Leaving Dog Rump Creek Behind

Main Street in Stony Plain, Alberta, was moved five kilometers north in 1907, to be nearer the railroad.

There wasn't much town to move -- just the Miller Brothers General Store, the front section of the Oppertshauser Hardware Store and a blacksmith shop owned by Jacob Schram, said [Doug] Laurie.

The townsmen hitched up their nine horses and mules and used a series of skids to tow the buildings.

"They laid trees down so they wouldn't sink into the swamp," Laurie said. "Strangely enough, they got (the buildings) straight." [John] MacDonald applied for a post office and chose a name for the little town along the tracks. In 1908, Stony Plain was born, turning the page on the old name, Dog Rump Creek. [Link]

Babies by Mail

Via kottke:

This city letter carrier posed for a humorous photograph with a young boy in his mailbag. After parcel post service was introduced in 1913, at least two children were sent by the service. With stamps attached to their clothing, the children rode with railway and city carriers to their destination. The Postmaster General quickly issued a regulation forbidding the sending of children in the mail after hearing of those examples. [Link]

From the New York Times of Jan. 17, 1913:

The mailing of babies by parcel post is a real infant industry which Postmaster General Hitchcock is asked to foster.

In the circumstances of his bachelorhood Mr. Hitchcock is considering seriously the calling into consultation of experts in the transportation of babies, as a letter to him which he received to-day presents to him a mail problem with which he is quite unfamiliar. To add to his embarrassment the letter contains a note of genuine pathos, which appeals strongly to the Postmaster General. This is the letter, identically as it was phrased and punctuated:

Fort McPherson, Ga.

Postmaster General,

Washington D. C.—Sir: I have been corresponding with a party in Pa about getting a baby to rais (our home being without One.) May I ask you what specifications to use in wrapping so it (baby) would comply with regulations and be allowed shipment by parcel post as the express co are to rough in handling Yours

The name signed to the letter is withheld at the request of Mr. Hitchcock.

As babies, in the opinion of the Postmaster General, do not fall within the category of bees and bugs—the only live things that may be transported by mail—he is apprehensive that he may not be of assistance to his correspondent. [Link]

The Fellow Who Fell on the El

Martina Sheehan spent a recent Saturday morning delving into The Newberry Library's genealogy collections.

In the 1920 census, I see that as a teenager my grandma worked for the City Railroad, now the CTA, and lived with her family, including an aunt and two cousins. I ask my father about the Kilbey cousins, which elicits a gruesome memory: He remembers looking out at El tracks that ran past the elderly sisters’ home and seeing a man fall onto the overhead rail line, catch fire and shower the street below with sparks. Not exactly what I was looking for, but interesting nonetheless. [Link]

She also learned that her great-grandmother aged only two years between 1910 and 1920.

You Must Be Wrecked to Join

Unique among American veterans organizations is La Société des Quarante Hommes et Huit Chevaux—The Forty & Eight. The name dates to World War I, when American servicemen were transported to French battlefields in cramped and often odorous boxcars.

Each French boxcar was stenciled with a “40/8”, denoting its capacity to hold either forty men or eight horses. This ignominious and uncomfortable mode of transportation was familiar to all who traveled from the coast to the trenches; a common small misery among American soldiers who thereafter found “40/8” a lighthearted symbol of the deeper service, sacrifice and unspoken horrors of war that truly bind those who have borne the battle.

Candidates for membership are called Prisonniers de Guerre (Prisoners of War). Once "wrecked" (initiated), they become Voyageurs Militaire (military travelers). The head of the organization is the Chef de Chemin de Fer (President of the Railroad).

Two Days to Change the Gauge

In 1871, railroad tracks in the United States had 23 different gauges, ranging from three to six feet. Railroads in the South used a standard gauge of five feet—three inches wider than the standard adopted by a convention in 1886. So, on May 31st and June 1st of 1886, 11,000 miles of tracks were nudged a little closer together.

A few days before May 31, all roads began clearing cars from their lines and reducing the gauge of all areas of track that could be freed of cars and engines.

Finally, in the early morning hours of May 31, the concentrated work began. Men worked in crews of various sizes charged with various goa[l]s—some given specific mileages to cover, others under instructions to begin at a specified point and work in a specified direction until they met another crew working toward them.

In less than three days, standard-gauge trains were serving the South. "The work was done economically," an article in the Journal of the Association of Engineering Societies pointed out, "and so quietly that the public hardly realized it was in progress. To the casual observer it was an every-day transaction." [Link, via MetaFilter]

This reminds me of another great moment in standardization, also prompted by the railroads: November 18, 1883, The Day of Two Noons.

Train Truthiness vs. Train Truth

From The Kansas City (Mo.) Star of Jan. 1, 2006:

History of Cape's first train is mostly myth

SCOTT MOYERS
Southeast Missourian

CAPE GIRARDEAU, Mo. - Cape Girardeau's first train rolled into town in the early morning hours of New Year's Day 125 years ago to much fanfare boisterous bands, cheering crowds and a huge celebration.

At least that's the way Louis Houck, the man who had the railroad built, told the story for years.

Except that's not exactly the way it happened.

William Penny, the train's chief engineer that night, summed it up years later with a less triumphant version.

He said there were no people in sight, the saloons were all closed and there certainly was no band or cheering crowds.

In fact, the train would operate only in reverse, so it had to come into town backward, Rhodes said.

[snip]

[Read the whole story]

tags: genealogy, family history, family tree