Nostalgia & History > Depot Friday: Clean & tidy, long ago!

I don’t know if I can begin to compete with the elegant Santa Fe architecture in Evan’s Depot Friday a few lines down. But I’ll do my best with the prose, and keep my fingers crossed…

Take a good long look, gang. Here’s a small town Kansas railroad depot just the way God and Uncle Cyrus intended. Neat, clean & tidy, this is one well kept railroad depot! No litter anywhere. No chips, gouges or other scars in the white concrete tastefully bordering an immaculate red brick passenger platform. Not a single shingle out of place and the painted wooden structure is showing almost no wear. I’ll bet the grass is neatly trimmed in back of the building. Even the rocks making up the road bed look like they’ve been recently bathed & precisely placed!

For you hardcore RR hardware collectors how many visible items in this image are causing lust to well up in your hearts. Train order blades, Western Union telegraph sign over the door, ceramic REA sign, wooden mailbox & gooseneck lamp. Any ol’ brick from the platform, and even the water spout mechanism will become collectible. As for me, I’d be happy to be a kid just hanging around. Watching a sleek, black water boiler come rolling into a station stop. I’d be happy listen enraptured to the various sounds of a snorting mechanical beast, while observing that lordly looking senior engineer with the pin-striped cloth cap, the high blue denim collar & red bandana around his neck. I’d be happy to jump out of my skin as two sharp blasts of musically tuned steam announce the beast’s imminent forward motion. I’d be happy to see the complicated valve gear engage in its coordinated & well-oiled dance with those impossibly high drivers. I’d be happy to perform the obligatory ritual of counting the cars as the train makes away with its human cargo.

I’d be happy to be a kid once again… back in those 19-teens!

1. AT&SF Scranton, KS depot circa 1910s.
(Jack Kelly collection)

Thanks for imagining history!
Lance Garrels
santafe199



Edited 1 time(s). Last edit at 11/09/22 01:29 by santafe199.

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That is indeed a beautiful little depot.

Nice photo. Thanks for posting. Notice how clean everything looks--the track, and platform. Not like today where there would be plastic bottles, scrap metal (old spikes and such) paper and all sorts of crap laying around. Oh, my bad, forgive for being momentarily sentimental, 

WichitaJct Wrote: > ... Notice how clean everything looks ...

... ummm...   jeepers, Wally! I hadn't noticed...

;^)

And the agent's car parked on the platform.  I sure miss the way railroads were.  All the buildings, facilities, lack of the ignorant grafitti and a "presence" in every little town.  I guess its all in what you grew up with.  As Photobob says "Its all crap now".

santafe199 Wrote:

> 1. AT&SF Scranton, KS depot circa 1910s.

That's actually a company valuation photo dating from November 1930:

http://www.kansasmemory.org/item/442935/page/1

While not as drastic as San Jacinto's transformation, the Scranton depot in that photo is also a remodeled version of its earlier self, seen in these postcards that were mailed in 1907 and 1908:

http://www.kansasmemory.org/item/442933/page/1
http://www.kansasmemory.org/item/442933/page/3

The old building (built 1879) had board-and-batten siding, a different four-window bay with its own roof tucked under the eaves, pointed pediments on the window and door frames, two chimneys neither of which is in the same spot as the one in the 1930 view, and several other differences. 

Note, too, that when the company camera wasn't around, the platform wasn't as neat, the ballast wasn't as nicely groomed, somebody left the coal house door open, etc.  All crap now?  We can't smell that privy in the foreground of the 1907 postcard shot, but I'd be willing bet it stunk to high heaven and swarmed with flies on a hot August day. 

Evan_Werkema Wrote: > ... actually a company valuation photo dating from November 1930 ...

Thanks for the correction & links. However, when I followed your Kansas Memory links their indicated date for the image I posted was 9-2-57. That would certainly match the quality of the photograph, which I bought from a gentleman (a retired Santa Fe employee) at a mini-meet last November in Kansas City. The best guess he could give me for a date was in the '19-teens' era. If there is another image for November 1930 I'd like to add it to my Santa Fe depot collection...

Lance

santafe199 Wrote:

> Evan_Werkema Wrote:

> ... actually a company valuation photo dating from November 1930 ...
>
> Thanks for the correction & links. However, when I
> followed your Kansas Memory links their indicated
> date for the image I posted was 9-2-57. 

KSHS got the dates swapped on a couple of their Scranton depot images, but thankfully, caption information physically attached to both images sets the record straight.  On the valuation image, look at the typed caption below the print and you'll see the Nov. 1930 date.  Santa Fe valuation photos were mostly taken in 1930-31, and typed captions like that are common to a lot of them.  Meanwhile, KSHS assigns the Nov. 1930 date to this Howard Killam image, but the data handwritten on the back gives 9-2-57 while a rubber stamped date shows 1966:

http://www.kansasmemory.org/item/442934

The paint scheme in the valuation image is consistent with 1930 and the one in Killam's image is consistent with 1957/1966.