But, back to that corner of the town that’s Ellis Atwood’s own, private first—eighteen hundred acre Edaville.
Edaville, 210 acres of actual bog, is the biggest privately owned cranberry business in the world. Nearly 10,000 barrels of the sour little things grow here every year.
All this, with ultra-attractive buildings and equipment, is enough to set Mr. Atwood and his Thanksgiving sauce up as high as a block-signal. But wait: his Edaville Railroad!
(Moody Photo)
One of the first Edaville freight trains, with railroad fan John Holt at the throttle of Monson engine No. 4.
The Edaville Railroad is maybe the most spectacular of all these interesting “firsts”. It’s even more so because it’s the last—but we’ll come to this last part later. Let’s consider the first, first.
The first of all these famous Massachusetts cranberry lands to have a real, he-man, tobacco-chewing railroad, complete to the last fishplate, resplendent to the last parlor-car, and unbelievably efficient with its excellent big-railed track, stout little engines, and wonderland cars. Its importance as a plantation utility and, finally, the holiday fun it gives you thousands of visitors who’re making it a Sunday spa and a railroad fans’ Mecca.
That’s the Edaville Railroad, the Cranberry Belt: first of its kind, you see.
It’s the last one, too.