I’ve blogged occasionally about various family items found in our basement and more recently, my attempts to find new homes for them via ebay.

I’m still shaking my head in disbelief about the latest chapter.

Among a cluster of padlocks and miscellaneous keys my husband brought up a couple weeks ago was something unusual. Browsing ebay I was able to identify it as a brass hollow-barrel key. The letters “StP M&M R.R.” seemed to indicate the key had been used by a railroad. My online research was inconclusive, other than the “S” stamped on the reverse of the key was for “Switch.”

Not knowing exactly what I had, I listed the key for sale in an ebay auction, with starting price of $19.95 plus shipping. Over the next seven days the bids came pouring in, and the key sold for $297! What a pleasant surprise!

One of the bidders responded to my inquiry saying, “Very nice key. Railroad started in the late 1800s by James J. Hill. Eventually merged into the Great Northern which is now Burlington Northern. Not a lot of keys around.”

Railroadiana Online, a website for collectors and others interested in railroad history, provided a few more details. “StP M&M” was the St Paul Minneapolis-Manitoba Railroad. The St Paul Minneapolis-Manitoba was renamed the Great Northern in 1890, according to another online source.

Here’s an interesting paragraph about railroad keys from Railroadiana.org:

In order to use the wide variety of locks that railroads used to secure switches, signals, buildings and other facilities, employees were issued special keys. Such keys were carefully guarded and were carried at all times on the job. Losing a key was once considered grounds for instant dismissal, and the story goes that the wife of more than one railroad man would safeguard his keys while he was off the job lest he lose them at a local watering hole!

But how did the key come to be among our family possessions?

Two of my husband’s great-uncles – John and James Quinn, older brothers of his grandmother, Catherine Quinn Hickey -- were both railroad “switchmen."

James married in 1890 and worked for the railroad until he retired, making it seem improbable he would have left a railroad key with his younger sister.

More likely the key came to Catherine from her unmarried brother, John C. Quinn, born about 1864 and died December 11, 1903. The Minneapolis Tribune reported on his fatal accident in the railroad yards:

 J. C. Quinn, foreman of the switching crew, was thrown from a car in a crash, caught between two cars and his body badly crushed about the hips and legs. He died within 15 minutes, before a doctor could be procured. Quinn’s brother is a member of the crew, and he was one of the first to reach the wounded man.

I'm thankful the key is going to someone who values it and its history.

Now where's that railroad lantern my husband remembers?