Little Egypt Heritage Articles Stories of Southern Illinois © Bill Oliver 23 July 2006 Vol 5 Issue: #23 ISBN: pending Osiyo, Good Evening Ladies and Gentlemen of Little Egypt Often when I make the decision to write on a topic, material during the week just seems to become overwhelming. Such is the case with this article. My plans were to write about a wonderful restoration and preservation project a friend of mine is and was involved in from its beginnings. My last article touched on it slightly – the restoration of the Train Depot in Murray City, Hocking/Adams Counties, Ohio and making it into a museum of trains and also a museum of coal mining, particularly in that south eastern section of Ohio. While catching up on all the articles in my piled up newspapers I read about a local [northwestern Ohio] agribusiness that has a rail group as part of its four business groups, which generated nearly half of the operating income. This company is in the rail business because they handle bulk material, fertilizer, and grain. They ship out grain and fertilizer in their own cars. Due to the increased costs of transportation railroads are becoming healthier again. Last week the article mentioned Paducah, Kentucky as a center. This agribusiness has built itself into a fleet of more than 100,000 rail cars and 89 locomotives/engines, making it the eighth largest fleet in the United States. Historians, and buffs, know historical facts, yet tend to forget them until something comes along to remind them that there are always people in our world who are developers and will use every trick to procure what they need to make more money. We are familiar with the term “eminent domain” or the right of governments to take property from private citizens for the “betterment” of their community. Back in the days of railroad expansion, which tallies to the race to complete the transcontinental railway and also connect every community along the way, the Federal Government, as incentives, gave the very same condemnation powers to the railroad companies to “build roads and other public works.” In a corner of southeastern Michigan the U.S. Rail, a short-line railroad operator, is proposing to construct an “intermodal” terminal where freight is transferred between trucks and trains on some 400 acres along its present tracks. It turns out that this parcel of land has proximity to two Interstate Highway interchanges. Plus, the bonus of “room” for expansion. This means, of course, the “taking” of private land, in at least one case, of folks who have held that property from before Michigan was a state. I lived very close to a “railroad switching” yard as a lad and remember the sounds I got used to in falling asleep. Railroads were important. In some cases they made, or not, towns all across this country. Out in Nebraska, John C Fremont and General Henry Leavenworth urged the building of a Pacific railroad as a military measure. Asa Whitney, of New York, was willing to build a railroad from Lake Michigan to the Pacific Ocean, and submitted his offer to Congress. Stephen A Douglas, of Illinois, proposed three great lines, one from Texas to the Pacific, one from Missouri or Iowa to San Francisco, and one from Wisconsin to the Pacific. Following the Civil War, when northern promoters turned to serious railroad building, the great trunk lines closely followed the routes outlined in those Douglas proposals. It took until 1862, when the southern states’ objections to the northern routes had been eliminated by the secession, before a route finally materialized. The Union Pacific was granted a two hundred foot right of way, plus any lands for stations, depots, shops, buildings, etc., and earth, stone, timber, and other materials from public lands for construction purposes. This wasn’t all – to secure the safe and speedy transportation of mail, troops, munitions, and public stores, the company was granted every alternate section of public land [up to five alternate sections per mile on each side of the railroad]. Thus, the railroads obtained almost five million acres of land in Nebraska alone. In Ohio, in 1875, Murray Brown platted the town which bares his name. Though he was not totally successful in creating a metropolis, coal mining about 1885 did furnish the town with economic prosperity to rival other towns in the Hocking Valley. Scots, Irish and English people were predominate in the business and social life of the town. Later arrivals from Southern Europe poured in and as these folks gradually assimilated and the M.E Church was built, there was a change from the rough element controlling the town to the law abiding people who made their influence felt politically and socially; the town then evolved into what it is today. This combination makes the best community in the world according to a couple of citizens I chanced to converse with. For a long time the railroad was the only form of transportation in or out of the valley where Murray City was located. There were as many as four Hocking Valley Railroad trains per day. There were four mines of the Sunday Creek Coal Company that shipped coal out of Murray City. Today the train depot is just one of three original depots left in the state of Ohio. In January of 2002 the deed to the depot, with almost two acres of land, was transferred to the Murray City Improvement Committee, a citizens restoration and museum group. They have restored the building, and purchased a caboose and a small engine which are on display. They did this by the sale of books about their hometown. Inside the clean building is both a train museum and a coal mining museum with early pictures and documents donated by the residents. Mounted on the walls are many pieces of equipment used on trains and the mining of coal, all donated by the descendants of local miners. This writer made the mistake of thinking a wick jammer for mine blasting was a coal stoker for train engines. Mr Mitchell and I had a discussion about this. It just goes to say how much trouble a little knowledge can get a person into. <grin> The Sunday Creek Coal Company mines in this area were the largest coal mines in the country. For those who are interested in more detail, there is an excellent web presence with pictures at: http://www.rootsweb.com/%7Eohathens/murraytrain.htm. My family was fortunate enough to ask for a tour from one of the trusties of the depot/museum. A friend had given me the contact. Larry Mitchell spent an hour and a half talking with us and proudly making sure that we missed no detail in the museum. Exactly what one would expect of an Ulster-Irishman and he did sure look the part with his hint of red hair and ruddy complexion. As a retired trucker, he was familiar with my Wood county and related that he had once visited the Courthouse there where I worked for the Clerk of Common Pleas Courts. I think it would have been nice to have known him then – I could have given him a grand tour of all the records held there in Wood County – a return for his generous hospitality. e-la-Di-e-das-Di ha-wi nv-wa-do-hi-ya nv-wa-to-hi-ya-da. (May you walk in peace and harmony) and Wado, Bill -=- PostScript: Other sites worth visiting: PostScript: = = = = http://archiver.rootsweb.com/th/index/SOIL http://archiver.rootsweb.com/th/index/ILMASSAC http://www.usgennet.org/usa/ne/state/BillsArticles/LittleEgypt/intro.html