Bradford Railroad Museum

Bradford was a railroad town through and through: named for a railroad official, Tom Bradford, the village boomed because it sat where the Pittsburgh, Cincinnati, Chicago and St. Louis Railroad's line from Pittsburgh split into a northern branch toward Chicago and a southern branch toward East St. Louis. Trains took on provisions and changed crews here, and many crewmen settled in town, helping push the population from 243 in 1870 to over 1,300 by 1890. Successor Conrail abandoned the tracks through Bradford in the 1980s, ending the rail era the museum now commemorates. The Bradford Ohio Railroad Museum itself was established in 2002 by local railroad enthusiasts as a tribute to the industry's profound impact on the community, preserving the story of the junction town's railroading heyday.