A horse-drawn wagon can travel anywhere from 2-3 miles per hour up to 4-8 miles per hour depending on the terrain and the weight of the wagon. A trip from Ridgeway to Bethany might take 2-3 hours if the weather was good and roads were dry. But train travel changed all that. A trip to Bethany from Ridgeway took only about 40 minutes, according to a timetable published in the Blythedale Clipper on September 1, 1881. To go to Bethany from Ridgeway, you would take the southbound train from Ridgeway at 8:05 pm and arrive in Bethany at 8:45 pm. You would have to spend at least a night or two in Bethany to conduct your business as there were no northbound trains until the next morning. Then, you would catch the 7 am train from Bethany to Ridgeway and arrive home at 7:50 am, just in time to start your day. By 1882, the trains were running a bit faster and the trip from Ridgeway to Bethany took only thirty minutes.
I didn’t find any local fares printed in the paper, but another source mentioned that local trips tended to cost about 10-15 cents per mile. Longer trips might only have been 2 or 3 cents per mile.
