Green Bay and Lake Pepin Railway Company  stock certificate 1870 (Wisconsin)

Antique railroad collectible with unusual  green print for both border and text. Issued and cancelled. Some staining in the left border. Very rare issued example. Dated 1870.

The Green Bay & Lake Pepin Railway Company was granted a charter in 1866 to operate a railroad from Green Bay to the Minnesota Border.  This predecessor railroad was the beginning of what became known as the Green Bay Route. On September 1873 the Green Bay & Lake Pepin changed its name to the Green Bay & Minnesota Rail Road Company after it became clear that the new railroad would not reach its namesake city.  The new railroad faced difficulties generating enough revenue to pay off its mortgage and the GB&M went into receivership and was sold in foreclosure in August 1881, eventually emerging as the Green Bay, Winona, & St. Paul Railroad under the control of the bondholders of the GB&M.

The Green Bay and Western Railroad was formed in 1896 from the bankruptcy proceedings of the Green Bay, Winona & St Paul and the Kewaunee, Green Bay and Western. The existing route, originally built by the Green Bay and Lake Pepin Railroad, linking Green Bay, Wisconsin, and East Winona, Wisconsin, formed the bulk of the new railroad. The Green Bay and Western acquired on August 1, 1906 a majority of shares/interest in the Ahnapee and Western Railway. The GBW established in 1929 the Western Refrigerator Line Company (WRX) to operate a 500-car fleet of reefers. Passenger traffic ceased in April 1949. The Line had carried 50 000 passengers yearly in the 1870s, 310 000 in 1915 but only 1000 in 1947 having reverted to mixed trains. The Green Bay and Western sold off the Ahnapee and Western Railway to Vernon M. Bushman and a group of private investors on May 31, 1947. The Itel Corporation purchased the Green Bay & Western in 1978. The Green Bay & Western and the Fox River Valley Railroad were merged into a new Wisconsin Central subsidiary, the Fox Valley and Western Railroad August 27, 1993. Wisconsin Central was, in turn, purchased by Canadian National railway in 2001.