(The following column by Bill Nunes appeared on the Edwardsville Journal website on October 10. Mr. Nunes, a Glen Carbon resident, is author of “Incredible Illinois” and “Illinois in World War II.”)
EDWARDSVILLE, Ill. — I grew up in East St. Louis in the 1940s and 1950s. The city was the second largest rail center in the world with 27 railroad trunk lines converging on it. This was surpassed only by Chicago, which had 33. The city was comprised of only about 13 square miles, yet it had 550 miles of railroad track. One of the oft-told tales I heard as a youth was that John Dillinger planned to rob the cash rich Stockyards Bank during the Depression. As he looked over a map of the city, so the story goes, he grew disheartened. Robbing the bank didn’t look to be that difficult, but there wasn’t any exit from the city that didn’t have either a bridge or a railroad crossing. The Eads or Municipal Bridge could be blocked at the other end, and a train could come along and block his escape route, resulting in capture.
Perhaps the most unique railroad in East St. Louis was the East St. Louis Junction, owned by the stockyards. An enduring image of American western movies is the cattle drive. After the end of the Civil War, the vast herds of cattle, raised on the plains of the American West, began their journey to the hungry markets back East by being driven to railroads to be loaded on cattle cars destined for major rail cities, such as St. Louis. I read that, in the old days, cattle herds from various places in central and southern Illinois were driven to market and went through some of the most prominent streets in East St. Louis to the stock yards located there. From there, dressed beef completed the journey to other cities in refrigerated cars cooled by ice.
The East St. Louis Junction Railroad, which was organized in 1873, was located in National City, adjacent to the northwest part of East St. Louis. Since the Junction operated only within the confines of the stockyards, it became famous as the shortest rail line in America. The Junction was owned by the National Stockyards Company. The railroad’s biggest customer was the National City Stockyards itself, but it also served the meat packing houses of Morris, Armour, Hunter, and Swift, along with feed suppliers, cold storage warehouses and a few light industries that were located near the slaughter houses. The East St. Louis Junction connected with every railroad in the East St. Louis area either by direct connection or by interchange with the Terminal Railroad Association. Loaded stock cars would be delivered to the Junction where a fleet of steam locomotives would distribute them to the various sidings in National City. The TRRA also delivered iced refrigerator cars for the Junction Railroad which, when loaded with dressed beef, would be delivered to the connecting railroads. As an example of how busy the railroad was, in October 1920, the Junction handled 14,000 loaded cars. Empty stock cars would be blasted clean by high-pressure hoses before being returned to their original railroad.
After World War II, the stockyards line began to dieselize its locomotive fleet, and the last of the steam engines were retired. And, also about this time, the fleet of ice reefers were replaced by diesel-powered mechanized refrigerator cars, making the neighboring TRR’s ice-loading facilities obsolete.
In the 1950s, the trucking industry began to make significant inroads on the rail monopoly. More and more beef was being shipped by trucks, as meat packers began to move their operations closer to where the herds were being raised, reducing the need for stock trains. Thus began the decline of stock-related traffic and the Junction Railroad. This decentralization trend also spelled the ultimate end for the Union Stock Yards in Chicago, as well as the yards in East St. Louis.
The Junction’s last major customer, Hunter Packing, closed its National City operations in 1982. Portions of the line were leased by the Chicago & Northwestern for switching purposes in 1975. In 1986, a devastating fire destroyed the stockyards office building with the loss of all company records and history.
Illinois, of course, is famous for some other items connected to the rail industry. In 1851, the federal government gave a huge land grant to a company called the Illinois Central Railroad. The grant was made in alternate townships (six square miles) along the right-of-way, thus retaining half of the land for the D.C. government. The company received the even numbered townships, while the government retained the odd ones. (A township has 36 sections; there are 640 acres of land in a section.) This can be pictured if one thinks of red and black squares on a checkerboard. Senator Stephen Douglas played an important part in convincing the federal government to make these land grants to help develop the country, and is considered the “Father of the Illinois Central.” The 1C was responsible for founding many towns in the central part of the state. Until this railroad was built, most of Illinois’ population was located along river banks.
The Illinois Central received more than two-and-one-half million acres of land. These grants were actually given to the state and the state, in turn, passed them on to the railroad companies. In return, the Illinois Central agreed to pay 7 percent of its revenues each year into the state treasury. The company’s directors included Governor John Reynolds, Pierre Menard, and Illinois Supreme Court Judge Sidney Breese (hence the town of Breese). The Illinois Central went from Galena (an important mining town at the time) to Cairo, with an additional diagonal branch line from Centralia to Chicago. Centralia became an important rail center, since both northern branches converged at that location. As many as 10,000 men worked on construction from 1851 to 1856. When it was completed, it was the longest railroad line in the world.
The U.S. steel industry lacked the capacity and know-how to make Illinois Central rails, so they were ordered from England. They arrived in U-shape form so they could be transported across the ocean in the hold of a ship. They were re-heated and straightened out on arrival. The track was laid at “standard gauge” width, 4-feet and eight-and-a-half inches. Tradition says that standard gauge width was exactly the same as the distance between two wheels on a Roman chariot. The first 1C passenger train reached Cairo on Aug. 7, 1855.
Judge Sydney Breese, also sometimes called the “Father of the Illinois Central,” knew that if the railroad was to survive, it would need to have towns develop along its path. Officials advertised heavily and sent agents to Europe to recruit settlers. When railroad officials platted and identified these towns, they chose names that would appeal to specific nationalities. If you remember the Tyrone Power film, “Captain from Castille,” Sandoval (in Illinois) was named for a lieutenant Hernan Cortez, the conquistador. Odin was named for the chief Norse god. It was hoped that the town of Beaucoup would draw French settlers and Kinmundy, named for an important stockholder, would attract Scotsmen.
The railroads allowed farmers in southern Illinois to take advantage of the rich promise of Illinois soil. The railroad also gave them access to Illinois inventions, such as Deere’s steel plow, Joe Glidden’s barbed wire, and McCormick’s reaper. And for cattlemen, the railroads eliminated the need for the long drives “on the hoof” to the markets.
Perhaps the most important effect of the railroads was political. Before the railroads, Illinois was tied psychologically to the South by means of the Mississippi River and its tributaries. The railroads that came in the 1850s tied the state economically with the north and the east, making its ties with the Union that much stronger. And the superior rail network in the North brought the Civil War saying that “victory rides the rails.”
The 1C Railroad Bridge from Cairo to Kentucky was finished in 1889. At that time it was the longest metallic structure across a river anywhere in the world.
Just what is that third famous item? Illinois Central engineer Casey Jones, the man lionized by a famous song after he heroically died in a train wreck, was the first man inducted into the Railroad Hall of Fame.