Missouri, Kansas, & Texas Railroad along the Missouri River by Cathead - 1/87 (HO) scale - model railroad with steamboat

[Cathead]

I'm going to make one last response here and then leave this be.

 

19 hours ago, Egilman said:

Well, I'm a historian as well, Boone County MO prior to the civil war was mostly small farms owned by whites with around 10 or so black slaves on average... (Missouri was a slave state in that era) After the Civil War and the emancipation of said slaves, most of the owners left the area for what they considered greener pastures, leaving the remaining ex slaves to homestead the vacated farms....

With respect, you're partially misrepresenting or misunderstanding the history and geography here (and I'm well aware that Missouri was a slave state). Slaveholding was NOT equally distributed across the county as you imply, but tended to be concentrated on larger, wealthier properties. This county is very geographically diverse and settlement and farming patterns tracked strongly with geography. Southern-style plantation-type agriculture was found on or near the broader river bottoms, recreating the business model generally found further south along the lower Mississippi. This was a pattern seen across a set of Missouri River counties in central Missouri known as Little Dixie. These farms tended to grow bulk commodity crops that could be shipped out by steamboat. These were some of the most concentrated slave-holding counties in Missouri, but most of those slaves were concentrated within the plantations, not distributed throughout the county.  But set back from the river in the hill country, as in many other parts of Appalachia (of which the Ozarks can be considered an extension), you had much smaller family farms at a more subsistence or local-sale level. These tended to have few or no slaves, though of course there were exceptions. Again, larger slaveholding properties were concentrated in the larger plantation-style farms along the river corridor, not distributed equally throughout the county as you imply. 

 

It's absolutely true that, post Civil War, many freed slaves remained in the area and took up farming, and there's a rich undercurrent of African-American history here in rural areas that's easily overlooked, especially since it's mostly faded away in modern times. In fact, African-Americans appear in quite a few trackside and riverside photos in my collection, a demographic detail often overlooked in model railroading, where commercial figures are overwhelmingly white. They also appear commonly in steamboat photos, working as deckhands or other crew. Here are two examples along the Katy and one of the Peerless:

This is a subject I intended to address at the appropriate time, when I eventually start adding figures to the layout. I absolutely want to convey a reasonably accurate demographic balance on this layout. But that sort of detail is far in the future and getting into it now doesn't affect the focus of the build at this stage, so I was hoping not to get sidetracked into yet another longer discussion of a temporarily irrelevant detail. But here we are.

 

As for the thresher photo you shared and copied over the description from, that's one of the ones featured in the link I provided in the previous post for those interested. I'm well aware of it, and its connection to African-American farming history in this county. In fact, I thought about mentioning the fact that multiple local photos in that collection show African-American farmers or farm workers within Boone County, but specifically decided not to because, again, it's not relevant right now. But since it HAS come up anyway, I'll point out that yet another local connection to rural African-American history has a tangential connection to the whole horse barn discussion a while back. Tom Bass, born into slavery in Boone County, became one of the post-war era's greatest horsemen and horse trainers. You can read about him here and here. Note that both articles specifically refer to him being born on a "plantation", not a "farm", which is what I tried to explain above in terms of the differences in agriculture in different parts of this county. I'm not going to summarize his later life, that's what those links are for, but suffice it to say that there's a good chance the fancy horse barn in Rocheport had at least one horse trained by or purchased from Tom Bass.

 

Finally, to try and drag this back around to the first level of off-topic discussion, I'm open to the idea that steam-powered agricultural machinery was established here by 1900. I simply keep asking for direct evidence of such. For example, I'd like to know WHY you're sure that photo is from the 1880s, because (as I noted before) no date is given in the photo's metadata. I'd simply like to understand what you're basing that on, rather than just being told without evidence.

 

19 hours ago, Egilman said:

But to say it's not possible due to the economic condition of the area, the lack of wealth in the area or the early examples of pre war equipment exclude their inclusion...  History clearly, if delved into deep enough, shows they were there, prior to 1900 as a fact... But probably a rarity and the property of the milling-grain elevator businesses of the era.

To me, this IS what I've been saying. Possible, but not ubiquitous, and not necessarily a representative item to have on display in Rocheport (like an EV in small-town Missouri: possible but not necessarily representative). But MORE likely to be representative in McBaine, which is where it would make most sense to include such a detail. Which, again, is a long way down the road of this project.

 

A final point: at various times, the fact that I leave out a detail doesn't mean I'm unaware of it, it may mean I'm trying to keep this incredibly complex narrative somewhat focused on whatever stage of the build is at hand. If I went off on every interesting tangent I'm aware of, that touches on this build, I'd spend all my time writing essays on here and not building the model that most of you are actually here to see! 

Edited January 25 by Cathead

[Cathead]

And briefly, here's a little more evidence-based background on McBaine. I went and dug out the actual entry in the 1912 Katy business directory for McBaine:

 

Quote

 

McBAINE BOONE CO. 

Population: 80.

Railroads: Missouri, Kansas & Texas.

General description of surrounding country, and farm products of locality: Extensive bottom lands and uplands; wheat, corn, hay, oats, potatoes, fruits,

Fuel used: Wood.

Hotel: McBaine.

Churches: One Missionary Baptist.

 

 

 

That's it. 80 people, one church, one hotel and LOTS of farming. Compare to Rocheport:

Quote

 

ROCHEPORT BOONE CO.

Population: 434.

River: Missouri, navigable.

Railroads: Missouri, Kansas & Texas.

General description of surrounding country, and farm products and raw materials of locality:

Rolling; wheat, corn, oats, fruit, etc.; coal.

Fuel used: Coal and wood.

Banks: Two state; total capital, $45,000.00; total deposits, $176,740.00.

Hotel: Grossman.

Schools: One public.

Churches: One each, Methodist, Baptist, Christian.

Newspaper: Rocheport Progress.

Industrial opening: Ice plant.

Manufacturing plants and principal industries:

Flour mills, grain elevators, coal mining; hay, live stock, etc., shipping.

 

The latter is a much more vibrant economic setting. Note that the entries correctly distinguish between McBaine's access to extensive river bottom land as opposed to Rocheport's dominantly hill country setting. Also note that there isn't a single industry listed in McBaine, as compared to Rocheport. Also note, as I said above, that Rocheport specifically lists "flour mill" and "grain elevator" but not "feed mill". Individual entries under specific categories give business names, as I've shared before. So this is further evidence that McBaine never had an elevator or mill, but was still shipping large quantities of agricultural products from the Turner McBaine farm, so it seems logical they were showing up in sacks rather than in bulk. At least, again, that's the interpretation I'm going with in my version of reality.

 

 

 

 

Edited January 25 by Cathead

[Egilman]

49 minutes ago, Cathead said:

With respect, you're partially misrepresenting or misunderstanding the history and geography here (and I'm well aware that Missouri was a slave state). Slaveholding was NOT equally distributed across the county as you imply,

With respect as well, I implied no such thing... Anyone who studies the history of slavery in the US states knows there is no broad brush accounts for it... There is no 100% slave state... Missouri VOTED to be admitted as a slave state... like all the others that did such because of the established economies of the areas...

 

With all due respect to you and your thread,  at this stage I'm no longer a contributor, I do not want to be responsible for derailing it anymore than it already has been... As you have respectfully requested...

Any further off-track discussion will be ignored by me...

 

Respectfully,

Egilman

[Cathead]

Egilman, I really don't understand this comment. Of course Missouri voted to be a slave state. Of course slaveholding was an established practice that was generally culturally accepted even by many non-slaveholders. Where did I question that? I'm pointing out that this statement:

 

Quote

Boone County MO prior to the civil war was mostly small farms owned by whites with around 10 or so black slaves on average.

 

is using a statistical average to create a misleading impression that the typical Boone County farm had 10 slaves, and also leaves out the distinct presence of plantation-style agriculture here that was very different from the smallholdings, including accounting for a disproportionate amount of agricultural exports and slave ownership. Using averages like this is problematic when the underlying distribution is very uneven. It's like saying that Missouri has an average annual temperature of around 50ºF when the actual range goes from below 0ºF to over 100ºF. It's mathematically true but functionally misleading. Agricultural slaveholding in Boone County and comparable nearby counties was fairly concentrated on plantation-style farms very different from the smallholdings elsewhere in the county.

 

And I'm still legitimately interested in how you determined an 1880 date for that thresher photo. 

 

Finally, to repeat myself again, I don't have a problem with readers raising questions of interest about the build's context. I'd just like to keep such discussions at least focused on issues with a close enough bearing on the actual stage of the project to be of interest and relevance to everyone, and/or to keep broader divergences somewhat focused as a service to all readers.

Edited January 25 by Cathead

[Cathead]

I'd been planning on getting down to McBaine to take some on-site photos, but the big winter storm that moved through the Midwest recently delayed that. We finally went, with our skis, and did some skiing along the rail trail. I made up some photo pairs of historic and modern shots that I thought would be of interest.

 

First, a shot looking southeast toward the depot. The town, such as it was, would be just out of frame to the right. The Perche Creek bridge is behind me. The rail trail's information shelter and bathrooms are roughly where the old depot sat.

And now looking at the same location, from the other direction, looking back northwest toward the bridge, which you can see in the distance in both photos. Here I'm a little closer to the depot site than the original photo but the orientation is correct. The town site is off to the left, out of frame.

Here's a view taken from the main line looking south across the town site. The road in the foreground is Katy St, where most of the buildings in the 1903 photo face. You can see the same river bluff descending toward the valley at the left side of both photos. You can also see how the rail line is built up on an embankment to cross this low part of the river valley, which is why the flooding in the 1903 photo is affecting the town but not the rail line (at least locally; it did damage elsewhere). Today, the town is basically gone except for a few houses that have seen better days (out of frame).

Here's a broader panorama, with no paired photo, taken from a little farther up the line and showing both the old depot site (trail shelter) and the mostly empty site of what was once McBaine.

 

And finally, the Perche Creek bridge, which hasn't changed at all. This one was built in the late 1890s, so it dates all the way back to my modeled era, as in Rocheport. The building to the right of the bridge's far end is now gone.

Hope that helps with establishing the visual setting a bit more. In the next post I'll share a few other photos of interest from nearby that relate to both the scenic setting and earlier discussions.

 

[Cathead]

We also went a bit further southeast to Hartsburg, the next meaningful town along the line. I'd mentioned this earlier in the context of thinking I'd read some information about Hartsburg having an active feed mill (in contrast to my understanding of the Rocheport elevator), so I wanted to see if I was right. And I was! Here's an image and caption from the local Katy Trail signboard.

 

The mill dates a bit later than I remembered (built in 1920) but it does confirm that there was a combination elevator/mill here that collected grain from local farmers and produced chicken feed. The listed capacity of 8,000 bushels is comparable to that of the Rocheport elevator (listed as 10,000 bushels in the railroad's business directory). So this helps show that each town along the line had its own unique set of local-ag-related businesses and buildings, at a small scale compared to modern times but still enough to generate railroad business.

 

Just above this was another highly relevant image that I hadn't remembered:

This certainly seems to fit the idea that steam threshers were just spreading into the area around 1900. My take is that it wouldn't be wrong to include either a steam thresher or an older horse-powered one, given the transition underway locally.

 

And finally, a few more photos of the general setting right now because I just love this valley and the rail line through it. Winter can be gorgeous along this corridor. Here's a shot from yet another bridge over a tributary entering the Missouri River. We have spectacular pancake ice forming on the main river right now.

 

Another shot of the ice as it's carried steadily along by the river's flow.

And a panorama of more bluffs. The Katy line runs right at the base of these, hugging the edge of the valley to try and stay out of the floodplain as much as possible. Here you can also see another example of the blue sky with wispy winter clouds that I tried to recreate on the Rocheport backdrop.

Reminder:

And finally, as a reminder that this is a modeling project and not just a history/geography project, here are a couple quick shots of ongoing progress on McBaine. I have the first two turnouts laid and wired up to their controls:

 

Thanks for reading and following along!

 

 

[Keith Black]

 Unfortunately the relentlessness of time spares none.