Milestones: Town of Erie

The little town of Erie – a bedroom community to the larger cities around it these days – was built on coal and railroads.

Miner and minister R.J. Van Valkenburg and his family settled in the fledgling settlement in 1867, naming it after his hometown of Erie, Pennsylvania. Over the years, Valkenburg also founded the Methodist Church, and served as the town’s mayor, its postmaster, its justice of the peace and its school board president, according to the Town of Erie Historic Preservation Board.

At the same time in the late 1880s, officials at Union Pacific Railroad were deciding to cross the…