SARTELL, Minn. — It began with a poem and a toast. "Gentlemen — if I can call hobos gentlemen," Tom Staller said. "We are here today on the banks of the Mississippi ... to honor a historic tradition, ...

A moving train fills the frame of a shaky video. A ladder looms, and hands grip the rungs. A blur of movement, and you're inside an open train car piled with coal, trees whipping by on either side.

Despite the overnight storms the Painesville Railroad Museum held its annual Hobo Day event on July 26, which brought regulars and newcomers together for music by “Cowboy, Inc.” alongside hamburgers, ...

In 1899, three enterprising men from the northern Iowa city of Britt struck upon an idea: why not make Britt the home of the National Hobo Convention? The next year, hobos flocked to the town for the ...