In Cherryvale, several trains a day continue to lumber along the tiring rails in the middle of Cherryvale, passing a restored depot still showing off its brick granduer. For those diesel locomotives and large grain hoppers - used and reused by several railroad companies, some even extinct - carry on a legacy that spurned the creation of Cherryvale 125 years ago.
No other single factor was responsible for Cherryvale's creation and ultimate early-day success than the railroad. It all began in 1871 when the Lawrence, Leavenworth and Gulf Railroad platted the city on land owned by a Joseph Wise. Because the L.L. and G. was one of only three railroads going from the northern Kansas cities to the Indian Territory border, a tremendous demand existed for creating railroad communities that would fortify the financial interests of the railroad companies. However, towns like Parsons, which served the bigger and more powerful Katy Railroad, overshadowed tiny Cherryvale, and the community would be a mere railroad stop for a town of 250 residents. The railroad would stretch as far south as Coffeyville and extend northward to a town called New Chicago, now Chanute, another prominent railroad community.
The Lawrence, Leavenworth and Gulf Railroad would reorganize and become the Kansas City, Lawrence and Southern Kansas Railroad in 1879 and later the Southern Kansas Railway in 1885. Trackage later pushed through Independence on westward toward Winfield and Wellington.
Cherryvale would experience growing pains in those early years, especially in 1873 when a major fire destroyed much of the wooden-frame downtown area surrounding the L.L and G. railroad. But the entrepreneurial tenacity of several local merchants rebuilt Cherryvale - this time with bricks and mortar.
So powerful was the pull of the railroad in those early-days that towns literally died overnight if the railroad missed communities even by one mile. Not so in Cherryvale. The town would only get bigger as the railroads became more enhanced.
Cherryvale was found to be at the right place for the St. Louis and San Francisco Railway, dubbed the Frisco Railway, in 1879 when the company built a track from Oswego to Wichita. And, in 1880, a narrow-gauge railroad called the Memphis, Kansas and Colorado was constructed from Parsons to Cherryvale. So, within nine years, Cherryvale would be home to three railroads with trains coming from six directions. And, the population grew from a small 250 to more than 1,000.
That narrow-gauge railroad quickly found it couldn't compete with standard-gauge railroads, so the company rebuilt its tracks and sold to the Kansas City, Fort Scott and Gulf, also called the Gulf Railroad. In 1901, the Gulf was purchased by the Frisco.
The Frisco would maintain a presence in Cherryvale until 1980 when the company sold to Burlington Northern. That track, which rests on the original Frisco roadbed, is the only east-west railroad in southeast Kansas.
The Atchison, Topeka and Santa Fe would establish its familiar emblem in Cherryvale in the 1880s when it would take over the often-changing Southern Kansas Railway Company. The company also would build housing for section track maintenance workers and a two-stalled engine roadhouse on South Depot Street.
From a bird's-eye view, Cherryvale railroads looked like crooked spider legs, spewing iron legs in all directions. Cherryvale would find one more set of legs in about 1910 when the Union Electric Traction Company erected an interurban trolley line from Cherryvale to Parsons and later from Cherryvale to Independence. That interurban system would be the staple of short-run transportation for local residents for several decades as the entire system went from Parsons through Cherryvale, Independence, Jefferson, Dearing, Coffeyville and ending in Nowata, Okla.
The interurban would be a frequent site each along Cherryvale's Main Street, and one trolley would spend the night each night at the Union Traction office and depot, which still stands in Cherryvale: the small brick building north of Tri-City Wholesale at Fourth and Depot streets. With the advent of automobiles and speed of other technologies, the interurban no longer had a practical purpose, and the trolley system would cease in the 1940s.
The same would be true for the main railroads. As automobile transportation and highway expansions increased, the need for passenger trains would slowly end. Eventually, train companies cut back the number of trains through Cherryvale. When the U.S. Postal Service stopped using railroads as a way to distribute mail, it basically meant a quick and painful death to many railroads. In Cherryvale, the Santa Fe ceased passenger train service in 1970. The company also would streamline its freight operations and maintenance crews, and the frequent diesel locomotive engine sound would lose its familiar echoes in the community.
Enter the role of short-line railroads. In 1990, Santa Fe sold its tracks to South Kansas and Oklahoma Railroad, now based in Pittsburg, Kan. The company runs a short-line railroad from Humboldt-Iola area to Bartlesville. SKO has a sister company, Southeast Kansas Railroad, which runs from Pittsburg to Coffeyville.
The SEK and SKO railroads have another sister railroad, the Kansas Eastern Railroad, which runs from Sherwin, Kan., to Fredonia, Kan. Cherryvale is a central dropoff point for the KER.
Short-line railroads like SKO salvaged the railroad industry, which underwent major deregulations in the 1970s and '80s. To cut costs, railroad companies were notorious about removing aging depots in various communities, often without a minute's notice. Few railroads maintained their own tracks as railroad investors knew that use of iron rails would be non-existent in coming year. So, the tracks remained to the ages and its elements.
Depots were a vital part of town's early-day growth
Although Cherryvale's railroad service today is not as prominent and extensive as Cherryvale's glory railroad days, the community continues to see daily railroad traffic, muscling 25 years of service.
Santa Fe would build a wood-framed depot on Depot Street near Fourth and Fifth streets before the turn of the century. However, that depot, which served both freight and passengers, would quickly outgrow its use, and the company built the stately brick structure at Third and Depot streets in 1910.
However, the Santa and Frisco railroads would actually share depot quarters for a short time. Both companies would use the Frisco depot from the time of that depot's construction in 1907 until 1910. That Frisco depot was constructed with two wings, one facing the east-west Frisco track; the other wing facing the north-south Santa Fe track.
During the early-days of passenger train service, workers from Cherryvale's hotels would line the brick platforms of the city's two depots, asking passengers for baggage bound for those hotels.
The Cherryvale Globe Torch on July 29, 1886 described the events that occurred when a passenger train arrived. Quoting the Globe Torch, "If you want about ten minutes of good fun, just go to the depot, upon the arrival of the passenger trains. The check boys and hotel runners form in line on the platform and as each passenger emerges from the coach, they open their bazos: 'Free bus to the Handley Hotel' or 'Leland Hotel just opposite the S.K. depot' or 'Baggage checked, want yer baggag checked?' or 'Indian House on the corner' or "Cottage House a dollar a day house' or 'Cherryvale House only one dollar', etc. There are about thirteen of them, and you can bet they toe a certain line of the platform. The one having the longest arms generally gets them."
How many trains came through Cherryvale a day?
"There are very few people in Cherryvale, or outside, who realize the importance of Cherryvale as a railroad center. We find, upon research, that every day 28 passenger trains leave the depots of this city, and 18 mail trains, added together give a total of 46 passenger and mail trains daily. We found it impossible to get the exact number of freight trains that arrive daily, for, with extras, they vary from day to day. As far as information can be obtained, we find it safe to put the figure at an average of 75 a day." - A Word About Cherryvale: The Natural Gas and Railroad Center of Kansas Cherryvale Commercial Club, 1900.
Paper railroads failed to deliver their high hopes
The early-days of railroads in the region often were filled with gutsy businessmen ready to sink their fortunes into rail transportation. However, those efforts often were futile as local businessmen were unable to accumulate the financial drive and prestige of many of the "robber barrons" of the region's earliest days.
In Cherryvale, the hopes of connecting the community with growing cattle markets in Oklahoma kept optimism alive in the 1890s. The railroad that would put Cherryvale on the locomotive map was called the Kansas, Oklahoma Central and Southwestern Railway. Cherryvale, which was planned to be home of the railway's headquarters, would be the terminus of the railroad with the rail line ending in Vernon, Texas. One of the main towns it would be pass was Guthrie, Oklahoma, which, in 1899, was the center of attention in Indian Territory. A quartet of regional entrepreneurs poured money into the planned railways, spending much of their time developing the enterprise. Those four people and the offices in the railway company were Jacob Bartles of Bartlesville (and Bartlesville's namesake), president; Samuel Porter of Caney, general attorney; P.S. Hollingsworth of Independence, cashier; and Dr. Frozier of Coffeyville, secretary. Porter and Bartles maintained healthy interests in industries between Bartlesville and Caney, and Porter made a trip to Europe to secure financing for the railway venture. Such hope rested with this venture that the City of Cherryvale voted to spend $20,000 to help with the construction of the terminal facilities in the city. The entire operation was capitalized for $7 million, a hefty sum for 1898 in dusty southeast Kansas. Even the local press hyped up the railway venture, boasting that Cherryvale would be linked to the east coast via the Kansas, Oklahoma Central and Southern Railway. The Cherryvale Evening Clarion in 1899 said, "It will open up virgin territory, leaving the Kansas state line at Caney, passing through Bartlesville, I.T., to Guthrie, O.T. In Texas, a rich section not as yet well settled will be opened up to enterprise.
There are but few large towns along the route, but in he western country, the railroad precedes the town... "In all probability much California through passenger traffic will be diverted to this road, as connections with the Southern Pacific will undoubtedly be made." Already in 1899, Cherryvale had 28 trains a day leaving in six directions. To add one more major railroad would make the community one of the biggest rail centers in the Midwest, and eventually the Southwest. "Cherryvale is proud of its railroads, and assures prospective manufacturers that as good or better advantages in respect to freight rates in all directions can be and are secured here as at any place in the United States," the Evening Clarion continued. "It is because of these conditions our people make the just claim that the markets for finished products, the raw materials of industry, and cheap fuel are brought as nearly together as it is possible to find them anywhere else."
Unfortunately, for the foursome of eager businessmen, the railway would flop. The vastly expanding Santa Fe Railway beat the quartet at its own game and set up tracks through western Oklahoma and Texas. Porter would once again try to establish a southwestern railway with Cherryvale as the northern terminus. In 1902, he established the Cherryvale, Oklahoma and Texas Railway on paper only. The railroad would run from Cherryvale to El Paso, Texas. The idea never left The Kansas, Oklahoma Central and Southern Railway and the Cherryvale, Oklahoma and Texas Railway were two of numerous "paper railroads" formed in the 1890s and early 1900s. However, those paper railroads reaped much excitement but succumbed to the bigger barrons of railroading who controlled the industry's destiny.
Andy Taylor, editor THE MONTGOMERY COUNTY CHRONICLE
all rights reserved THE MONTGOMERY COUNTY CHRONICLE 1995, 1996, 1997,1998
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