Nostalgia & History > That railroad potty! UP in Wyoming!

Now this is a potty! And it's a railroad's. Matter of fact, it's the station's potty! Whose and where?

I'll tell you tomorrow! (Slide taken in 1975.)

Lee Hower - Sacramento



Edited 2 time(s). Last edit at 01/31/15 11:21 by mcfflyer.

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Seems to me this was in Kansas, West of McPherson? Conway maybe? SantaFe.
Brian Stevens

I'll take a wild guess it is somewhere down south. The fact it survived in such good condition into 1975 suggests that it still had use in the early 70s.

It may even be a hold out from the bad-old Jim Crow days. When visiting my brother in Florence AL in 1990 or so, we had lunch across the river at a former railroad station now a restaurant that clearly showed its construction back in the days of segregation...right down to the outdoor plumbing that was still there. To say the least, this 'yankee' was stunned to see it, but my brother and his family were totally oblivious to what they were seeing. The kitchen was on one side of the station, the ticket windows and baggage room divided the building, and the tables on the other side of the station, where the indoor plumbing was at the very end of the building.

When I posted the photo of the outhouse last night, it was just in fun, but surprised that I actually got some serious guesses! But in fact . . .

It's the summer of 1975, and I'd just completed six months of employment with the California State Board of Equalization, and I had accumulated five whole days, 40 hours, of vacation time, and it was burning a hole in my pocket! So I contacted my best pal, Tom Gibson, then a grad student at UCLA, to come up to Sacramento and we'd hit the road once more, in my new 1974 Mazda RX-4. And off we went, with our goal the upper Midwest. We'd driven all night into Salt Lake, and on that next day, we're cruising across Wyoming on US30, and we pull into the metropolis of Medicine Bow, Wyoming, and there was a station to photograph. The station was oddly not adjacent to the tracks, but its obvious that there was a track realignment here that moved the main line away from the front of the station - but not that far that it still couldn't be used as intended. What I don't know is if the station was ever plumbed, as along side of the station was this one-holer outhouse - with a crescent cut out of the door! (And I just looked on Google maps street view and it appears the station is now a museum and the outhouse is still there!)

Talk about wide open country . . .

Lee Hower - Sacramento

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Of course, we couldn't let a good photo prop like that go to waste, so we did decided to use it in a couple of totally staged shots.

First off, in those dazzling green corduroy pants, my pal, Tom Gibson, in all of his 24 year old splendor emerges, and following that, and handing off the camera, I come out in my old Oregon State University t-shirt acting "unaware" that I was being photographed.

It was a great time to be out there on the road. Before marriages, before kids, before houses, and before jobs could consume you. But there was one thing: freedom! And I sure wish I was that skinny now!

Lee



Edited 2 time(s). Last edit at 01/31/15 11:07 by mcfflyer.

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Interesting post, but don't forget the classic Virginian Hotel that hides behind the first out house image ... still worth the stop if ya're wandering US Hiway 30 and the UP ... said with a grin LOL

Odyssey
Evergreen, CO