prairie du Chien, Wisconsin that had multiple cars and he donated one of those cars to us. It took us a while to find a transport person. We found Dean Anderson out of Fairfield, Iowa and he rolled our beautiful railcar into our property on Friday it was pretty exciting.”

Roth added that they plan to restore the boxcar in the hope of turning it into another small museum. While it currently sits on blocks just east of the Village’s Wahl Museum, the car will eventually be moved next to the depot. Roth said they hope to have the boxcar moved by Fall Festival.