(The following story by Jo Ellis appeared on the Joplin Globe website on July 31.)
JOPLIN, Mo. — In the quiet stillness of a summer night, the sound of a train horn, followed by the muffled rumbling of iron wheels, can be heard in all four corners of Carthage.
Is it real, or just background noise stirring you from that romantic mystery dream you were enjoying?
Unless you live or work in proximity to the Missouri & Northern Arkansas Railroad, which skims the northern border of the city, you may be surprised to learn that on average, 10 to 15 trains pass through Carthage every 24 hours. And while the romance may have gone from the railroad industry (outside our dreams), it is still a valuable component of our work world.
Once a hub of rail traffic, with two depots that regulated the city’s daily heartbeat, Carthage now is served only by freight cars traveling on the M&NA. It is a descendant of the White River Line, which was a branch of the St. Louis, Iron Mountain and Southern Railroad that went directly to Memphis, and later merged with Missouri Pacific.
M&NA cars today carry grain and corn from Illinois or Iowa (also from Harrisonville and Butler) to poultry growers in Southwest Missouri. The trains pick up empty coal cars from Arkansas Light & Power in Independence, Ark., transferring them to the Union Pacific line in Kansas City, from where they travel to Wyoming to be refilled and returned to Arkansas.
Carthage is the end destination for refrigerated cars carrying cheese, tomato paste, vegetables and french fries to the Carthage Underground for storage and distribution. Outward-bound cars contain shipments of locally processed chickens and turkeys. Charles Fooks (pronounced Fokes), general manager for M&NA, said the Burlington Northern Santa Fe line through Carthage and Joplin was purchased in 1998 to serve a Webb City customer who ships scrap metal to Columbus, Kan. It is now called the Webb City Line.
Fooks said the trains change crews in Carthage, making for a longer layover. Thirty-three trainmen currently work out of Carthage. An additional 18 employees work in maintenance, the diesel mechanic shop or as clerks. The city is near the halfway point on the M&NA line, which runs about 570 miles between Newport, Ark., and Pleasant Hill, with branches also to Clinton and to Fort Scott, Kan.
“We’re trying to maintain what we have and grow it,” said Fooks, who transferred to Carthage as general manager in April. Transporting freight by rail gives customers the ability to “move a lot of things cheaply,” giving them a financial advantage to help stabilize and expand their business, he said. Its importance from an environmental standpoint cannot be overlooked. “Each rail car essentially takes five trucks off the highway,” he said.
Railroads had a significant presence in Carthage by the late 1870s, no doubt stimulated by the Civil War. In 1852, just 10 years after the city was incorporated, Pacific Railroad was the first line to build west of the Mississippi River. Eventually, it extended to Rolla and Lebanon; a stagecoach left Springfield twice a day to connect with the rail stations. At one time or another, Carthage was served by the St. Louis and San Francisco (the “Frisco”); the Missouri Pacific; the Kansas City, Fort Smith & Southern; and the Missouri, Kansas, Arkansas & Texas (known as the MKT or “Katy” line).
In 1894, the Frisco, Missouri Pacific and MKT offered special excursion rates within a 75-mile radius of Carthage to customers who wanted to attend the laying of the Jasper County Courthouse cornerstone. The depot now occupied by M&NA was built by Missouri Pacific and is one of the few original MP depots still in use. East of it, a Frisco depot also built of Carthage stone was completed in 1896, along with a sister depot in Joplin built of red brick and Carthage stone. Ninety years later, the Frisco depot was moved to Carter Hill and restored by Ruth Kolpin Rubison. It still stands today.
By 1904, you could eat breakfast in Carthage, step on a train and be in St. Louis in time for dinner, with four stops along the way. The next year, the rail companies began carrying U.S. mail.
Perhaps the wedding of the century for Carthage took place Oct. 29, 1903, when popular Marion Lucy Wright married Dr. Everett Powers. They left from the Carthage depot at 9 that night to begin an extended honeymoon trip to Europe. That kind of romance on the rails may be forever gone from Carthage, but the M&NA continues to serve us in more practical and profitable ways.