Rock Island Rolling Stock

Liberal, Kansas

Country Railroading

 

My girlfriend called across the tracks, "Did it stop?" "No, just slow." Having spent the last 15 years or so chasing trains around the speedy Northeast Corridor and Southern Transcon, I could understand her confusion. But this was Hugoton, Kansas and the trains on the Cimarron Valley Railroad take their good old time.
We had passed the train on the road, a little ways back, and pulled up to the next grade crossing. I lit a cigarette, finished it, rechecked my camera settings, rechecked the sun, tried a few more angles, made sure the cigarette was out, stared at a horse, and finally, the train.

Train Station: Liberal, Kansas

Train station is on the right, hotel on the left. I have never seen a picture of both these buildings in one shot, so I took one using a Canon 50d with a Canon EF-S 10-22mm f/3.5-4.5 USM lens. It's a touchy lens, but worth getting to know.

(travelks.com) The Rock Island Depot was restored in 1998 and is home to the Liberal Chamber of Commerce. The restored Grier Eating House and Cimarron Hotel house the VA Medical Clinic. The first depot, connected to the Grier Eating House and Cimarron Hotel, was a handsome wooden plank construction. It was destroyed by fire in 1910. The replacement depot, which still stands, was made of stucco plaster. The Chamber building has a collection of railroad memorabilia, which can be viewed during business hours Monday through Friday. Link

"Samson of the Cimarron"

 

People were so proud of this bridge they named it Samson. It's part of a long line of railroad bridges the Rock Island built to span the Cimarron River, just north of Liberal, Kansas. All the previous bridges were washed away. This one, built in 1939, stuck. It's on the Tucumcari Line, now owned by the Union Pacific.

What We Know About the Ol’ Chisholm Trail

Jesse Chisholm

(Wild West Magazine) … Over the last 20 years or so attention has again shifted to the Chisholm Trail, a route that purportedly originated somewhere in Texas and ran north to central Kansas. Many Plains communities marked the sesquicentennial of the trail in 2017. But questions remain.
For one, was the northbound cattle trail known as the Chisholm in its heyday, or did the name come into use well after the drives had ended? Continued

Tommy Allsup

Tommy Allsup, 2009 (Wikipedia)

(Rockabilly Hall of Fame) Tommy, [November 24, 1931 – January 11, 2017], a Rockabilly Hall of Fame Inductee, started his musical career in Claremore, Oklahoma in 1949 with the "Oklahoma Swingbillies."
In 1950 he went to work with fiddle player Art Davis in Miami, Oklahoma; from there to the Cowboy Inn in Wichita, Kansas with singer, fiddle player Jimmy Hall.
In 1952 and 1953, he moved back to Tulsa, Oklahoma to join the "Johnnie Lee Wills Band." From 1953 to 1958, he had his own band, "The Southernaires" in Lawton, Oklahoma with homebase being the Southern Club.
In 1958, Tommy's career would take a different direction. On a trip to Clovis, New Mexico to record at Norman Petty's famous studio, he met the late Buddy Holly. In April, he started playing lead guitar with Holly and the Crickets.
He continued playing with Buddy until the fatal plane crash that took Buddy's life, along with the Big Bopper, and Ritchie Valens. It was Allsup who flipped a coin with Ritchie Valens for a seat on the ill-fated plane. Continued

Mysterious Dave Mather

(Wikipedia) Mysterious Dave Mather (born David Allen Mather) was an American lawman and gunfighter in the American Old West. His taciturn personality may earned him the nickname "Mysterious Dave." He was a lawman in Dodge City, Kansas and Las Vegas, New Mexico.
... Mather's early life is uncertain. He was in Dodge City, Kansas in 1872 where he and his brother Josiah may have reunited to become buffalo hunters. He was also reported to have partnered with Wyatt Earp in 1878 in a scheme to sell fake gold bricks in the town of Mobeetie, Texas. Continued

Cowboy detective dies in California

(Texas Day by Day) On this day in 1928, famed cowboy detective and author Charles Siringo died in Altadena, California.
Siringo, born in Matagorda County in 1855, worked as a cowboy for a number of prominent Texas outfits, including those of Shanghai Pierce and George Littlefield.
In 1877 he drove a herd into the Panhandle to establish the LX Ranch.
During his years as an LX cowboy Siringo met the young outlaw Billy the Kid. Later he led a posse of cowboys into New Mexico in pursuit of the Kid and his gang.
In 1884 Siringo left the LX to become a merchant in Caldwell, Kansas, and began writing his first book. Continued

Simpson Stilwell

(Wikipedia) Simpson Everett Stilwell (August 18, 1850 – February 17, 1903) was a United States Army Scout, Deputy U.S. Marshal, police judge, and U.S. Commissioner in Oklahoma during the American Old West.
He served in Major George A. Forsyth's company of scouts when it was besieged during the Battle of Beecher Island by Indian Cheyenne Chief Roman Nose and was instrumental in bringing relief to the unit.
… In 1863, at 14 years old, Simpson's parents sent him to fetch water from the family well. He left for Kansas City instead, where he joined a wagon train bound for Santa Fe, New Mexico Territory. He traveled between New Mexico, Kansas City, and Leavenworth several times, spending the winters in New Mexico. Continued

Lawrence Massacre

Painting by Joe Coleman

(Wikipedia) The Lawrence massacre, also known as Quantrill's raid, was a rebel guerrilla attack during the American Civil War by Quantrill's Raiders, led by William Quantrill, on the Union town of Lawrence, Kansas. The attack on August 21, 1863 targeted Lawrence due to the town's long support of abolition and its reputation as a center for Jayhawkers and Redlegs, which were free-state militia and vigilante groups known for attacking and destroying farms and plantations in Missouri's pro-slavery western counties. Continued

AMBUS?

Is this the future of the Raton line?

(Albuquerque Journal) Travelers may no longer be able to take the train from Chicago to Los Angeles – and through a long stretch of northeastern New Mexico.

Buses would take travelers for more than 400 miles of the route. Continued

Dodge City and the Birth of the Wild West

 

(Wild West Magazine) Some folks may want to get out of Dodge, but most Wild West readers can’t get into Dodge enough. As iconic Old West towns go, Dodge City, Kansas, is rivaled only by Deadwood, Dakota Territory, and Tombstone, Arizona Territory.
Another 2017 book, Tom Clavin’s Dodge City: Wyatt Earp, Bat Masterson and the Wickedest Town in the American West, is entertaining as all get-out, but as reviewer Johnny D. Boggs noted in the June 2017 Wild West, Clavin “cites a few incidents other historians have questioned if not completely debunked.”
Robert Dykstra and Jo Ann Manfra have also produced an engaging book about the real Dodge, and their careful research indicates the community likely deserved its wicked reputation only during its first year of existence. Continued

Bat Masterson

(Wikipedia) William Barclay "Bat" Masterson (November 26, 1853 – October 25, 1921) spent the first half of his life in what is remembered as the "Wild West." During that period, he distinguished himself as a buffalo hunter, Indian fighter during the celebrated Second Battle of Adobe Walls, civilian scout for the U.S. Army, and gunfighter and lawman in Dodge City, Kansas and elsewhere.
The "Wild West" phase of Masterson's life was essentially over by the mid 1880s when he was still in his early thirties. Masterson moved to Denver and established himself as a leading "sporting man," or gambler. He took an interest in prizefighting and became a leading authority on the sport. Continued

Mysterious Dave Mather

(Wikipedia) Mysterious Dave Mather (born David Allen Mather) was an American lawman and gunfighter in the American Old West. His taciturn personality may earned him the nickname "Mysterious Dave." He was a lawman in Dodge City, Kansas and Las Vegas, New Mexico.
... Mather's early life is uncertain. He was in Dodge City, Kansas in 1872 where he and his brother Josiah may have reunited to become buffalo hunters. He was also reported to have partnered with Wyatt Earp in 1878 in a scheme to sell fake gold bricks in the town of Mobeetie, Texas. Continued

Funds for Route 66 towns at risk

Route 66 near Newkirk, NM (Sixgun Siding)

(KFDA/AP) Route 66, the historic American roadway that linked Chicago to the West Coast, soon may be dropped from a National Park Service preservation program, which would end years of efforts aimed at reviving old tourist spots in struggling towns.
A federal law authorizing the Route 66 Corridor Preservation Program is set to expire in two years, and some lawmakers are working to save the program or get Congress to designate Route 66 as a National Historic Trail. That designation would set aside preservation funds annually. Continued

Coronado departs Culiacán in search of Seven Cities of Cíbola

(Texas Day by Day) On this day in 1540, an expedition led by Spanish explorer Francisco Vázquez de Coronado left Culiacán in Mexico in search of the Seven Cities of Cíbola, concerning which wondrous tales had been brought to Mexico by Álvar Núñez Cabeza de Vaca. There was no gold at Cíbola (the Zuñi villages in western New Mexico), but the explorer was led on by stories of great rewards to be found in Quivira, a region on the Great Plains far to the east.
Chasing this chimera occupied Coronado until the early part of 1542; along the way he apparently marched across the Llano Estacado of eastern New Mexico and the Texas Panhandle, passing through present Palo Duro Canyon. Continued

Book Review: Dodge City

Clay Allison

(HistoryNet) ... A cowed court ruled on November 10 that the death was justifiable homicide—the justifiable part being if [Francisco] Griego was stupid enough to think [Clay] Allison would make peace with a handshake, he deserved to die. Continued

Bat Masterson

(Wikipedia) William Barclay "Bat" Masterson (November 26, 1853 – October 25, 1921) spent the first half of his life in what is remembered as the "Wild West." During that period, he distinguished himself as a buffalo hunter, Indian fighter during the celebrated Second Battle of Adobe Walls, civilian scout for the U.S. Army, and gunfighter and lawman in Dodge City, Kansas and elsewhere.
The "Wild West" phase of Masterson's life was essentially over by the mid 1880s when he was still in his early thirties. Masterson moved to Denver and established himself as a leading "sporting man," or gambler. He took an interest in prizefighting and became a leading authority on the sport. Continued

The Compromise of 1850

Map by User:Golbez

(Wikipedia) The Compromise of 1850 was a package of five separate bills passed by the United States Congress in September 1850, which defused a four-year political confrontation between slave and free states regarding the status of territories acquired during the Mexican–American War (1846–48). The compromise, drafted by Whig Senator Henry Clay of Kentucky and brokered by Clay and Democratic Senator Stephen Douglas of Illinois, reduced sectional conflict. Controversy arose over the Fugitive Slave provision. The Compromise was greeted with relief, although each side disliked specific provisions. Continued

Lawrence Massacre

Painting by Joe Coleman

(Wikipedia) The Lawrence massacre, also known as Quantrill's raid, was a rebel guerrilla attack during the American Civil War by Quantrill's Raiders, led by William Quantrill, on the Union town of Lawrence, Kansas. The attack on August 21, 1863 targeted Lawrence due to the town's long support of abolition and its reputation as a center for Jayhawkers and Redlegs, which were free-state militia and vigilante groups known for attacking and destroying farms and plantations in Missouri's pro-slavery western counties. Continued