(The following story by Tim Unruh appeared on the Salina Journal website on March 12.)
CONCORDIA, Kan. — A dozen historically minded people are racing time to chronicle a chunk of U.S. history.
If enough money can be raised, the National Orphan Train Complex will open in May 2005 at the old Union Pacific Railroad Depot in Concordia.
The depot was among the stopping points for orphans relocated from New York and other Eastern cities to the rural West on what became known as Orphan Trains.
The Concordia volunteers are working to commemorate the railroads and the westward movement of orphans.
But that will require a minimum of $200,000 to open the complex for business, and up to $2 million to complete a research center in the depot.
“We’ve got to have something to shoot for,” said Sue Sutton, Concordia, president of the National Orphan Train Complex.
In May 2003, the Kansas State Historical Society voted to place the depot on the National Register of Historic Places.
Time is of the essence, Sutton said, because fewer than 150 of the up to 250,000 children who rode the orphan trains from 1854 through 1929, are living. The youngest would be in their late 70s, but most are in their 90s.
“Every month, somebody else drops from the roster,” she said. “We’d like to have it done for the ones who are left.”
About 50 orphans were placed in the Concordia area, including Clara Reed Duckett, now Clara Reed Morgan, 102. She lives in a Fort Worth, Texas, nursing home.
She was adopted by the Duckett family in Belleville, arriving on the train June 19, 1909.
Clara’s two brothers, James Reed Elliott and Howard Reed Dowell, both deceased, were adopted by other families in the area.
Howard Reed Dowell was reared from age 3 on a farm 35 miles northeast of Concordia. His son, Darrell Dowell, who still lives on the farm, is a member of the fund-raising committee.
“I was probably in high school before I knew Dad had been adopted,” Darrell Dowell said. “This part of history was almost lost.”
His father and two of his siblings came from a family in the New York City area. The parents and an oldest sister died of tuberculosis.
While his father, uncle and aunt went to good homes, Darrell Dowell said, some of the orphan train riders were “bad kids,” and others were placed in “bad homes and were tortured.”
But generally, the effort started by Presbyterian minister Charles Loring Brace in 1853 improved the lives of thousands of children.
A history project
The resurrection of the orphan train story was sparked by Mary Ellen Johnson, Springdale, Ark., who happened onto information about four orphan train riders while doing a county history project. Her work started the national organization in 1986.
Johnson made it her mission to reconnect family members separated by the orphan movement.
She “started in alerting the world and bringing all of us together,” said Anne Harrison, 95, Lincoln, Neb.
Harrison said Thursday that she rode the train to Colorado Springs, Colo., in 1911, at age 2 years and 4 months.
Harrison, who speaks publicly about her experiences, learned she was adopted at 27.
In those days, Darrell Dowell said, adoption wasn’t talked about much.
Donating the depot
Beth Carlgren was using the depot for storage for her Wilson’s Furniture business when got word of the local interest in the orphan train history, Sutton said. She donated the depot to Cloud County Community College in 2001.
Sutton conceived of the idea to transform the depot into a museum for the orphan train. The college deeded the depot to the Orphan Train Heritage Society of America during the spring of 2003, and renovation efforts began.
“I was, of course, thinking on a small scale,” said Sutton, who is the dean of humanities and head of the theater department at the college.
To raise public awareness, Cloud County Community College students have performed a play, “The Chosen,” which chronicles the lives of orphan train riders. More performances are being scheduled.
Sutton e-mailed Johnson in Arkansas to inform her of the work to establish a Kansas orphan train museum.
Johnson was supportive and offered her entire orphan train collection to the Concordia group. The national governing body accepted the offer in March 2003.
“There were a few other towns that jumped on the bandwagon, too,” Sutton said. “We had to prove that we’d be an ideal location for this.”
Concordia was designated the new headquarters of the Orphan Train Heritage Society of America.
Dowell said the entire project, which includes designing and building a research center in the museum, could run up to $2 million.
Two Concordia High School students are working on a design for the research center, said Judy Hill, Jamestown, who is secretary of the national organization.
“We’re trying to document every rider that we possibly can,” said Hill, who teaches government and sociology at the high school.
The interior is in decent shape, Sutton said, considering it was built in 1917, “but it will have to have some remediation.”
She estimated it would take $100,000 for heating and air conditioning upgrades and to meet Americans with Disabilities Act requirements. The local group initially raised $12,000 to repair the roof.
The group also is looking to establish an endowment to ensuring long-term funding.
“Because we’re a national organization, we can look to all 50 states,” she said, “and hope we find some people out there with big hearts and deep pockets.”