Railroads and the American People

Prologue

xi For more than 150 years railroads have exerted a pronouncedinfluenceontheAmericanpeople.Theironhorseliterallybecame the engine for development and general well-being. By routinizing movements of raw materials, goods, and people, railroads orchestrated the growth of the national economy. In The House of Seven Gables (1851) Nathaniel Hawthorne said it well: “Railroads are positively the greatest blessingthattheageshavewroughtoutforus.Theygiveuswings;theyannihilatethetoilanddustofpilgrimage ;theyspiritualizetravel!”President Warren G. Harding, a man not remembered for his insightful comments, sensed the value of improved transportation. “For the whole problem of civilization,” he told a crowd assembled for the formal dedication of the government-built Alaska Railroad in July 1923, “the development of resources and the awaking of communities lies in transportation.” It can be reasonably argued that if any area explains American greatness, it has been transportation. By the end of the nineteenth century the “Railway Age” had matured in the United States. Yet line construction continued, especially on the Great Plains. In 1880 national mileage stood at 92,147; a decade later, after a frenzy of construction, it soared to 163,359, and in 1916 it peaked at 254,251, creating enough route miles to circle the earth ten times. By World War I states such as Illinois, Iowa, and Ohio claimed mileage that was so dense that small communities might have two or more carriers. Then the abandonment process began, particularly among the weakest shortlines, centered initially in the Midwest and South. The expectations of pioneer “rail road” proponents mostly materialized . When on October 1, 1833, Elias Horry, president of the SouthCarolina Canal & Rail-Road Company, addressed a Charleston audience about the impact of the opening of his 136-mile road between that city and Hamburg on the fall line of the Savannah River opposite Augusta, PROLOGUE
p r o l o g u e xii Georgia, he hardly exaggerated the importance of the railroad of that day or much later. “Our citizens immediately, and correctly saw, that every benefit arising from the system [of railroads] could be extended to every City and Town in the United States, and particularly to those near the Atlantic.” Horry, it seemed, possessed clairvoyant abilities. That by establishing Rail-Roads, so located as to pass into the interior of the several States, every agricultural, commercial, or saleable production could be brought down from remote parts of the Country to these Cities and Towns; and from them, such returns, as the wants of the inhabitants of the interior required, could be forwarded with great dispatch and economy, thereby forming a perfect system of mercantile exchanges, effected in the shortest possible time, and giving life to a most advantageous Commerce. Over the following decades the words of Horry, the prophet, rang true. So much of the movement of goods and people depended on the iron horse. After the railroad map had apparently jelled about 1900, actionsbyscoresofcommunitiesduringthetwilightperiodofconstruction indicated that steel rails and flanged wheels were still expected to ensure future prosperity. When the “inland” county-seat town of Ava, Missouri, located in the transportation-starved Ozarks, at last joined the national railroad grid in February 1910, residents cherished that moment. “At half past nine o’clock last Sunday night the old Ava died and the new Ava was born,” crowed the editor of the Douglas County Herald. The welcome “toot” of a locomotive whistle was heard as the first train of the Kansas City, Ozark & Southern Railway came slowly down the hill from the John A. Spurlok homestead, and stopped in the midst of a cheering crowd at the depot. And from a gondola car at the rear end of the train stepped a cold, tired, but very happy man, a man who, in the face of abuse and discouragement had plugged away until he had made his dream come true. J. B. Quigley, almost blind, had accomplished what Ava had been hoping for and scheming for twenty years to secure–he had completed a practical railroad connecting Ava with the outside world. The impact of railroads upon the personal lives of Americans can been seen in multiple ways. This study explores four fundamental topics: Trains, Stations, Communities, and Legacy. These units are designed collectively to capture the essence of the nation’s railroad experience. Travel by rail left lasting memories, both positive and negative. The luxury of a fast, all-Pullman train brought great pleasure, while a local with vintage equipment, frequent stops, and slow transit times did not. All types of individuals took to the rails, whether hoboes, immigrants, shoppers, salesmen, or vacationers...