Nostalgia & History > Depot Friday: Morris, KS in the night

The Santa Fe depot at Morris, KS was one of my favorite depots ever. Morris was the 1st station west out of Kansas City and was the only station before reaching Holliday where the Topeka passenger main split straight west from the transcon, which continued on southwest. My very 1st service for the Santa Fe in the summer of 1974 was as a track laborer. The bunk car our extra gang slept & lived in was parked for a few months behind the Morris depot. In later years the quaint building was a subject for my camera many, many times.

In August of 1977 I had been chasing all around taking in everything I could shoot in the downtown Kansas City area. In the waning evening light I stopped at Morris on my way back home to Manhattan, as was my custom any time I visited Kansas City. I have a sequence of 4 shots here for Depot Friday. The visible background light in the first 3 shots give a false indication of the level of darkness. Obviously because the exposure times were different for all 3 shots. But number #4 shows the true state of affairs at Morris. It was in coal-black darkness with the crickets chirping that I got this last shot. I remember very well how a gentle evening breeze came along to cool things down after a stifling hot day. I also remember my excited impatience at wanting to see all the shots I had just taken. I was not disappointed...

1. AT&SF Morris depot just after sunset.

2. Santa Fe freight train approaching S 74th St crossing.



Edited 1 time(s). Last edit at 12/09/16 13:18 by santafe199.

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3. The caboose of the same train from above passing by the Morris depot.

4. The Morris depot at night.
(all photos taken August 14, 1977)

Thanks for looking back!
Lance Garrels
santafe199



Edited 1 time(s). Last edit at 05/03/22 19:56 by santafe199.

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Is this the depot preserved at the Ag Hall of Fame in Bonner Springs, KS?

mmisin2 Wrote:

> Is this the depot preserved at the Ag Hall of Fame
> in Bonner Springs, KS?

Yes it is, although I have yet to visit it there...

Lance

Thanks for the quick response, I thought so but was not sure. Haven't seen it in years. Quick question, was the Holliday depot still in place at the time of your photos? Curious when it was removed. Were you in service when the Olathe depot was still on site? I know that Bonner Springs and De Soto made it into the 80's because I was too stupid to take a picture. Eudora lost the depot in a lumber yard fire. That was a real tragedy as I beleive that depot pre-dated the ATSF acquisition of the line to Lawrence.

mmisin2 Wrote:

> ...... was the Holliday depot still in place at
> the time of your photos? Curious when it was
> removed. Were you in service when the Olathe
> depot was still on site?.................

When I hired on in MOW service in April of 1974 the Holliday depot was long gone, but I do have vague memories of the depot in Olathe still being in place. If I remember it correctly, the Olathe depot was pretty well trashed out. Bonner Springs lasted at least until I could put my camera on it in 1977. I don't recall ever seeing the depot at De Soto, but I'm thinking I may remember seeing the depot at Eudora without ever shooting it. That memory is really sketchy, so I might be thinking of some other depot instead of Eudora...

Lance

mmisin2 Wrote:

> Quick question, was the Holliday depot still in place at
> the time of your photos? Curious when it was
> removed.

The 1950 track chart shows the Holliday depot east of the tower, but this Wally Abbey photo suggests the depot was gone by 1953:

1953: http://www.railroadheritage.org/index.php?P=FullRecord&ResourceId=2592

The tower had an extra story added some time before 1958:

1958: http://www.kansasmemory.org/item/214953

> > Were you in service when the Olathe
> > depot was still on site?

The odd little depot at Olathe lasted at least until 1971. Here's a view from the 50's:

http://www.kansasmemory.org/item/217050/

> Eudora lost
> the depot in a lumber yard fire. That was a real
> tragedy as I beleive that depot pre-dated the ATSF
> acquisition of the line to Lawrence.

The fragment of the Eudora depot that burned in the 1990's was what was left after Santa Fe rebuilt what had been a fairly typical 24x80 Santa Fe standard depot originally built in 1897. This is what it looked like in 1912 and 1921:

http://eudorakshistory.com/by-decade/1860/santa-fe-depot-1912.jpg
http://www.trainorders.com/discussion/read.php?11,2078524

A photo of an earlier, board-and-batten, bay-windowless Eudora, KS depot is on p.91 of the second edition of Ellington's Santa Fe Depots of the Plains.

santafe199 Wrote:

> I don't recall ever seeing the depot at De Soto,

De Soto was on-site through at least 1979.

My apologies on Eudora. I got my data from a book named Douglas County Historical Building Survey - A Photographic History, published by the Douglas County Historical Society in 1977. They state on page 62 that the depot was built by the St. Louis, Lawrence, and Denver Railroad in 1871. I suspect they are stating the original build date and have ignored subsequent changes.

mmisin2 Wrote:
-------------------------------------------------------
> Is this the depot preserved at the Ag Hall of Fame
> in Bonner Springs, KS?


Taken there in 1997.

Fred in Wichita

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In 1964, when I was about 7 years old, I was riding in the family car with my Mom and Dad. We were coming home from Kansas City. Holliday drive followed the four-track Santa Fe main line out of Kansas City, Kansas. At the Stewart Sand and Gravel crossing, the first one West of Morris, I saw the crossing gates activated. I had never seen a crossing gate before, and all of the red lights flashing were fascinating to me. I asked my Dad what that was. He told me it was the railroad, and that he would take me down there sometimes and watch the trains. We lived at Lake Quivira at the time, so Morris was close! Nearly every weekend for probably the next 6 years, my Dad would take me to Morris to watch trains. I will never forget. On a Saturday or Sunday Evening between 5:00 p.m. and 5:20 p.m. we would watch the Super Chief, The El Capitan, a short passenger train that I nicknamed "The Little Passenger", and two or three freights proceed West out of Kansas City. The Fast Mail would come out of the West on the high line around this same time. It was quite a show! Most of the trains were powered by F-7's and F-3's, and the Fast Mail occasionally had PA-1's on the head end! I became hooked on railroads, and now I'm a locomotive engineer with the Canadian National Railway out of Fond du Lac, Wisconsin.