• Officially, known as the Howard Branch, Southern Kansas Division, Atchison, Topeka, and Santa Fe Railroad, the eighty-four mile branch line began in Emporia. The line extended from Emporia south through Olpe, Root, Madison, Bisbee, Hamilton, Utopia, Eureka, Small, Climax, Severy, Fiat, Howard, and terminating at Moline.
• A spur at Madison Junction went southeast to Hilltop and Virgil.
• The line went by the name of the Howard Branch because the original 1879 terminus was Howard. Moline became the terminus in 1886.
• The line served Howard for 96 years before abandonment in 1975.
• Originally, Howard had two passenger trains and two freight trains per day. The train speed limit was 30 miles per hour—this was a branch and not a mainline.
• In the later years, there was one train each day in each direction. At this point passenger service consisted of mixed service, which meant the rail company added a passenger car to the end of a freight train. Sometimes the car added was a combine, which meant one-half the car contained seats for passengers, and one-half the car was for freight. Sometimes the combine was the only car behind the locomotive. Passenger service to and from Howard was available until the late 1940's or so.
• After passenger service ended, freight trains to Howard, one in each direction each day, ran until abandonment of the branch line in 1975.
• The tracks came southwest into Howard from Fiat crossing K-99 just before the Paw Paw bridge, which until the 60s was a large iron truss bridge similar to the old Elk Falls bridge. A concrete bridge replaced the iron truss in the sixties. A new bridge replacing that span occurred just recently. The train curved southwesterly across the north part of town and then crossed Washington Street at Plum.
• When the rail company tore up the rails, I cannot say. However, if one goes down to the corner of Plum and Washington Street and looks southwest one can still plainly see the old raised roadbed curving around from Washington Street going to the long gone station. A lone tree is growing in the middle of the old right of way.
• After leaving Howard station, the tracks headed southeast. One can still see that portion of the roadbed curving around the fairgrounds. Last time I was in Howard, someone was cutting the brush and trees away from the old roadbed. The track curved on across the county road south of the fairgrounds, then crossed the Elk River, and then split for Moline.
• Several track sidings ran straight south from the Howard station. One lone siding went across the county road and then along the front of the cemetery rock wall. The siding ended just before the first cemetery entrance. It was common to see empty boxcars or stock cars parked in front of the cemetery.
• The rock wall facing east along the paved road sets back several feet because the siding took up that open area. The road in front of the cemetery, incidentally, used to go down to the Elk, cross a low water bridge and then go straight up the steep hill to connect with June bug road to the right of where the cable tower is. A flood, probably '61, washed out the bridge and the county closed the road. Another low water bridge lies to the west.
• I have heard from time to time the wall might be moved the short distance out to the road to give the cemetery a little bit more room. However, the cost of moving the wall is probably more than the benefit received.
• The Howard Branch went north from Howard to Fiat through Severy to Climax, Small, and Eureka. The stop at Small was not a town but was a railroad name for a stop at an alfalfa mill. The mill was located on the corner where the paved "shortcut" from K-99 goes into Eureka. The mill disappeared in the sixties.
• About three years ago, I drove to the location of Fiat. There is nothing there to signify a town but there was still an "RR" sign hanging on a fence where the rails used to come through. The Elk County history book has a story about a student in Fiat catching a train each morning to attend high school in Severy coming back by rail each evening. Old maps of the 1870s also show stops at Cresco and Paw Paw.
• At Severy, the rails from Fiat crossed the east-west St. Louis-San Francisco Railroad (The Frisco) and then crossed K-96 (US 400).
• In 1946 a freight train pulled by a steam engine, just coming from Fiat and Howard had passed through Severy and was approaching K-96. A driver barreling down K-96 was traveling at a high rate of speed and apparently did not hear or see the steam engine. The fast moving automobile slammed into a boxcar behind the tender. The impact derailed the boxcar and the momentum of the boxcar took the rest of the train's twelve cars off the track. Only the engine and tender stayed put. The crash killed all three people in the car.
• The Frisco rails headed east out of Severy went to Fredonia and passed through northeast Elk County on the way.
• The Atchison, Topeka, and Santa Fe Railroad also ran east to west from Winfield to Grenola, Moline, Elk Falls, and Longton and Independence. That line is now the South Kansas and Oklahoma Railroad. The Santa Fe no longer exists as an independent railroad. It is now part of the Burlington Northern Santa Fe Railroad.
• Howard also had interstate bus service by either Greyhound or Trailways and I recall the buses stopped at the southeast corner of Wabash and Washington near the old bank to pick up and drop off passengers.
Since I grew up at the end of Plum and Washington.. I remember that train running every day.
John Layton was the depot manager and my sister Sherri and I, along with his daughters Janice and Peggy,
Used to go down there and play and watch him send messages on the telegraph key.
He said when the train pulled in to the station, many times there was a Hobo that had jumped the train and was riding to the next place.. Sometimes they got off in Howard and sometimes they just kept going.
After the movie at the Plaza was over, my sister and I used to have to walk home.. And the last street light was almost at the
Railroad tracks. We were goosey anyway about the dark..and it was darker than pitch sometimes and we would be real brave until we hit the railroad tracks and then if one of us spooked out and broke out running.. The other one was right on the heels. That was sometimes the longest block in the world when it was dark.. :D
I remember that Mark and Rob Cookson, Robert Sharp, Danny Kennedy, John Gray, Tim Roberts and some other boys used to go out and put pennies and nickels on the tracks, so that the train would smash them.
( I think Mark took his to school and sold them)
He also would put baby garter and grass snakes that he would find, in a band-aid box and take them to school and sell them for a dime or quarter to kids.. ::)
I used to walk the tracks sometimes, but my mom never knew ( I don't think anyway :-\) because we weren't supposed to.. But it was fun.
I remember when they took the tracks out.. I thought it was a sad time..
• Putting coins on the track to flatten them from tons of locomotive pressure seems to be a universal experience. It is done here in Colorado all the time.
• I have seen an old map, which shows double tracks going across Washington Street, but I do not recall if that was still the case prior to the tracks being torn up.
• One of the station agents at Howard just recently died in Moline—Dick Hisle, I think.
• It is a long story but the tracks from Emporia to Howard were first intended to be narrow gauge, similar to the mountain railroads in Colorado. Narrow gauge tracks were laid from Emporia to Eureka before someone wised up and then widened the rails to standard gauge.
• Howard once had a roundhouse and turntable to turn locomotives around to point them back to Emporia. When Moline became the terminus, the roundhouse was moved there.
• Originally, the extension from Howard was supposed to go to Elk Falls but Moline won out.
• Howard at one time had six stock pens with a 14-car storage capacity. There was also a multi-ton truck scale, which is still over in the old rail area.
DID ANY OF YOU EVER TRAVEL TO MOLINE ON THE RAILROAD TRACKS (in a model t)? IT WAS REAL SCAREY GOING OVER ELK RIVER.
My husband used to ride the train from Moline to Howard back in the day to visit his aunt. They would stay all day and then ride the train back to Moline. They lived right off the tracks in Moline---in boxcars, because my father-in-law worked for the railroad and that's the housing they provided. I want to say that they paid 25 cents to ride the train, but I could be wrong. He never spoke of having a model T,though. I think they were too poor to have a vehicle of any kind.
Trivia time.
Let's suppose the Howard Branch still ran from Emporia to Eureka.
Let's suppose one day a box car was sitting on a siding in Howard .
A freight conductor or engineer finds a dead body in that box car. The body has stab wounds and has been shot several times. Obviously murder.
What police jurisdiction would conduct a murder investigation?
City?—no.
County?—no.
State?—no.
Who has jurisdiction?
It would be the same jurisdiction that would prosecute someone driving an automobile on the tracks, that is, the railroad police, in our case the Santa Fe police.
Above, I shortened the Howard Branch considerably. Naturally, it ran from Emporia to Moline rather than Emporia to Eureka.
Ah, Waldo, I wish you had given me time to answer that question because I knew the answer. Railroad police have jurisdiction on all railway property and railway right-of-way. However; railroad police work in partnership with local and state authorities. They have final say so. I have met several railroad police and they are really nice guys.
There have been a number of people murdered on moving passenger trains. Some guy went berserk a few years ago and shot and killed several people on a train back east.
There was a case of a women killed on a transcontinental train in the 40s or 50s.
She was apparently murdered in her compartment somewhere west of Denver based on some passengers saying they heard muffled screams.
Best I can remember, by the time the murder was discovered, the body was in Salt Lake City and was kept where it was until the train arrived in Oakland. I think railroad police got on at Salt Lake and began their investigation at that point.
Waldo (or anyone else), have you ever come across any info regarding the Howard Branch continuing past Moline. Years ago I remember coming across a map showing the route continuing to Rogers in Chautauqua Co. I have long ago lost any photo copy I may have had of this map, but the one I viewed was probably in the special collections at either the Wichita Public Library or WSU. Any one have any thoughts?
Photo and story from saved Howard Courant-Citizen dated April 24, 1975
SILENCE REIGNS NOW at the abandoned depot on the abandoned Santa Fe Railroad line at Howard. The furniture has been removed, the calendars have been taken from the walls, the crossing signs have been dismantled(note foreground), the rails are without occupants and rust already has begun to find its place. the old Santa Fe depot in Howard, now a relic of another era, was emptied April 17 - mostly likely for the final occasion. Former Santa Fe station agent John Layton's future with the firm also is apparently uncertain. Rail service between Emporia and Moline was discontinued last week after a three-year fight waged by are businessmen and farmers with the Santa Fe, working through the courts and the Interstate Commerce Commission. The ICC finally disallowed any further hearing on the matter.
Thanks, Dee Gee, I enjoyed the picture. My father-in-law really missed that train, when they took the railroad out, as it rain right thru his farm. In the olden days, he said he could almost set his pocket watch, by when the train went thru.
I have apicture of the old depot that is from around 1906 from the Hottinger collection. I will post it when I get back home.
I just got back from Howard.
The line from Severy to Howard was built as the Elk & Chautauqua Railroad and then leased to the Santa Fe. The line was finished to Howard in 1879 and then to Moline in 1886.
The original intent was for the Elk & Chautauqua to go from Moline to Sedan, but the line never made it.
What you saw may have been the Moline and Sedan Railway that was incorporated on August 23, 1887. I was not aware that that line made it off the drawing board to Rogers or anywhere else, but sometimes in the early days the maps contained railroad routes when one did not yet exist.
I once saw a map that had a line from Western Park east to Howard and have never been able to find out anything about it.
The above newspaper story indicates a three year battle between local business men and the Interstate Commerce Commission ended when the Howard Branch was vacated. However, I read somewhere that the Howard Branch lasted as long as it did because one of the board members of the state organization overseeing railroad abandonments was from Howard. He continually voted against abandonment but when he died that paved the way to abandon.
This is a picture of the Santa Fe Depot in Howard around 1900.
This is an early 1900s picture of the Railroad bridge across Elk River just South of Howard on old 99 that went thru town and South. This Railroad Bridge was just West of the old 99 Wagon Bridge. I swam under this old bridge many times. Also walked across the river on it many times. If memory serves me correctly it was around this or under this RR bridge that "old Hot" shot the Alligators
This is a little different picture of the same RR bridge and in the same time frame as in the previous picture.
This is an early 1900s picture of the old Wagon bridge across Elk River on old 99.
Wow, Frank. The second railroad picture even has a train getting ready to cross the track. Thanks.
Frank, thanks for sharing your pictures with us. Don has really enjoyed them, as he has printed them out for his own mini-collection.
Lois, when I think back to the late 1940s and early 1950s it seems to me Howard was a perfect size town. We had 4 Barbers, 2 Dentists, 2-3 Doctors plus a Chiropractor, 2 bakeries, 3 Automobile Dealers, 4 Implement Dealers, 4 Grocery Stores, a drugstore, a Hatchery, Movie Theatre, 2 Clothing Stores, 2 Furniture Stores, 2 Liquor Stores, Hotel, Motor Court, 4 Eating Establishments,. 2 Lumber Yards, 2 Feedstores, a Veternarian, Furneral Home, 2 pool Halls, Jewelery Store, 2 Banks, 2 Farm Credit Institutions, a Variety Store, Locker Plant , Small Packinghouse, 3 Beauticians, Western auto Store, 2 Auto Repair Shops, a Blacksmith, a local Newspaper, a printing shop, 2 Creameries, ASCS Offices, 3 Appliance Sales and Repair Stores, 2 Shoe Repair shops, 7 service stations, 2 home building/home construction/repair companies, 2 Dry Cleaners, an Alfalfa Mill,the bus stopped on main street and maybe the most important item of all the Railroad, and probably some others that I am missing. What happened, the flight to the city, the loss of the small farmers whatever it was it changed rural America forever. When growing up in Howard I never thought about ever leaving it. It seems like an even bigger change when you look at the pictures of Howard in the early 1900s, the Met Hotel, the Howard National Bank, the Racetrack, the Schools, I wonder what our city fathers from 1900 would think now. So much for reminiscing. I will post some more pictures as soon as I get time.
Frank
I have gone down to the foot of Pine Street and have seen the abutments for the old iron bridge still on both sides of the river.
I have been told the abutments for the old railroad bridge are still there but have not followed the old roadbed down to the river to find out. That is probably someone's private property by now. The railroad bridge stone supports look pretty cool.
When I was in Howard recently the river was flowing fast and nicely from so much rain. The Elk River falls were almost covered over. If one wanted to take the risk they could boat up and down the Elk.
Has anyone ever boated down the Elk?
Waldo, I boated up and down lots of Elk River and done lots of frog hunting, trot lie/bank line fishing and camping on it as a kid. I probably never boated more than 2-4 mile stretch at a time and as far down as the old Fleak/Lister place. I know that 2 of my older brothers spent lots of time on that river boating,fishing and frogging. During the 1930s my family lived right next to the river South of Howard, right South of West Elk School.
Frank Winn
I am not a boater except for some time in the boy scouts but I always wanted to go as far up to the source as I could and then float to the Verdigris unhindered except maybe for the falls. I am assuming that could be done after a good rain. However, I have seem some Elk River segments in western Elk County that are almost completely filled with uprooted trees, old concrete, brush, etc.
The Elk River length is supposed to be 81 miles.
Well I have been on both ends, I used to stay with Chester and Eva Miller some when I was a kid and they lived pretty close to the head of the Elk River, when I was first married I drove a Uke on the Elk City Dam construction which is the end of the Elk River. I have seen it in flood stage and I wouldn't want to boat in it then. On the other hand it has so many low spots and gravel bars that you would be dragging a boat along ways if the river was normal or down. Sometime when you are visiting your parents ask their neighbor on the South about boating it . He spent lots of time on it when he was young.
Well, we have talked about most everything else, but I guess the subject of boating the Elk River never came up.
The way I understand it, they were next door farm neighbors on the Elk in the early forties (me too, I guess) and all these years later are next door neighbors in town.
By the way, I remember patronizing the Winn Cafe many times when we came back visiting Howard.
They moved off the farm and back to town on October 2, 1940. That was the day I was born, my brother Neil told me they were on their way to town and Mom said "Neil you better find me a bed and get a hold of Lavina cause this baby is coming" Lavina Rarick delivered the last 7 of us kids, all 15 were delivered at home without a Doctor.
Hi everybody! I'm Cody, a new member. I came across this website while doing post investigation on the Howard Branch. Im the author of the Howard Branch Route for Microsoft Train Simulator. I recreated the branch in 3D so that all types of train enthusiasts could run a train on this route. Steve Sandifer, from Texas documented this railroad very well. His webpage: http://www.atsfrr.com/resources/Sandifer/Howard/index.htm . Here are some shots from the route:
Howard:
http://www.friscorr.com/images/load0.JPG
http://www.friscorr.com/images/howardss000.JPG
http://www.friscorr.com/images/howardss001.JPG
http://www.friscorr.com/images/howardss002.JPG
http://www.friscorr.com/images/howardss003.JPG
http://www.friscorr.com/images/howardss004.JPG
http://www.friscorr.com/images/howardss005.JPG
Fiat:
http://www.friscorr.com/images/howardss006.JPG
http://www.friscorr.com/images/howardss007.JPG
Severy:
http://www.friscorr.com/images/howardss008.JPG
Cheers!
Codeman
Cody!!!
(http://www.cascity.com/howard/animations/bravo.gif)
I LOVE IT!!!
Thanks so very very much for giving us a different view of it..
WOW~~~ that is just the coolest.
Frank... Those pictures are wonderful.
I have gone down the Elk River many times in a little john boat with the guys setting lines for those Elk County catfish.
Been frog hunting, and swimming an all those good kinds of things.
Even watched some "dumb boys' jump and dive off the old railroad bridge one Sunday afternoon.
What idiots!..
But you got to consider the gender and the fact that they were 17 trying to impress us female 17 yr olds.. ::) ;D
By the way.. what other pictures do you have of the days past? I love the ones of the main street and stuff around the town.
((hint hint))
Hi, I ran the Microsoft Train Simulator at one time but don't recall the Howard Branch being in the program.
Which might be a good thing since I wrecked several trains including an AMTRAK passenger liner.
Was it on the supplemental file released by Microsoft?
Good afternoon all, The Howard Route for the train simulator was created by Cody using the route editor included with the simulator. Southeast Kansas is loaded with history, like the Howard Branch. I grew up spending a lot of time in the severy area around Tanglewood lake and Toronto lake as well...I am a lifelong Kansas resident who has enjoyed decades of wonderful flathead fishing southeast kansas offers..The world record is from Elk City lake....I have boated both the Verdigris and elk rivers, and Fall river too....My Grandparents on my mother's side resided in Coyville, just outside of Fredonia for over 60 years...I hope to retire soon to southeast Kansas....preferably near a lake! ;D If you enjoy Trains, I have a large website and forum dedicated to Virtual trains..and Cody has modeled a large portion of the Santa Fe and the Frisco in southeast Kansas in the simulator. Regards, Frank Burns http://www.themophouse.com