Railroads of Meridian

By J. Parker Lamb, David H. Bridges and David S. Price

“Lively, well-written and informative . . . It will be of great interest to fans of railroads in the deep South and their motive power and operations.” —Railfan & Railroad

This generously illustrated narrative follows the evolution of dozens of separate railroads in the Meridian, Mississippi, area from the destruction of the town’s rail facilities in the 1850s through the current era of large-scale consolidation. Presently, there are only seven mega-size rail systems in the United States, three of which serve Meridian, making it an important junction on one of the nation’s four major transcontinental routes. The recent creation of a nationally prominent high-speed freight line between Meridian and Shreveport, the “Meridian Speedway,” has allowed the Union Pacific, Kansas City Southern, and Norfolk Southern railroads to offer the shortest rail route across the continent for Asia-US-Europe transportation.

“This volume [is] an excellent presentation, in addition to being a railroad history story that ends on a positive, upbeat note.” —Michigan Railfan

“An excellent contribution to the history of railroads in the South. Southern railroading in general has been a chronically neglected subject.” —Herbert H. Harwood, Jr., author of The Lake Shore Electric Railway Story

“Chronicles Meridian’s intriguing 155-year history as a center of railroad activity.” —The Meridian Star

• Language: English
• Publisher: Open Road Integrated Media
• Release date: Jul 5, 2012
• ISBN: 9780253005960

Book preview

FOREWORD

The idea for a book on Meridian began to creep onto my horizon in 2008 as I approached my seventy-fifth birthday. At such a milestone, it is common for many to ponder their goals for that indeterminable amount of active life left to them. In my case, the idea was helped along by an invitation to do a short, illustrated history for a Meridian group. Unfortunately, this project could not be carried to completion, but by then, I was moving full speed with the collection of data and illustrations and did not want to slow down. And so the ensuing book preparation turned into a joyous journey back to my early years.

The intriguing story of Meridian’s 155-year history as a center of railroad activity has heretofore been told primarily through disconnected segments appearing in magazines as well as two of my earlier books, along with pamphlets distributed by historical societies to limited audiences. The present work builds on these earlier documents, augmented by my personal experiences since 1936, to provide a comprehensive narrative of Meridian’s development, a treatment that includes the evolution of rail routes and their technology as well as profiles of the region’s early leaders in railroad development. Also noted are rail-related achievements of Meridian-area natives during the post–World War II era.

I realized from the beginning that, while I was well versed in the overall (or macro-scale) history of the city’s development as a rail center prior to World War II, there were lifelong residents of the area who had carried out detailed (micro-scale) research on the early period of the city and its rail lines. Thus I chose two longtime friends to be my co-authors.

David Bridges is a native of Philadelphia, situated 38 miles northwest of Meridian on the former Gulf, Mobile & Northern (GM&N) main line. Naturally, his early interest turned to the origins of this route and led him to become an expert on its struggles for nearly a half century, which ended in the formation of the Gulf, Mobile & Ohio (GM&O) in late 1940. David, an engineering professor at Mississippi State University, has written extensively for the GM&O Historical Society magazine. His detailed history of Sam Neville’s exploits forms the basis for chapter 4.

The second co-author is David Price, a longtime resident of Hattiesburg who grew up on the Mississippi Gulf Coast. From his youth, Price’s main interest has been the Gulf Coast lumber industry that developed during the first decades of the twentieth century after many loggers moved southward to tackle the region’s vast stands of virgin forest. Of course, the sawmill industry spawned hundreds of miles of short-lived logging spurs that fed nearby trunk lines. As an adult, David began collecting historic photographs of sawmills and short lines as well as southern Mississippi trunk lines. His collection expanded greatly with the later acquisition of numerous images from prominent early southern photographers such as Bill Witbeck, William Jones, and Charles Harrington. David has generously allowed me to tap into his collection for use in earlier books, and this one is no exception. He also provided significant background material for the Meridian & Bigbee Railroad summary in chapter 4. A retired United Methodist minister, he is the founder and co-owner, with Tony Howe, of the popular website Mississippi Rails and recently served as a major facilitator for the latest book by noted southern lumber historian Gilbert Hoffman (listed in the references).

I also wish to make a short comment on the role of digital technology in photographic processing, a topic that has led to considerable discussion among various constituencies whose views of originality, creativity, and authenticity are different. We live in an age that has spawned reality TV and exploded with computerized social networks. It is one in which the process of digital synthesis is commonplace. I have generally ignored many of its manifestations, such as synthesized words and fantasy sports leagues, but as a darkroom worker for over a half century I have embraced heartily the widest possible use of digital techniques for photographic restoration and creation (without intent to defraud).

In dealing with antique images that suffer from primitive methods of recording and processing, compounded by time damage in storage, my efforts are an attempt to turn back the historical clock and produce an image as close as possible to that seen by the original photographer. Not surprisingly, in a few cases the primitive photographer was a teenager named Parker Lamb! From my standpoint, putting these improved images into circulation again will allow them to be available to educate future generations during much of the new century.

Moreover, in some cases I have been motivated to go a step further and create new images, commonly called photo illustrations. This book contains a few digitally synthesized scenes around Meridian that no one recorded but that represent renditions of actual events, some of which I witnessed or even attempted to record but failed due to my early lack of competence.

Special thanks for assistance goes to Matthew Mick Nussbaum, director of the Meridian Railroad Museum, who was able to provide extensive background data on Meridian’s rail scene over the past two decades. Mick’s contemporary photos are a welcomed feature of the last chapter, while his historical images of an earlier age have never been published. He was also my primary factual reviewer, suggesting numerous improvements in early drafts. An invaluable contribution was provided by another longtime friend, Gerald A. Hook, a former employee of the Kansas City Southern Railway (KCS) marketing and sales group during the acquisition of MidSouth Rail.

This volume includes a substantial number of color photos representing Meridian’s recent history. I have chosen to put these in a special gallery. Such an arrangement allows for much larger images than might otherwise be possible if the photos were scattered within the text.

My deepest appreciation goes to KCS’S executive chairman, Michael Haverty, for his willingness to set aside time for a long conversation about his road’s development of the Meridian Speedway. Finally, I wish to thank Sponsoring Editor Linda Oblack and her assistant editor Nancy Lightfoot as well as Railroad Editor George Smerk of Indiana University Press for their strong support of this, my third volume with the IU Press imprint.

J. PARKER LAMB

Austin, Texas

RAILROADS OF MERIDIAN

Regional map illustrates Meridian’s favorable

position between major cities of the South as well

as two major river traffic routes. J. Parker Lamb.

INTRODUCTION

Railroads saw their first use during the Industrial Revolution, which was centered in England at the dawn of the nineteenth century. American entrepreneurs began importing this new technology around 1830, and it became a foundation of the nation’s westward development. Indeed, the railroad was humankind’s first machine-based, long-distance land transportation technology, just as its predecessor, the floating vessel, represented the world’s first mode of global transportation. Naturally, these early means of transport became strongly complementary, as water-borne craft brought people and goods to docks where they usually switched to rail systems for transport to their inland destinations. The reverse flow of traffic was just as important to the nation’s early development as a global trader.

At the beginning of the twentieth century, the Official Guide of Railways listed about 1,550 railroads hauling people and goods through 80,500 towns and cities in the United States and Canada. Around 4 percent of these stations show service by multiple railroads, suggesting that these stations were junctions. Of the estimated total of three thousand junctions, many would disappear in the aftermath of the Great Depression, while others dropped out during the several waves of rail consolidation during the last half of the twentieth century. Only a few, such as Meridian, remain important to railroad operations in 2011.

The causative factors in Meridian’s emergence and continuation as a rail junction are not difficult to discover. A primary one was a favorable geographical position, illustrated by the nearby map, which shows Meridian situated conveniently near early trade routes that used the Mississippi and Tombigbee Rivers to reach the ports of New Orleans and Mobile, respectively. Another critical factor in the beginning was Meridian’s distance from the region’s larger cities in relation to the operation of antebellum railroads. They required maintenance facilities every 110 to 150 miles so that equipment could be serviced and workers could rest between runs. This led to the town becoming a site for yards, shops, and office buildings that gave it an early start on a path toward national importance despite its relatively small size.

Fortuitously, Meridian also sat astride one of the nation’s earliest visions of a transcontinental rail route, one that generally followed the 32nd latitude connecting Charleston and San Diego. Proposed during the 1830s and promoted by congressional delegations from states along the nation’s southern border as a way of increasing international trade, the potential route was supported by then president Franklin Pierce and played a major role in the nation’s 1853 Gadsden Purchase from the Republic of Mexico. This treaty transferred to the United States a 30,000-square-mile strip of territory immediately south of Arizona and New Mexico. It was named in honor of the U.S. ambassador to Mexico and president of the South Carolina Railroad, James Gadsden.

Subsequent discussion of this grandiose railroad plan became entangled with the contemporary issue of slavery, dooming any development on the eastern end of the route. Even though the western portion between Los Angeles, Tucson, and El Paso (650 miles) was completed by the Southern Pacific Railroad in 1881, it would require nearly 120 years before there were unified operations over the 1,300 miles eastward from El Paso via Dallas and Shreveport. It required many decades for changes in line ownership and global transportation needs to produce a business climate that would nurture this development. However, its recent realization has created the nation’s shortest transcontinental route and put Meridian once again into prominence as a junction.

Six counties of east-central Mississippi constituted the region within which Meridian’s early development would occur. In 1840 these 40,000 square miles, covered with virgin forests interspersed with numerous rivers, streams, and some cultivated fields, were home to about twenty-five thousand pioneers. Meridian’s future location is denoted as Sowashee village in Lauderdale County. Countyseat towns are identified by circles. J. Parker Lamb.

1

ANTEBELLUM BEGINNINGS

Development of permanent communities in most of the Gulf states began with the Treaty of Dancing Rabbit Creek, signed in 1830 at the end of the War of 1812. This agreement ceded to the U.S. government lands previously controlled by indigenous tribes of Choctaws, Chickasaws, and others. Credit for establishing Meridian’s predecessor, a settlement known as Sowashee, belongs to Richard McLemore of Virginia, who purchased several thousand acres and began recruiting new settlers. The village was named for a nearby stream that flooded the area regularly. Thus, the Choctaws had given it the name Angry Water.

Eventually, McLemore sold large plots around the village to two ambitious businessmen, Lewis Ragsdale and John Ball, who soon began to lead in the development of a larger town. By late 1833 much of McLemore’s original tract had been incorporated into Lauderdale County, which by 1850 included five villages, with Marion as the county seat.

MERIDIAN’S FIRST RAILROAD

The initial line to reach east-central Mississippi began in the port of Mobile, Alabama. Always considered a poorer cousin to its western neighbor near the mouth of the Mississippi River, Mobile found its shipping tonnage in a declining position in the mid-1840s after its ranking among U.S. ports dropped from third (behind only New Orleans and New York City) to sixth position in a scant six years. Much of this was due to the rapid expansion of railroad building along the Eastern Seaboard during this period, as the complementary roles of railroads and waterborne transportation began to evolve. Such activity had been largely absent along the Gulf, as the major cotton states (Alabama, Louisiana, and Mississippi) contained a total of only 165 miles of trackage in 1848.

As usually happened during this period of U.S. development, there were a few farsighted individuals who attempted to stir local communities into action. In Mobile that person was North Carolina native Marshall J. D. Baldwyn. Born in 1810, he migrated to Mobile and served as a sheriff but eventually became a tireless advocate for a rail line tapping the important agricultural regions that surrounded the port city. It is said that his hatband contained ink sketches of route maps that he could easily produce when engaged in conversation to promote the city’s need.

Unfortunately, Baldwyn’s original vision was so breathtaking in scope that it often stifled serious discussion. Even the local newspaper characterized it initially as being preposterous. What astonished the local citizenry was that he had proposed a 460-mile railroad to the Ohio River near Cairo, Illinois, with a connecting link to Saint Louis. His Gulf–Illinois line would be 44 miles longer than the Erie Railroad, then under construction as the nation’s longest rail route (New York City to Buffalo). Eventually, Baldwyn’s persuasive speeches were able to convince many area residents to attend a town meeting on January 11, 1847, at which a committee of fifty-six influential citizens, including some from Mississippi, was appointed to begin planning for the Mobile & Ohio Railroad. More importantly, sufficient funding was raised to hire City Engineer Lewis Troost to perform a preliminary route survey.

After Troost’s strongly favorable report was completed, M&O supporters approached the affected state legislatures for charters, all of which were granted in February 1848 in this order: Alabama, Mississippi, Kentucky, and Tennessee. The fledgling line appealed for supporters to provide initial financial support for construction with a subscription drive that began on May 2. It was closed twenty days later after a total of 699 individuals had purchased 6,217 shares at $100 each.

Formal organization of the Mobile & Ohio Railroad was held on June 7, 1848, with prominent Mobile merchant Sidney Smith being named president. A native of Massachusetts, Smith had become a civic leader in Mobile, and his personal endorsement signified strong local support of the new railroad venture. With early financial backing from the states of Alabama, Mississippi, and Tennessee as well as the U.S. government (see below) and numerous online communities, M&O construction began in 1852, following Troost’s survey, which pointed the tracks northwestward from Mobile into Mississippi and then parallel to the Alabama-Mississippi state line for the entire distance to the Tennessee state line. This alignment line was dictated both by the larger number of established Mississippi settlements as well as by the course of the Tombigbee River, which passed through a sparsely populated region near the western boundary of Alabama (Lemly).

Two-year timelines for M&O construction progress, reported in the M&O’S 1861 annual report, are as follows: first biennial (33 miles), second (120), third (102), fourth (112), fifth (117). Thus only a decade was required to build the 486-mile line between Mobile and Columbus, Kentucky, an impressive pace, considering the severity of financial and political problems it encountered (see below). M&O construction crews reached the village of Marion (Lauderdale County) in October 1855, but prior activity of the surveyors in the vicinity of Sowashee, some five miles south of Marion, had alerted local leaders to begin a campaign urging M&O officials to construct a spur track from which to unload freight. This persuasion took considerable effort, since the area around Sowashee (also known as Ball’s Log Store) was not an official town, but their efforts were eventually successful. Thus the future site of Meridian was now a mark on the railroad’s map, but the M&O had not yet agreed that the village was large enough for a station (Harrison, History, vol. 1).

A significant aspect of M&O’S early history was its participation in the first federal land grant, which ultimately became the government’s primary incentive to spur completion of the nation’s westward rail expansion. For the M&O it began in 1849, when the road’s officers traveled to Washington, D.C., to meet with their congressional representatives. A contemporaneous report to stockholders noted that the officers’ purpose was to obtain a grant for the right of way through public lands and a portion of the lands themselves. At the time, such a law was considered highly improbable, although some have suspected that the idea originated at the 1845 Convention of Southern and Western Merchants in Memphis, during which delegates passed a number of resolutions with this theme (Lemly).

The initial push for railroad land grants was first promoted by the Illinois congressional delegation after the state passed its Internal Improvements Act of 1837, which mandated a central railroad in Illinois that would serve as a north–south trunk to which all other lines would connect or cross. Due to various national financial problems, no progress was made on this construction until the state’s new senator, Stephen A. Douglas, rallied support for a bill that granted public lands to the state for its new Illinois Central Railroad. It passed the U.S. Senate in 1848 but was defeated in the House of Representatives.

Mobile & Ohio 4-4-0 No. 17, shown at the road’s Beauregard