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HomeMy WebLinkAboutBrief History of the Missouri PacificBrief History of the Missouri Pacific According to the enclylopedia "Brittanica", the Missouri Pacific Railroad Company, formerly (1849-1872) Pacific Railroad , American railroad founded to build the first rail line west of the Mississippi River. Ground was broken in 1851 and the first section of track completed in 1852. It was the first railroad to serve Kansas City, reached in 1865, after construction was interrupted by the American Civil War. In 1872 the line was reorganized as the Missouri Pacific Railway, and in 1879 it came under the control of New York financier Jay Gould, who developed a system extending through Colorado, Nebraska, Arkansas, Texas, and Louisiana. In 1917 the line was merged with the St Louis, Iron Mountain and Southern Railway Company and reorganized as the Missouri Pacific Railroad. Later it acquired other lines in the Gulf area and in Texas, extending its operating area to several midwestern and southwestern states. The line's passenger operations were turned over to the National Railroad Passenger Corporation (Amtrak) in 1971. In 1982 the Missouri Pacific merged with the Union Pacific and Western Pacific Railroad companies to form the "Union Pacific System", under the holding company Union Pacific Corporation. Missouri Pacific, however, maintained its own corporate and commerical idenity. LIKE IT USED TO BE A Country Depot Agent on the Missouri Pacific Railroad handing up train orders to the Sunshine Special passenger train at an old country depot, using a coal stove for heat; note the train order semaphore in stop position which indicates to the train crew they have train orders at that station. Although drawn as stickart, it is a likeness to what an old day railroad scene looked like.  The life of a country depot agent on the old "Telegrapher's Little Rock District" of the Missouri Pacific Railroad Co. in the 1940 through the early 1960s era was interesting and sometimes exciting, but never boring. The small towns revolved around the activities of the railroad along with those of the post offices. Almost everyone in the community sooner or later did some type of business with the depot agent. Often it involved rail or bus tickets, Western Union telegrams, small packages by LCL (Less than carload) or REA Railway Express Agency as well as carloads being shipped or received.  In many of the small towns the depot had only one person employed who was the agent except during World War ll ( 1941 - 1945 ) when there were so many trains that telegraphers (called train order operators ) were employed around the clock. During that time additional telegraphers were hired and worked various shifts and locations on the railroad. Many women were employed during the war, staying on afterward and often married railroaders. Some that I recall are Mr. & Mrs. Lambert, he was depot agent in Bonita, La and she was agent at Jones, La.; Mr & Mrs J T Murphree - Wilmot, Ark.; Mr & Mrs Carpenter - Dumas, Ark ( Another that is remembered well was A L Gordy who married a young lady from Iowa named Mary Alice Wilson - Both worked at Galion), all these were agents or telegraphers or both.  Qualifications for employment were a high school diploma, be 18 years of age and telegraph 15 words per minute (the 15 WPM was waived during WWll); also be proficient in the book of rules which at that time was the Uniform Code of Operating Rules. Most prospective employees broke in (no pay for breaking in) with a telegrapher for about 3 months before qualifying to be employed. Some went to a private telegraphers school such as the one in Chillicothe, MO. Each new operator had to own a standard railroad pocket watch prior to going to work. Watches were inspected monthly and time was checked each day either with the train dispatcher or at 1100 AM by telegraph.  The agent usually opened the depot at 700 or 800 AM daily except Sunday, the first thing he did was to let the train dispatcher know he was there (train dispatchers were in Monroe, LA). He then cleaned the depot, sweeping and dusting. If it was cold weather he built a fire in the coal stove, boy did they put out the heat when they got red hot. Next he checked the cars on various tracks in the town, after asking permission from the dispatcher to be out of the office. Every time the agent left the depot he had to obtain permission from the dispatcher, if his station was a train order station and most of them were. After checking the yard for cars, he then made out his car report showing the location, time of arrival and other information on each car. During the day trains would pass the station and the agent would go outside and watch them by, looking for things that would be a safety hazard to the train such as hot boxes (over heated journals), equipment dragging, brakes sticking, etc. If it was unsafe he or she would flag the train as the caboose passed the depot, otherwise the agent would give an OK sign ("highball") and then tell the train dispatcher what time the train passed his station and if anything was wrong. The terminology was ( "OS Dermott, Number 168 eng 1525 by at 715 PM") Many times the train dispatcher would issue train orders for the passing train and the depot agent would copy them and hand them up to the train with a device called a train order hoop, later a modified form of a hoop ( shaped like a Y ) with a string holding the orders. When train orders were copied and held for a train, the train order semaphore would be displayed in stop position indicating to the train that train orders were to be delivered and that the train could not pass without them.  The agent or telegrapher had other duties, such as making out freight reports, waybills, bills of lading, ticket sells and reports, copying Western Union telegrams in Morse code, Railway Express Agency shipments. People in those days shipped and received almost everything by rail, pigs, chickens, sheep, cattle, mules, cotton, cottonseed, logs, lumber, gravel, automobiles, fertilizer, dry goods, groceries. Customers were constantly in and out of the depots. Travel was by rail except for short distances when buses were used. The MoPac owned bus lines also, and the agents sold bus tickets. It should be noted that as late as 1953 and 1954 mules were still being shipped to the army in Ft Leonardwood, Mo. Cattle and mules were easy to count going into the cattle cars but sheep were very difficult. Try counting 125 sheep all trying to beat the others to get up the chute and into a cattle car at one time.  In 1877 a post office, College Station, was opened in a building near the railroad tracks, and the community took its name from the post office. A railroad depot was constructed in 1883; By 1884 the community had 350 inhabitants and two general stores. Faculty members generally lived on campus in housing provided by the university. College Station received electrical service in the 1890s; the population was 391 in 1900. One of many electric interurban railways in Texas was established between Bryan and College Station in 1910, and over the next ten years the area just north of the campus developed as a business district. The interurban was replaced by a bus system in the 1920s. Children from the community attended school in neighboring school districts until 1920, when the A&M Consolidated School was established by the college to enhance its teacher-education programs. In the 1920s and 1930s, as the college grew, the community built in all directions. In the early 1930s the North Oakwood subdivision, at the northern end of College Station, voted to incorporate with Bryan. In 1938 College Station incorporated, with John H. Binney as the first mayor. A zoning commission was established in 1939, and the city has maintained a tradition of managed growth. That same year the remaining faculty living on campus were told to move, and the need for housing in College Station grew more. In 1940 the town had 2,184 inhabitants (not including students) and sixty businesses, and a new school building was completed. In 1942 Ernest Langford, called by some the "Father of College Station," was elected mayor, an office he held for the next twenty-six years, during which he emphasized developing city services over commercial expansion. Lincoln High School for blacks was completed in 1942. College Station moved to council-manager city government in 1943. By 1950 it had 7,898 inhabitants, including students. Texas A&M initiated a major expansion program in the 1960s, and College Station has grown with the school. The community grew from a population of 11,396 in 1960 to 17,676 in 1970, 30,449 in 1980, 52,456 in 1990, and 67,890 in 2000, thus increasing almost sixfold in forty years. School desegregation was achieved rapidly after the black high school burned down in 1966, and a number of new schools have been built since the 1960s to accommodate population growth. Through its ties with the university, College Station has developed high-tech manufacturing industries and become a major research center. BIBLIOGRAPHY:  Glenna Fourman Brundidge, Brazos County History: Rich Past-Bright Future (Bryan, Texas: Family History Foundation, 1986).