The first 100 miles of the Central Branch Railroad were built to Waterville in late 1867, where the line languished until the open prairies to the west filled with the rude homes of pioneer settlers.

As settlement crept slowly westward, amid much hardship and skirmishes with the Indians, the first adventuresome souls planted a few roots in Osborne County during 1870. Then people began to flock in and fill the grasslands with sod homes and dugouts, tilling the soil and growing crops, and they occasionally drove their teams of oxen and horses on long wagon trips to the rails' end at Waterville for supplies.

Major William F. Downs was active in the new land, attempting to sell bonds for the extension of the Central Branch into this newly settled area where the farmers wanted shipping points for their crops and where everyone wanted trains to haul merchandise and mail to them from points farther east.

Downs was a native of New York state who came to Wyandotte, Kansas, after his marriage in 1857 to work in the tinware and stove trade. Early in 1861, as the Civil War began, he was appointed to a clerkship in the Treasury Department at Washington, D.C., and then became a special agent. When the Bureau of Internal Revenue was organized, Downs was appointed chief clerk and helped organize its system of reports, collections, and returns.

In 1865, the building of the Central Branch Railroad was commenced west from Atchison. Downs was appointed the road's land commissioner and came to Atchison to take charge of the line's government land grant. Prior to this, the land grant railroads had done little toward disposing of their grants, and none of them had a well-defined system of land records. Downs perfected such a system, and did his work so well that his plans were adopted by all of the land-grant railroads in the West, one observer commented.

As the Central Branch construction began, Downs was practically the line's only officer. He served as general superintendent, land commissioner, and general freight and ticket agent. In those years just after the Civil War, when many Northern army veterans were looking for homes in the West, Downs actively promoted the new railroad on the frontier by visiting the newly formed counties and towns in search of backers who would vote the bonds that the company needed to pay for its expansion.

During the summer and fall of 1867, when the U.S. Congress was embroiled in an attempt to impeach President Andrew Johnson, one of the major stories at Atchison was the extension of the Central Branch to the new town of Waterville. In a typical report October 20, 1867, the Atchison Daily Champion stated:

"Our fellow citizen, J. P. Brown, contractor on the Central Branch Railroad, arrived in this city yesterday from the West. Mr. Brown is now working his large force of laborers six miles west of the Blue (River). He informs us that the work of grading on the road is finished to the point where he is employed, and tracklaying is progressing at the rate of a mile a day. The cars are now running to a point seven miles beyond Centralia, Nemaha County."

That same week, two of the railroad's officials checked into the Massasoit House in Atchison while inspecting the construction and attending to company interests. They were R. M. Pomeroy of Boston, president of the Central Branch U.P. Railroad, and Effingham H. Nichols of New York, treasurer of the line.

A week earlier, on October 12, 1867, President Pomeroy had described the status of the Central Branch Union Pacific Railroad Company in a report to Secretary of the Interior O. H. Browning --

"...The road has been definitely located from the Missouri River to the 100 degree mile post, and terminates in the valley of the Little Blue River, near the mouth of Cow Creek, in town 4, range 6, E of the 6th degree principal meridian of the United States surveys in Marshall County, Kansas.

"Sixty miles of the road are fully completed, in running order, and have been accepted by the surveying commissioners. Thirty-five miles more are already graded and ready for the track, and the entire grading for one hundred miles will be finished by the 10th day of November proximo....

"The bridging forms a large item of the expense, the most important of which is the bridge across the Big Blue River, which is 434 feet in length, and 318 above low water mark. Nine other truss bridges are required upon the road, varying in length from 48 to 138 feet. They are all of the Howe truss pattern, and built upon abutments and piers of first-class masonry. There are numerous other smaller bridges upon the road, all supported by first-class bridge masonry.

"Track laying has commenced upon the 4th section of twenty miles, and is rapidly progressing, and it is expected that this section will be ready for the government commissioners by the 1st November proximo, and that the 5th section, completing the first one hundred miles, will be ready for final acceptance by the first of December next.

"Our road has a first-class equipment of 6 twenty-eight-ton Roger locomotives; 2 first-class passenger cars; 1 smoking and baggage car; 14 merchandise cars; 25 stock cars; 80 platform cars; 10 Boston dump cars; 14 hand cars.

"At the eastern terminus of the road is built a substantial round house, with stalls for six locomotives, and a machine shop suitable for the requirements of the road, both built of substantial stone masonry. -- Elegant and commodious depot buildings have been erected at four of the principal points on the road, and others are in process of erection.

"Our company has also built a first-class side-wheel ferry boat, and established a ferry across the Missouri River, at Atchison, for the accommodation of the road, with a capacity to transfer one hundred loaded cars daily across the river without breaking bulk, which will greatly expedite the business of the road."

President Pomeroy then described the possible extensions of the line --

"No definite location west of the 100th mile post has been made; but the point at which the 100 miles terminate is common to two great routes, the one extending up either Cow Creek or Mill Creek to the Republican Fork, and thence up the Great Republican Valley, bearing northerly, and joining the Union Pacific railroad at the 100th meridian of longitude, the distance being 200 miles beyond the 100th mile post;

"The other road being more northerly up the Little Blue River to Fort Kearney, joining the Union Pacific railroad in a distance of about 150 miles from the 100th mile post. Our road, when extended over either of these routes to a connection with the Union Pacific Railroad, would become the great central thoroughfare to the Rocky Mountains and California, and would soon attain to a local and through traffic second to no other Western road."

President Pomeroy then discussed the changes that had occurred since the 100-mile line to Waterville was authorized --

"The contracts for the construction of the first 100 miles of our road were all made and entered into in the year 1865, and consequently prior to the Act of Congress approved July 3, 1866, allowing the Union Pacific Railway, Easter Division, to depart from the original route up and along the Republican, and adopt the Smoky Hill route.

"Prior to the passage of the last named act, 100 miles would have completed our connection with the Union Pacific railway by our connection with the Eastern Division on or near the Republican Fork, and that road in turn connection with the Union Pacific (the main track), at the 100th meridian. Had the Eastern Division made no change of route, the 100 miles of our road now soon to be completed would have embraced all that we should have been authorized to hold under the acts of Congress known as the Union Pacific Railroad Acts...."

President Pomeroy claimed that, because the route of the Union Pacific's Eastern Division had been changed to the Smoky Hill route, the Central Branch now had a right to connect with the Union Pacific at the 100th meridian. He proposed to ask Congress for a joint resolution, "defining and declaring our rights in that behalf so that this most important branch of the Union Pacific Railroad may be prosecuted to its completion without embarrassment or hindrance."

About a month later, workmen were finishing the grading on the first 100 miles, the Champion reported Nov. 12, 1867. "There is, however, some work yet to do between the Blue River and the 100th mile post, but it will be finished, ready for the iron, by the time the track-layers reach the Blue," that newspaper added. "A construction train ran to Frankfort, the new town about the centre of Marshall County, on Saturday last. This place is 11.5 miles from the Blue at Irving, and the track is being put down at the rate of a mile a day. The piers of the great bridge at Irving are nearly completed, and the timbers are all ready to put on....The road is being finished rapidly, and the locomotive will whistle in Washington County, at the end of the first 100 miles, in less than a month, if the good weather continues."

The trial of former Confederate President Jefferson Davis was in the news at Atchison on November 19, 1867, at the same time that the Central Branch announced a change in train times. Trains now were running to Frankfort, "the new town in Marshall County," with passenger trains leaving Atchison every day except Sundays at 7:00 a.m. and arriving at Frankfort at 1:00 p.m. The returning passenger left Frankfort at 1:30 p.m. and reached Atchison at 6:30 p.m. The distance to Frankfort was 78.5 miles, and freight trains left Atchison at 7:00 p.m. and arrived in Frankfort at 1:00 a.m., on the return trip leaving Frankfort at 1:30 a.m. and reaching Atchison at 6:30 a.m.

Atchison was promoting several railroads that fall with dreams of becoming a major rail center on the Plains. During a large and enthusiastic mass meeting the evening of November 23, 1867, it was announced that the contract for the Atchison, Topeka and Santa Fe line had been let. Talking to the crowd about the town's prospects, Colonel P. T. Abell said the Atchison and Nebraska City Road also was a fixed fact. He then referred to the Central Branch and "the great trade it had thrown into our city," the Champion reported, "the new farms that were springing up along it."

That same issue of the Champion carried a report from the Blue River to the west, giving information from Captain Ben F. Drury, a merchant at Irving. "We learn from him that the town of Irving is growing very rapidly, and has tripled in population and the number of its houses since last spring....The piers of the splendid railroad bridge over the Blue River are completed, and the track...is finished through the town....The track of the road is now laid within about six miles of Irving, and construction trains are now running to a point beyond Barrett's Mill. Within a few days, the locomotive will reach the Blue. The country in the vicinity of Irving, and throughout Marshall and Washington counties, is settling up rapidly. Emigrants are coming in every day, and new farms are being laid out and improved in every direction...."

Contractors J. P. Brown and Frank Bier arrived in Atchison on December 6, 1867, and brought their laborers with them. "The work of grading on the railroad to the hundredth mile post is completed," the Champion stated. "These gentlemen have been at work on the road, with a large force of men, all summer." The Champion added to this report on December 11th --

"We learn that J. S. Fisk, with his clerk, John E. Rogers, and foremen Cartwright, Warren, Dinington, Early, Houston and Finity arrived in town last night from the end of the track, with the last of the grading forces....Mr. Fisk has had entire charge of the company's patent Excavators, five in number, during the season and managed them with great success, having excavated 160,000 cubic yards of earth during the past five months, at a cost of about one half what the work would have cost if excavated with the shovel....A large number of workmen are now engaged in putting up the Big Blue bridge, which...will be by far the finest structure of the kind in the state.

"The track is already laid to the Blue and, during the temporary delay occasioned by the raising of the immense bridge superstructure, the company teams will haul iron and ties ahead, so as to cause as little delay in track laying as possible. In a very few days, the government commissioners will be here to inspect the last section of the first 100 miles of this really first class road."

The first train reached Irving on December 22, 1867, according to a letter from Marshall County which stated: "Today at sunset, the locomotive crossed, for the first time, the bridge over the Big Blue River, and for the first time a train of cars came into Irving. The Irvingites are indescribably joyful over the event....The Irvingites claim that the bridge over the Blue is the best bridge west of the Mississippi...."

The railroad commissioners accepted the fifth section of the Central Branch U.P. Railroad in January 1868. At the same time, Kansas Governor S. J. Crawford reported the status of the state's railroads during his annual message to the legislature on January 14, 1868 --

"...In January 1865, there were but 40 miles of railroads completed in the state, and today we have 523 miles in successful operation, with an additional 100 miles graded and almost ready for the iron.

"The Union Pacific Railway, Eastern Division, running from Wyandotte west along the valleys of the Kansas and Smoky Hill rivers, has been completed to within 35 miles of the western boundary of the state, a distance of 335 miles....

"The Central Branch Union Pacific Railway, running west from the city of Atchison through a rich and fertile country to the Republican Valley, and thence in a northwesterly direction, intersecting the Pacific Railroad at or near the 100th meridian, is also being pushed forward rapidly. Ninety miles of the road are already completed and in running order, with a sufficiency of rolling stock for the accommodation of the public...." The governor then talked about other Kansas railroads.

The situation at Waterville was described in a January 18, 1868, letter to the Champion --

"...I drop you a few lines from this, the newest and best town yet started by this enterprising company. Major Gunn was here yesterday, arranging for laying off the town into lots and blocks. It is a beautiful site, lying on a gentle slope from the bluffs toward the Little Blue River, and exactly 100 miles from Atchison, the acknowledged railroad centre of Kansas, and the company have acquired title to about 600 acres....Already Mr. Frahm has a boarding house started....The company's head carpenter, the inevitable and irrepressible Bertram, is here with a large force of carpenters, finishing off the depot, 60 feet long, and will commence tomorrow upon the engine house, which is to be 60 feet in length....I hazard nothing in saying that, in one year from this date, Waterville will be one of the neatest little towns on the line of this road...."

"Glorious news" was the Atchison Daily Champion's headline of January 28, 1868, when it was announced that the Missouri River would be bridged and the Central Branch would be extended. Major Downs received a letter from Senator Pomeroy which stated that the U.S. Senate would give the Central Branch an additional government subsidy to carry it to the Platte River. Arrangements for bridging the Missouri River at Atchison had been made by the interested companies, this report added. The Champion editor enthusiastically added: "Atchison will be what nature, in fashioning this rich and prosperous land, designed her to be, the great city of the Missouri Valley, and the Railroad Centre of Kansas."

Major Downs wrote from New York in March 1868 that he had completed arrangements "to draw a large emigration to the lands belonging to the company." In addition to the tract in the Kickapoo Reserve, the company's land -- every alternate section for 10 miles on each side of the road to the hundredth mile post -- would be put on the market for sale to actual settlers. More than a half million acres were included.

So the Central Branch's prospects looked good, but the actual extension of the railroad wouldn't be easy.

Most importantly, while the Central Branch officials still hoped to build northwest and join the Union Pacific in Nebraska, much of the land farther west hadn't been settled. During October 1869, officials of another proposed railroad -- the Junction City, Solomon & Denver -- were accompanied by soldiers as they explored the Solomon Valley. They rode westward to Waconda Spring and the forks of the Solomon and ventured farther west along both forks of the Solomon, finding rich soil and ample grass but no towns or farmers.

Senator Ross accompanied this party as they visited Waconda Spring, then drilled the troops and spoke briefly. Describing the Solomon Valley west to that point, the senator said he had seen no valley in Kansas that was more extensive, more fertile, or more beautiful. The county was capable of supporting a large population, he added. ``The way to accomplish this result, and to settle the annoying and bloody Indian question, is to construct railroads through this valley,'' the Junction City Weekly Union quoted the senator as saying. Then some of the men, with a cavalry escort to protect them from Indians, rode west along the North Fork of the Solomon and also investigated the South Fork.

When the trip was finished, B. F. Mudge's detailed report was printed by the Junction City Weekly Union. It concluded: ``The object of our excursion was to examine the Solomon Valley as to its railroad facilities, and we hope to see the Junction City, Solomon & Denver Railroad completed in a few years. As a line for a railroad, it has no superior in our state.''

The next spring, in April 1870, Major Downs continued to promote the Central Branch Union Pacific's proposed route as running northwest from Waterville toward a junction with the Union Pacific line in Nebraska. A special Northern Kansas section in the April 1, 1870, issue of the Atchison Daily Champion included a map of the ``Great Homestead Area of Kansas and Nebraska.'' It pictured the Central Branch's proposed line as running northwest from Waterville across Washington and Republic counties, entering Nebraska in Jefferson County. The map issued by Major Downs showed ``present and prospective'' land grants and a homestead area of 6,400,000 acres of ``choice agricultural and stock lands'' that would be accessible via the proposed railroad. While this line didn't develop, that was the Major's goal early in 1870.

A month later, the dangerous nature of life along the Solomon River was demonstrated when Indians attacked the first white settlers near the forks of the Solomon. A man named S. S. Guffy survived a massacre of men working new claims near the mouth of Limestone Creek, where Glen Elder soon would be established. Guffy told his story to the editor of the Waterville Telegraph in May 1870, and the editor wrote:

``On the 9th (of May) a party of five -- Mr. Guffy among the number -- who have claims near the mouth of Lime Stone, were on the south side of the Solomon, unarmed, putting in corn, when a party of about 25 Indians attacked them from the opposite side. The settlers attempted to escape to their house, but a large party of the Indians intercepted and headed them off. Three of the men were killed while attempting to wade the Solomon; the other two escaping by crossing on a foot log. Being hotly pursued, they jumped off an embankment where the Indians, being on ponies, could not follow. They ran down the river about a mile to the house of Mr. Lucky; the Indians did not venture to pursue.''

The names of those killed were W. H. Kenyon, John Gear, and Solomon Miser. The two who escaped were S. S. Guffy and Hugh Nesbit. The next morning, six soldiers camped at Waconda Spring buried the three men who were killed.

About 20 miles farther west, according to the Waterville newspaper, buffalo hunters John Hatch and Lew Best beat off an attack by Indians. Other Indian attacks also were reported that spring of 1870 as the first white men established their claims in Mitchell and Osborne counties. So the grassy lands around the forks of the Solomon were sparsely settled and sometimes dangerous as white settlement began that year, but a flood of settlers soon arrived and the country filled with homes during the 1870's.

A citizen of Atchison during that era later recalled Major Downs as an "uplifter for Atchison and a great church worker'' who worked for the Sunday schools. It was in this role that Downs organized a summer train excursion for the children during the summer of 1871. He put together a train of two coaches and two flat cars for a train ride to the western part of Atchison County, where at the town of Muscotah the children enjoyed a picnic in a grove of trees.

At the time, as this observer recalled, the Central Branch owned only four passenger coaches -- two at the Atchison end to run west, and two at the Waterville end to make the trip to Atchison. So board seats were placed on the two flatcars, while the sides, ends and tops of the flatcars were staked and they were covered with tree branches. Five hundred Sunday school children rode the train.

"It took two engines to pull the train to Effingham,'' this observer recalled, "as it was uphill all the way and the Central Branch engine was very small and weak in the early days. The road had only six engines, numbers 1, 2, 3, 4, 5, and 6, and Number 6 was the switch engine....Major Downs rode in the cab of the head engine as far as Effingham. Then he got on the regular engine, as one engine could handle the train.

"Jim DeWitt, one of the old and trusty engineers, was at the throttle. He told afterwards that 15 miles an hour was the running time to Effingham, but he made up his mind to do some running from there to Muscotah, so he opened her wide out and, when he was hitting a 20-miles gait, Major Downs called over, 'Shut her off, Jim.' When he looked back, those old flatcars were bumping along the same as if they were running on rubber balls.''

The excursion flatcars were sidetracked at Muscotah and the balance of the train went on to Waterville. ``Five hundred Sunday school children never had a better time anywhere,'' the observer related. ``All kinds of eats, barrels of lemonade to drink, baseball, town ball, fishing, boating, and a war dance given by a tribe of sure-enough Indians.'' After the picnic, the cars were attached to the eastbound evening train for the return trip to Atchison.

``We got back to Atchison about 8:00 o'clock in the evening and hundreds of the parents were at the depot to meet the children. Trips on railroads were rare treats in those early days,'' this observer concluded. ``No accidents happened on the trip, and fathers, mothers, and children all joined in extending thanks to Major Downs for his kindness.''

The excursion demonstrates not only Major Downs work for the Sunday schools, but his ability to promote the railroad and call it to public attention. He would need all of these public relations skills to sell bonds and build the railroad westward during the coming years.

Downs mounted a major push to extend the line in 1872, when the voters of Cloud and Mitchell counties were asked to vote for bonds to build the Central Branch through their counties. As part of that effort, Downs distributed a newspaper called The Short-Line Advocate, which was issued from the office of what then was called the Atchison and Solomon Valley Railroad Company.

A vote was set in Cloud County in October 1872 for $100,000 in bonds, with the railroad to build to Clyde, Concordia, and two other points in the county. The voters of Mitchell County would decide in November 1872 whether to issue $100,00 in bonds to run the line to Beloit and four other points in Mitchell County.

``The Solomon Valley -- the counties west of Waterville -- are isolated,'' this publication stated. ``They cannot be reached except by a journey overland....Every year that passes without railroad connection is a year lost to the pioneer settlers of Washington, Cloud, and Mitchell counties.''

In dealing with the settlers who objected to voting bonds, the Short-Line Advocate stated: ``...No railroad ever was built through an unsettled country without aid from the government or from the counties through which it is built. Railroads may be built through old, thickly settled sections without aid, as the carrying trade of roads in such instances render the investment remunerative. But, where the construction requires the investment of money in an enterprise that will not pay until the country grows sufficiently to demand railroad facilities, capitalists will not be anxious to embark.''

A number of Eastern backers were among the men who incorporated the Atchison and Solomon Valley Railroad under Kansas law on September 10, 1872. The directors were listed as Ralph M. Pomeroy and Nathaniel Thayer of Boston, Mass.; along with New York men Effingham H. Nichols, Alfred S. Barnes, William C. Wetmore, Clement S. Parsons, Henry Day, John A. Stewart, and Calvin F. Barnes; and James N Burnes of Weston, Mo.; William F. Downs and Benjamin F. Stringfellow of Atchison; and Samuel C. Pomeroy of Atchison County.

They proposed to build from Waterville to a point at or near the towns of Cawker City and Wagonda in Mitchell County, with the railroad running through the counties of Marshall, Washington, Cloud, and Mitchell.

The promoters' newspaper, in promoting this extension, furnished some information about the status of the Central Branch in 1872. For one thing, a bridge across the Missouri River still hadn't been completed, but was expected soon. ``The bridge across the Missouri River at Atchison, when completed, will be one of the finest structures on the continent,'' the paper boasted. Visitors from farther west were invited to call at the company's office, No. 404, Commercial Street, ``and see the beautiful drawings of the work as it will appear when completed.'' The promoters stated optimistically: ``...with the bridge completed and the road built, cars can be run from New York City to the forks of the Solomon without breaking bulk.''

A story copied from the Beloit Gazette noted that the line across Mitchell County would cost less than $3,000 a mile. The editor noted that the same amount, $100,000, had been voted in the fall of 1871 by a large majority without any guarantee that the line would be built. ``The company were, for some cause, unable to build the line from Waterville west,'' he added. Now the case was different, he added, with the A&SV people saying the work positively would begin if the bonds were voted. He added that the new line would be controlled by some of the ablest corporations in the United States, ``being controlled by capitalists who own the Chicago & Southwestern and Chicago, Rock Island & Pacific railways.'' The bridge to connect with the East was being built across the Missouri River, he added.

The promoters explained that the bonds voted in 1871 by Washington, Cloud and Mitchell counties had never been printed and hadn't been authorized by the county commissioners. To clear up this misunderstanding, the line would sign a waiver against receiving the bonds from the former election.

This anticipated extension of the Central Branch also fell through, and it would be 1878 before the line actually reached Beloit, and 1879 before it was built to the forks of the Solomon.

A description of travel along the Central Branch during its early years was written by Mark Kelley, a pioneer editor in this area who started a newspaper at Washington, Kansas, in 1869, then founded the short-lived Osborne County Express in March 1872. Kelley edited several newspapers across this area during those early times. He wrote in his Edmond newspaper about an early trip on the fledgling railroad.

``Away back in the early days, when they were putting the grass on the face of this country, Dr. W. Scott, (along with) the writer, and two other gentlemen, Conductor Vessey, two brakemen, the baggage master, engineer and fireman constituted the human freight on a Central Branch passenger train <197> the train consisting of two coaches and a baggage and express car combined.

In the baggage car was one trunk, a grip or two, two express packages, and the mail for the entire Central Branch country. The mail had all been put up in the Atchison post office: that belonging to each town, or station, being in a pouch by itself and marked.

``The work of the baggageman was to throw these pouches off at the proper stations on the out-west trip, and receive them the next day as the train wended its way back to the (Missouri) river.

``More mail is now received in the Edmond office in one day than was handled in an entire week over the Branch in those days. On the trip spoken of above, arriving at Waterville <197> the end of the road <197> the postmaster of the town, George Hutt, was at the depot to receive the mail pouch and we walked over to the post office with Mr. Hutt to see the mail opened in hopes of getting a letter from the east.

``George opened the sack with the dignity becoming a man holding so important an official position, and emptied the contents out upon a table. Our hopes were dashed to the ground, for there lay before us three letters, two small packages of the Atchison Daily Champion, and a single copy of the Leavenworth Daily Times.

``Two of the letters were for Washington (Kansas) and one package of the Champion, containing two papers, one for us and one for Captain Rockefeller...the copy of the Leavenworth Times was also for the writer and addressed to Washington.

``At that point, Waterville was not half so large as Edmond is today and the city of Washington (Kansas) was composed of nine sorry looking shanties. There was no mail route west of Waterville, the mail being sent back and forth between Waterville and Washington as opportunity offered and the postmasters felt disposed to trust the traveler.

``On this occasion, we took charge of the mail pouch <197> an old gunny sack <197> and the next morning, perched on top of a load of salt barrels, started for Washington, where we arrived late in the afternoon and delivered the mail at the post office to be distributed to the expectant populace, feeling that we had done the public an important service.

``In those days, the Indians used to come down and menace the sparsely settled districts of Washington and Republic counties and the buffalo roamed all over that region at his own sweet will....''

But all that changed during the decade of the 1870's as the country west of Waterville filled up with settlers and many small, new towns were built. Beloit was established in 1870, the same year that Cawker City was located and that the first settlers came to Osborne County to stay. By the time the Central Branch reached Beloit in 1878, the newly settled farmers in Osborne County also wanted a direct connection with railroads and towns to the east.

It was during the Central Branch's push into this country that Major Downs issued another edition of The Short Line Advocate on April 21, 1879. This was the third such Advocate printed, and this one referred to the local railroad as the Atchison & Denver Railway Company. Bonds along the proposed North Fork already had been voted by the residents of the Smith County townships of Houston ($15,000) and Harvey ($12,000), and by Kirwin Township in Phillips County ($18,000). The railroad company asked voters to approve bonds in the Osborne County townships of Penn ($20,000), Tilden ($12,000) and Sumner ($15,000) so that it could extend to Osborne, Bloomington and Bull City along the South Fork.

The Concordia Empire reported that contracts had been let for these extensions: ``One line from Cawker City up the north fork of the Solomon to Kirwin; another from a point seven miles west of Cawker up the south fork to Bull City, Osborne County; and a third from Scandia to White Rock -- in all 107 miles.''

The railroad had been extended west from Concordia during the previous summer of 1878, another article in the Advocate noted.

The new company called the Atchison & Denver Railway Company was organized under Kansas law. It was authorized to build railroad lines from a connection with the Atchison, Solomon Valley & Denver Railway, at or near Cawker City, along both the North and South Solomon rivers, to the west state line of Kansas in the direction of Denver.

The organizers stated that this organization ``followed precisely'' the plans adopted in operating the Waterville & Washington R.R.; the Republican Valley Railway; the Atchison, Solomon Valley & Denver; and the Atchison, Republican Valley & Pacific...which had constructed about 100 miles of line.

The directors of this new Atchison & Denver Railway included Boston residents R. M. Pomeroy and Oliver Ames; New Yorkers A. S. Barnes, Henry Day, Eff'n. H. Nichols, C. S. Parsons, and W. C. Wetmore; and W. F. Downs of Atchison, A. Parker of Cawker, W. T. S. May and A. G. McBride of Kirwin, A. Saxey of Osborne, and E. F. Randall of Stockton. The officers were Pomeroy, president; May, secretary; Downs, general manager; and H. L. Marvin, engineer.

The Short Line Advocate listed the Central Branch construction companies as the Waterville & Washington; the Republican Valley; the Atchison, Solomon Valley & Denver; the Atchison, Republican Valley & Pacific; and the Atchison & Denver.

``Their operations during the past two years have resulted in the extension of the old line to more than double its former length, and in giving the four counties of Washington, Republic, Cloud and Mitchell -- and a large number of the adjacent counties in Kansas and Nebraska -- direct transportation facilities to the best markets in the country, and through direct railroad connection by the short-line routes to all sections of the East,'' the Advocate stated.

This cost nearly $1,500,000, with only $166,000 of county and township bonds being issued to aid the construction, the paper added. The builders said they were on a ``strictly cash basis'' with no debt or obligation remaining unadjusted.

``To Capt. H. L. Marvin, the engineer of construction -- who has so faithfully, industriously and acceptable performed the responsible duties which have devolved upon him during the period of the construction operations since leaving Waterville -- special credit is due...,'' the Advocate stated.

The iron horse was expected to arrive at Cawker City in May 1879. ``Its entry into Mitchell County has been the signal for a flood of immigration that is without parallel in the history of the Northwest,'' the Atchison Patriot stated. The ``once miniature road of a hundred miles has increased in extent, in traffic and importance until it has taken rank amongst the most extensive lines of the West....We doubt not its final ultimatum. That it will eventually, and at no distant day, connect Atchison with the Queen City of Colorado....''

The Concordia Expositor reported that 315 final proofs were made on Cloud County land from March 1, 1878, to March 1, 1879. ``There are 50,000 acres of government land taxable this year more than there were last,'' the newspaper added. ``The extension of the railroad from Concordia west last summer gives this county about $75,000 more assessed valuation....''

``Since leaving Waterville, the business of the road has doubled six times,'' the Atchison Champion stated. ``...The best inland towns in Kansas have been opened up beyond Waterville, and Cawker City promises to be the best of all....''

@BODY INITIAL = O<B>LIVER DENTON'S <D>grain warehouse was one of the first businesses in Downs, built during the new town's first bustling summer of 1879. During the next decade, he was an active dealer in grain and livestock here, and dealt largely in sheep.

The town was only five weeks old when a visiting newspaperman described it in mid-August 1879. The visitor wrote that the town was full of strange faces, and property was changing hands rapidly. People were running here and there in the rude new town of Downs, and many were rushing new buildings to completion <197> with 35 structures either completed or nearly done.

Amid the heaps of building materials that were scattered in all directions, Denton had arrived from Beloit and was building a grain warehouse, the visitor wrote. Another warehouse was being built by an Atchison man.

When the Nicklin brothers arrived the next March to start the Downs Times, their first issue of Feb. 19, 1880, listed Denton among the town's five councilmen. In early March, the Times reported that "Denton Brothers have shipped over 50 carloads of wheat from this place during the past four days."

So the new rail line was providing a Downs market for the farmers' crops, and during his first year here Denton began dealing in sheep.

Times Editor Tom Nicklin wrote in November 1880:

"Oliver Denton has a large flock of fine sheep. Farmers generally would be better off if they turned their attention more to sheep, hogs and cattle. Although this is the best grain country in the world, stock pays the best."

Denton shipped about 400 sheep to Chicago in late February 1881, and had nearly a thousand to ship, the Times reported. He accompanied the shipment, arriving back in Downs in early March to report that he had done "reasonably well."

Denton's advertisement in the Times that spring stated that he was a dealer in "all kinds of coal, grain and stock."

When the Atchison Champion published a sketch about Downs in December 1884, it noted that Downs was the headquarters of the "extensive grain firm" of Greenleaf & Baker, "now buying grain at several Central Branch points." Denton's business was described as "O. Denton, the old standby of Downs, largely engaged in the grain trade here as well as several other places."

New competition emerged in the Downs grain business when the Farmers' Alliance built an elevator in the fall of 1885. Its capacity was about 20 carloads, and its elevating machinery was run by horsepower.

We don't read much about Denton's business until 1889, when the local newspapers began to report his activities in more detail.

The Downs Times editor, E. D. Craft, wrote in early June 1889: "O. Denton is traveling through Colorado and other Western states, visiting the large sheep ranches with the view of getting together a flock to bring home with him. When he last wrote, he was in Salt Lake City, which he describes as the prettiest place he ever saw."

The Downs Globe reported later in June that "O. Denton returned Sunday from Utah, where he had been to buy sheep. He purchased 13,000 head and will ship them here in the fall."

In July, Denton and George Cragin left for Utah, "where Mr. Denton goes to purchase ...sheep. George goes to look over the country and to rough it for three or four weeks." When they arrived home in mid-August, the Chief reported that Denton had bought 13,000 sheep.

"They traveled by wagon and horseback about 300 miles, lived on bacon, beans and sagebrush, and returned looking as well as two men could, coming from a Mormon country," Editor W. H. Whitmore of the Chief wrote. "George says three weeks of roughing it will last him a lifetime."

The Times added that Denton had divided his sheep into two flocks, and they were journeying eastward at the rate of six or eight miles a day.

"Mr. Denton saw them across the summit, which is considered the most dangerous part of the journey, on account of the scarcity of food and water. Having employed eight men to care for them, he thinks they will arrive in good shape some time this fall."

The Times published a special section for the July 1889 celebration that described all of the town's businesses. They wrote this about Denton:

"O. Denton is the pioneer grain and stock buyer of Downs. He located in...1879 and built his office and elevator, which has a capacity of 5,000 bushels, at the corner of the Howell lumber yard, in a wilderness of cornstalks and sunflowers.

"In 1883, A. M. Crum, Mr. Denton's brother-in-law, arrived from Iowa, and has since been associated with him in business, as Mr. Denton's extensive shipping interests require the most of his time on the road. He makes a specialty of buying, feeding and shipping sheep; and at present has a drove of 4,000 pasturing in Utah Territory."

Denton went to Cheyenne, Wyo., in early October to look after his herd of sheep. Returning a few days later, he said that 237 of the animals were killed by the rail cars in a cut near Cheyenne.

Local farmers raised a great crop of corn during that year of 1889, but the price was so low that Editor Whitmore said they would burn it for fuel instead of using coal, which was relatively expensive.

With corn so plentiful and cheap, Denton built a corn crib 12 feet high and 100 feet long. In mid-November 1889, nineteen carloads of sheep belonging to Denton and a man named W. W. Means arrived at Lenora on an extra train, with several more trainloads to follow.

The Chief reported that 4,000 head were brought to Downs, while the balance of the 12,000 would be sent to Yuma and Scandia.

"These sheep will be fed at the three places this winter and in the spring (will be) shipped to Chicago," the Chief reported. "Mr. Denton estimates that it will take <197> to feed the 4,000 here <197> 15,000 bushels of corn, 2,000 bushels of oats, and 300 tons of hay."

Editor Ben Baker of the Downs Globe added that Denton sent 2,000 sheep to Scandia, with the local flock to be fed at Denton's farm east of Downs. "They are in excellent condition for wintering," Editor Baker wrote.

"When Mr. Denton purchased his big herd of sheep in Utah last summer," Baker added, "he bought a pair of fine pet goats for his son Penn. They are fine specimens and are also quite valuable."

Early in December, D. R. K. Hull took his large horse-power sheller to Denton's crib and was shelling about 1,000 bushels of corn a day.

Denton's business was not limited to sheep, and an occasional news item told of his other dealings. In mid-December 1889, he shipped a carload of hogs. In January 1890, he bought two carloads of cattle from L. G. Stone and shipped them to Kansas City.

As January arrived, Denton had another large corn crib built near his elevator. He had 30,000 bushels of corn then, 10,000 bushels of which was piled on the ground.

The Globe noted in late January 1890 that Denton's large flock here was "going through the winter in fine shape, the recent cold weather not affecting them in the least."

Denton accompanied a carload of cattle to Kansas City as January ended. The three Downs newspapers, which hadn't had much to say about their local dealer earlier, were reporting his every move. The Times wrote in early February:

"J. M. Kepple, whose ranch is situated about 14 miles south of Downs, sold to O. Denton last Monday 55 fat steers which weighed 75,875 pounds and brought him the neat sum of $3,014.20."

Then, as March arrived, the sheep were ready for market. The Globe reported March 15th that Denton shipped eight carloads from Downs and five carloads from Scandia to the market in Chicago. Several shipments of Denton's sheep were noted by the Downs newspapers during that period. He accompanied the sheep to market.

Denton returned from Chicago in late April 1890, where he had sold a trainload of sheep, the Chief reported, and would leave soon for Utah to buy sheep for the new season. He arrived home again in late June after purchasing about 14,000 sheep, reporting a pleasant trip during his six-week absence.

They would be "driven to this point to be wintered and prepared for the Chicago market, the same as last year," the Times added.

Denton returned to Utah for a month that summer, according to a mid-August report by the Chief, to "look after his sheep that are on their way east. They are now in Wyoming, but ...sheep do not drive very fast."

Denton again took a train to Cheyenne, Wyoming, in late September to look after his herd, expecting to be gone three weeks.

This area was in the midst of a farm crisis that year, as the Farmers Alliance organized local chapters and tried to do something about the hard conditions on farms.

As December 1890 arrived, 4,500 of Denton's sheep arrived on a special train and were driven to a ranch on the river here, the Times noted. Another 2,000 were on the range at Lenora, awaiting shipment.

"These sheep, together with 6,500 purchased by W. W. Means of Yuma, were started from southern Utah in June and were not boarded on cars until they reached Lenora," the Times reported. "Mr. Denton will fatten them for Chicago market in March or April." In December, Denton moved corn from his elevator to his sheep ranch east of town.

The sheep were dipped after their arrival, and Denton hired John Rathbun's traction engine to power a mill which was grinding ear corn at the rate of 30 bushels an hour.

"Mr. Denton reports the experiment of feeding ground corn and cob a success as the large herd of sheep is fattening finely on this feed," the Times noted. In mid-February 1891, Denton shipped in 4,500 bushels of corn that he had stored at Harlan, and the mill was grinding almost continually.

The hard times continued here and the Bank of Downs failed in January of 1891, but Denton seemed to be doing all right with his sheep. As March arrived, it was time to ship his animals to market.

The Chief reported March 5th that he had shipped eight double-deck carloads of sheep to Chicago the previous Friday. Denton accompanied the shipment and took W. F. Henry and James Worley along to help care for the animals.

Returning from Chicago, Denton said he used the Chicago, St. Paul and Kansas City railroad. They made the run from St. Joseph, Mo., to Chicago in 26 hours and he said this was the quickest run he had made. Another 10 carloads of sheep went to market in early April over this same Maple Leaf route.

As April 1891 drew to a close, Denton still had 1,800 sheep at Downs and hired C. D. Brown and Chas. Oldson to shear them. The animals yielded six and a half pounds of wool to the head, which the Chief said would bring Denton "the neat little sum of $2,500."

The sheep shipments ended in late May when the final eight carloads went to Chicago by train. The Chief stated that Denton had shipped 14,000 head that spring. In early June, a carload of wool was shipped to Boston, Mass.

Of this late May shipment, the Times said: "Denton's train of sheep pulled out Saturday evening about 6:00 o'clock. It was composed of eight double-deck cars and contained 1,810 sheep. Averaging fat sheep at $6 per head, the load would bring $10,860."

It is difficult to translate that into present-day dollars. However, when comparing prices then with today's prices, it can conservatively be said that $1 in 1891 would buy the same goods and services that $10, or perhaps $20, would buy today.

Denton also had hogs, because the Times added that "Denton's hog lot became such a slough of mud from the rains that Al Crum was compelled to move the pigs over to the railroad stock yards."

Meanwhile, Denton found time to take part in local affairs, as he was elected to the Downs city council at the April election.

During that summer of 1891, Denton put men to work tearing down his old grain house and he hired carpenters S. K. St. Clair and Mills to erect a new elevator in its place. The new facility would be equipped with a "self dump and all of the modern improvements," the Chief reported. The new elevator was 26 by 40 feet and 34 feet high with a capacity of 10,000 bushels of grain.

Rock for the elevator's foundation was bought from C. M. Forline and S. T. Kindley, and teams of horses were excavating for the dump. By late July, the elevator's machinery was placed in the new facility, and a horse was hitched to a horsepower so a test could be made. A wooden structure was added to enclose the horsepower.

But Denton hadn't quit the sheep business, because he took a train for the West in early September to buy several thousand head of sheep. He returned from New Mexico in September and said he had bought sheep there.

Then Oliver Denton left Downs in October 1891, moving to Leavenworth to associate himself with his brother's grain business there. Bidding the Dentons farewell, Chief Editor Whitmore wrote:

"For many years (actually the 12 years since Downs was founded), they have been residents of Downs, and have gathered about them scores of warm friends who are sorry to see them leave. They were good citizens and their loss will be keenly felt by our people...."

Of course, Denton continued to be a busy man. A November report noted that he stopped in Downs, and added: "He is on the road all the time now, buying grain. Last week, he bought 400 carloads of corn."

The grain also was flowing into the Downs elevators during December

of 1891, and the Times noted that manager W. A. Hopper at the Downs

Elevator Company was "handling an immense quantity of grain." The

Times added that Denton's new elevator also was busy <197>

"O. Denton & Co. are getting a nice slice of the grain business at this point. H. C. Strohm, their agent, knows well his business and, as a consequence, gets his share of the grain coming in range."

Thus one of Downs' founding businessmen was gone. Like others among the first businessmen here, he had moved on to greener pastures after apparently accumulating a tidy nest egg in this new country.

@HEAD 30 = Tragedy struck often during

@HEAD 30 = early days of Central Branch

@BODY INITIAL = R<B>AILROAD TRAINS<D> were large and dangerous machines, even during the early years of Downs railroading prior to the arrival of the really huge locomotives. Sizable drive wheels, powered by a large steam engine, drove the heavy iron locomotives, and they pulled long strings of heavy freight cars with dangerous wheels and couplings.

When a railroader made a mistake <197> or when the trains left the track <197> the weight and force of these monsters, and the boiling water and steam, could kill, scald and mangle the people who were running the train, or those who were riding on it.

So it happened when ill-fated Engine 162 went through the Granite Creek bridge about 10 miles east of here during the early hours of Aug. 3, 1882. Engineer Brit Craft was found at the bottom of the creek, sitting in two feet of the hot water that had spilled from the engine's boiler, surrounded by hot steam, and he was scalded. The fireman suffered a like fate.

Only a month and a half later, on Sept. 23, 1882, brakeman N. M. Hardman died in the Downs railroad yards when he fell from the top of a boxcar, landing between two cars with his neck broken. His body was run over by two cars. Both of these tragedies are described in separate stories.

@BULLET = Mere man stood no chance when he tangled with these monsters,

and yet railroaders sometimes tempted fate, according to a Times article

written by Paul Ward only a month after Hardman died <197>

"Why do the train men of this place persist in endangering life and limb by their foolhardy carelessness? Pause a moment and watch one who is about to operate a switch.

"The engine is backing down on him at about the same rate of speed displayed by a wild goose on the bosom of a cyclone; the switch is but a few rods distant and he could easily reach it by a little pedestrial exercise, but that would never do. It isn't customary, and so he stands in the middle of the track with an air of placid indifference that is beautiful to behold, and when the locomotive gets within six inches of him, he gracefully lifts his off leg and 'catches on.'

"He rides about twenty feet and then jumps off and runs ahead and throws the switch. Perhaps he is tired, born so, probably, and that ride of a few seconds enables him to rest just that long. Perhaps he wants to fill the hearts of the bystanders with awe and amazement, and show them that he is an old hand at the business and thinks no more of risking his life than he would of taking a chew of fine-cut tobacco.

"Be that as it may, it is certainly a piece of foolish carelessness that no sensible man ought to be guilty of. All train men indulge in this pleasant little habit, more or less, and appear to think it strange that the average outsider's hair stands erect like the 'quills of the fretful porcupine' as he witnesses it.

"Some men pursue this course for ten or twenty years; they may even carry it on for a greater length of time than that, but just as sure as the place for a liver pad is on the back of a consumptive; just as sure as the toy pistol will use up the boy who handles it, just so sure will that train man eventually fail to lift his foot within half an inch of the right height, and then his friends will hunt around and gather up his remains in a bushel basket and plant them in the grassy cemetery where the daisies and cockle burrs grow.

"And the man who is appointed to fill his place on the road will go on doing the same thing, with the same recklessness that is characteristic of his profession. Such is life on a railroad."

Some of the railroaders who read Ward's article probably didn't like it, and most of them probably treated the dangerous trains with respect. Several of the local engineers established long records without a mishap.

But the lives of the brakemen were in jeopardy every time they connected two of those early freight cars together. The same Downs Times editor who printed Ward's observations noted:

"The favorite mode of death among railroad employees now seems to be by means of the car coupler...." During these early days, a brakeman had to reach between the cars and place a pin in the coupling. One slip and he was injured or killed.

A comment by a man signing himself B.W.D. was printed in the Times during the fall of 1882: "Time has been, to be no more, when the average boy looked forward with glowing anticipation to the day when he might hope to be a brakeman and wear a badge on his cap, to ride for nothing and earn a salary, to draw $50 per month and ride all the time....

"They learn of the dangers and hardships to be encountered on the 'two streaks of rust and right of way.' Many hours of hard riding and handling freight or baggage, then a slip under the remorseless wheels, bringing untold grief and tears to the friends at home.

"Boys, stick to the farm. Railroading is hard on a man...."

Only a few months had passed when 33-year-old brakeman William H. Burns died at the Commercial House in Downs from injuries he suffered in an accident. He slipped and fell under the wheels of a railroad car and three toes were cut off.

Burns was taken to the local hotel and placed under the care of Doctor Poole. A fourth toe was amputated. The wounds weren't sufficient to endanger his life, the Times reported, but he was in "very delicate health" from previous sickness and his constitution couldn't stand much shock.

His uncle, Superintendent Fagan, came here from Atchison with two doctors. The injured man lived two weeks, with friends standing by him "from first to last," and then life passed from him. He had worked as a fireman until sickness compelled him to quit that hard-working job, and then for several months he worked as a brakeman on the North Branch. His remains were taken to his parents' home in Ohio for interment.

Editor George Dougherty commented in the Times that week: "From the life of a brakeman on a freight train, with its attendant danger, we hope to be forever free. We would rather be a newspaper man, live on 'wind,' work twenty hours a day trying to please the people, and then stand in constant danger of receiving a thrashing...."

Another brakeman, William Thomas, died in early October 1883 when he was run over by the cars near Gaylord. The train was headed east toward Downs and the last time Thomas was seen alive was when the train left Gaylord. The train didn't do much switching at Harlan, and his absence wasn't noticed until the train reached Portis.

Telegrams to Harlan and Portis found no trace of Thomas, so the engine was uncoupled and the train men went back up the line to search. They found his mangled body two miles east of Gaylord. He evidently had fallen from the top of a car face downward, and the body was cut in two on the rails.

The Times noted that the tragedy was double distressing because his wife of three months was sick in bed. She was the niece of Allen Huff, who was killed by railroad cars a month earlier, and the shock to her was great.

Another brakeman escaped with lesser injury a couple of weeks later. One of John Horn's fingers was cut off while he was coupling cars near Cawker City.

In February of 1884, a brakeman on the North Branch named Wash Wands suffered a mashed finger while coupling cars. "They all come to this sometime, if they stick to braking long enough," the editor commented.

Sometimes a wreck was caused by malice, as was the case in April 1884. A special engine and caboose headed west out of Downs along the North Branch en route to Cedarville to pick up several loads of livestock. The engine, tender and caboose jumped the track about four miles west of here, tearing up the track.

Although the embankment was 40 feet high there, then engine didn't go over the edge, and no one was hurt. Train men found that an obstruction had been placed on the track, evidently with the intention of ditching the night express.

"Had that train (the night express) struck it, there would no doubt have been another Granite Creek disaster," the editor wrote. "Some person undoubtedly intended to wreck the passenger train, and no punishment could be too severe for such a fiend." The culprit evidently wasn't found, as no further report was printed.

A brakeman was injured in August 1884 while working in the Downs yards. This man, named Beattie, had commenced work that morning and was caught between two cars and badly squeezed. He became unconscious and unfortunately wasn't noticed by the other train men for about five minutes. The injured man was taken to the Howell House and tended by a doctor. Within two days, he had recovered sufficiently to return home to Wyandotte.

Twelve trains arrived in Downs every day during that period, and the railroad yards were a lively, dangerous place.

A young brakeman named John Curley was killed Sept. 8, 1884, in the Downs yards. Curley was coupling cars to make up a train when his foot caught between a rail and a guard rail. He was thrown under the wheels, which ran over his lower limbs and the lower part of his body. He was taken to a local hotel and two local doctors were summoned, but he died within an hour without losing consciousness.

Curley was 17 years of age and had worked on the road for some time, the obituary stated. His parents lived at Kirwin and rushed to Downs on a hand car from Cedarville. They took their son home for burial, and in his memory the trains were draped with emblems of mourning.

A brakeman named Richard Neughes died at Baileyville in November 1884 while making a flying switch. His coat caught and he was thrown under the train.

Brakeman Wm. Clark was killed at Randall in December 1884 while coupling cars on the Jewell Branch. He fell and caught his right leg, which was crushed and almost severed from his body, and he died two days later.

In February 1885, three horses almost wrecked the westbound mail train as it passed over the bridge at Granite Creek, in the same locality where engineer Brit Craft and his fireman died. The locomotive hit the three horses and its front wheels were thrown from the track, but the Times said a serious wreck was miraculously averted.

@BULLET = But a tragic accident brought death to an elderly Downs pedestrian in July of 1885 when he was walking across the Morgan Avenue railroad tracks and a switch engine ran over him.

The victim, Wm. Garner, was 69 years of age and was one of Downs' respected citizens. The locomotive had finished its switching and was backing toward the upper end of the yards as Garner and a friend walked northward on the east side of Morgan Avenue about 8:00 o'clock on a Saturday evening.

The friend stopped for the engine, thinking that Garner would do likewise. But Garner was somewhat deaf and his eyesight was poor, so he continued onto the track. A man on the depot platform called for him to jump, and Garner turned to see what was wrong. The fireman saw Garner and called to him, and the engineer stopped as quickly as possible.

However, the engine struck his back, knocked him down, and the wheels ran over his legs, arms and head, causing instantaneous death.

Another accident that same week could have been serious. The North Branch passenger train was running west along the line when the engine fell through a washed-out bridge, but in this case no one was hurt.

So the railroaders working in and out of Downs had been shocked over and over by this string of tragic fatalities during the first half dozen years that the local lines were used. How did the Central Branch and its employees respond? The news of daily events gives us little insight into the men's attempts to work more safely but, for whatever reasons, the accidents became fewer and less severe for several years.

Even heavy baggage could be a problem. In February 1886, baggageman George Garner, working on a South Fork train, stained his back while lifting the grand piano of famous traveling pianist Blind Boone. The injury laid him up and prevented him from making the run for several days.

Six cars of a westbound freight jumped the track in April 1886 a few miles east of Beloit. The cars were loaded with merchandise and left the track while going around a curve.

When a freight from the east neared Downs in June 1886, the engineer saw something on the track and stopped his train. Crossties had been piled there to wreck the train.

A passenger train was traveling east near Densmore in January 1887 when a broken rail threw the baggage car and coach from the track and 30 feet down an embankment, rolling the cars onto their side. The 12 passengers were shaken, but not seriously hurt. The baggageman, Tom Stark, was in the car and was pitched about but was unhurt.

A boy named Billie Tomlinson was killed in the Clyde yards during April 1888 while trying to pass between two moving cars. He fell between them and both legs were cut off. He lived six hours before dying in great agony. "This should be a warning to many of the boys of this city who are in the habit of jumping onto moving trains in the yard here," the Chief editor warned.

A brakeman named Sullivan was injured while coupling cars at Osborne in October 1888. He was caught between two cars and a three-inch iron bolt ran through his arm just below the elbow. He was brought to Downs on the passenger train and was sent to the railroad hospital at Sedalia, Mo.

In addition to their own safety problems, the railroaders continued to be bedeviled by small boys who gathered at the Downs crossings when trains came into town or switched cars in the yards.

This kept the railroad men constantly on the watch for fear of running over such boys, the Times editor wrote in 1889. "One reckless little fellow dodged under one of the cars a few nights ago....If they had started the train at that instant, nothing could have prevented his being cut to pieces." While the boys' antics were a worry, no local boys were reported hurt by the trains here.

Even shoveling coal could be fatal. Word reached here in January 1889 that E. J. Gay fell from an elevated track at the Greenleaf coal chutes while filling the dumps. He evidently missed his footing in the darkness and fell onto the lower track. He never regained consciousness and died a few days later at the age of 57, the Globe stated.

@BULLET = On rare occasions, a dangerous tramp slipped aboard a train. That was the situation that confronted the crew of a west-bound freight when they found an armed hobo in March 1889. The rear brakeman, Will Owen, saw the suspicious-looking character near the train as they pulled out of Concordia, and found the man in a lumber car when they reached Beloit.

"The fellow said he had no money and wanted to ride to this place," Editor Ben Baker of the Downs Globe reported, "and was told he could not do so, whereupon he climbed out of the car. On the way from Solomon Rapids to Glen Elder, he was found on the train again and the train halted to have him get off." Owen entered the car and told Mr. Tramp to get off, at which point the hobo pulled out a six-shooter. Owen said it looked like a cannon. The tramp refused to leave, and Owen was in no mood to argue, so returned to the caboose and told conductor Vickery the situation. The trainmen secured a .44-caliber six-shooter and went after the tramp, who in the meantime jumped from the train and started across country.

When told to stop, the tramp turned and commenced to shoot," the Globe added, "tearing up the ground all around where both men stood. Several shots were fired by both parties, evidently without effect, as the tramp kept making away as fast as possible.

"Will says it was the first time he had ever looked straight into one of those things, and a person who never had the pleasure greatly underestimates the amount of solemnity attached to an occasion of that character."

Washouts worried railroaders whenever heavy rains fell. When the hardest rain of the season fell in July 1889, Conductor Hansen and his brakeman waded ahead of their train to look for washouts between Lenora and Marvin.

Loose cattle also created problems, such as an August night in 1889 when five head of cattle were killed by the passenger engine at Oak Creek, 2.5 miles east of Downs. This didn't damage the train much.

Brakeman F. W. Burton of Atchison lost a foot while trying to make a coupling at Solomon Rapids in November 1889. He had been braking on the middle division freight only a short time when the crew pulled out of Downs about 6:00 on a Tuesday evening. While the train was switching in the yard at Solomon Rapids, Burton stepped on an ear of corn and was thrown in the path of backing rail cars. He threw his body outside the track, and the wheels passed over his right foot at the instep, crushing it into a shapeless mass. The injured man was brought to Downs on a passenger train and Dr. J. G. Poole, assisted by three other doctors, amputated the foot at the ankle. A few days later, Burton was taken by special coach to the Missouri Pacific hospital at Kansas City, accompanied by Dr. Poole and two attendants. The leg was re-amputated in January 1890.

A frightening accident just west of Logan involved seven horses that were hit by a west-bound train late in November 1889. The animals ran in front of the locomotive until they came to a bridge 30 feet long, where they fell through the cross-ties and were run over.

"The front trucks of the engine were thrown from the track and ran on the ties nearly the length of the train," the Times reported. "The accident caused a delay of only about 40 minutes, but in describing it the train men say their caps were elevated several inches (from their hair standing on end)."

A narrow escape was witnessed by many people at the depot in early February 1890, just as the passenger train was ready to pull out for Atchison. An emigrant wagon crossed the track a few feet from the train, with the owner walking alongside the horses and a lady driving. The brakeman let off the train's air, making a deafening racket that frightened the horses into a run. They ran over an eight-year-old boy who was riding a velocipede at the side of the street. The boy was carried to the depot, where an examination revealed that he wasn't seriously hurt but was badly frightened. "The velocipede was bent and twisted all out of shape, and how the boy escaped being reduced to pulp is a mystery," the Chief stated.

One of the worst wrecks ever seen on the road was mentioned by the Chief in March 1890. Two freight trains crashed together between Corning and Centralia, and both engines were demolished. An eyewitness told the editor that freight cars were piled upon each other to a height of 20 feet, but no more details were given. The Missouri Pacific discharged the station agents at Corning and Centralia because of this accident. They proved that the Centralia agent hadn't delivered a dispatch in his possession, and that the Corning agent left his office without notifying the train dispatcher.

Some of the engines had as many lives as a cat. In April 1890, the locomotive that Brit Craft was running when he died almost two decades earlier (No. 162) was overhauled at the Downs shops and looked like new. Engineer Wm. Duden was operating No. 162 at that time.

In an effort to improve the safety of Central Branch trains, General Superintendent Dickinson had this notice posted at the Downs roundhouse in July 1890: "Any conductor, trainman, engineer, fireman, switchman, or other employees who are known to habitually use intoxicating liquors, either while on or off duty, when such fact is proven, will be promptly and permanently discharged from the service of the company."

Brakeman Burton, who lost a foot the previous November, returned to braking on the North Branch passenger train in July 1890. "He has an artificial foot and gets about as well as anyone," the Chief stated.

The new Downs freight depot burned to the ground in late July 1890. As the fire alarm pealed and the hose cart rushed to the scene, conductor George Collins demonstrated that he still could handled a locomotive. Collins mounted the switch engine and rushed to the freight house to pull a string of cars away from the building.

A Central Branch passenger train hit a horse-drawn wagon near Glen Elder in August 1890, injuring Wm. and Fayette Alvord. They were crossing the track when the engine hit their wagon, throwing them out and piling the wrecked vehicle on top of them. The two were badly bruised, the report said. When engineer Shippee saw the outfit crossing the tracks, he turned on the air brakes, but was too close to stop in time. Shippee said the team of horses crossed the track and stopped, but the man and boy didn't have time to jump to safety.

The eastbound passenger train wrecked at Corning in March 1891 when the tender jumped the track. One person was injured and the westbound passenger was delayed about 10 hours, the Chief reported.

The Chief noted in May 1891 that the Master Car Builders' Association had adopted a standard automatic coupler in October 1887 after a series of tests. This was applied by railways controlling 71,811 miles of road to 702,443 freight cars, or about 60 percent of the freight cars in the U.S. The number of cars so equipped numbered about 123,000 in 1891, the Chief added. "These figures show beyond a doubt that the old link and pin coupler will have to go," Editor Walt Whitmore wrote. "The Interstate Commerce Commission reported, for the year ending June 30, 1889, no less than 300 deaths and 5,757 injuries among railway employees while coupling cars."

@BULLET = During that spring of 1891, problems continued for brakeman Burton, who earlier had lost a foot when it was crushed. When his foot was amputated at Downs, it was placed in a box and buried. For several months, Burton complained that the second toe was binding the first toe on the amputated foot. He talked about this so much that in 1891 the foot was dug up. "...Upon examination, the second toe was found to be lapped over the big toe," the Chief reported. "When the men were taking up the box, they asked Frank in what manner his toes seemed to be cramped, and he explained to them the very position in which they found it."

The prompt action of two young girls averted a serious accident just west of Edmond on the North Branch, the Chief reported in May 1891. A tremendous rainstorm filled the creeks to overflowing, and the railroad bridge across Sand Creek was swept away, leaving nothing but the rails suspended above the creek. The westbound freight was approaching with conductor Crimmins in charge and engineer Tunnicliff at the throttle.

"Farmer Williams' two daughters saw the bridge swept away, and heard the train coming in the distance," the Chief reported. "They ran to the railroad and down the track just as the train came around a curve, not 200 yards from the creek. They took off their aprons and waved them. Engineer Tunnicliff whistled for brakes and brought the train to a standstill within a few feet of the creek. But for these two girls, the train would have plunged into the bottom of that creek."

A serious wreck occurred in September 1891 at the Solomon Rapids station west of Beloit. A westbound extra train in charge of conductor Wade, with Jake Wellman running the engine, struck a boxcar that had blown from the switch onto the main track. "The engine flew the track and started for the river, and on its way hit the depot and moved it half way around," the Chief reported. "The boxcar, accompanied by five or six others, built a pyramid nearby, while one car tore the side out of an elevator. Strange as it may appear, no one was injured. The engine is badly used up."

That month, Editor Whitmore wrote about the army of men who ran the nation's railroads and the casualties they suffered. "The railroads of the country employ 700,000 men. Each year, they lose 2,000 of their number killed, 20,000 of them are injured annually."

Another driver of a team of horses was hurt in October 1891 when train No. 421 hit his wagon at a crossing between Scottsville and Jamestown. The man suffered a broken arm and other injuries. A horse was killed and the wagon was torn to splinters. "The train was rounding a curve and the driver of the team did not discover his peril till the train was right upon him," the Chief reported.

Another wagon and team were hit by the passenger train coming east along the North Branch about a mile west of Portis in October 1891. "Conductor Collins says it unharnessed the team quicker than a wink," the Chief reported. One horse was thrown alongside the track, not hurt much, and a mule was picked up and set down on the road, leisurely walking away as if no accident had happened. The wagon was wrecked, but the driver was walking behind the wagon and escaped injury.

A broken rail wrecked the North Branch passenger near Portis in September of 1892. As the eastbound train neared Portis, the broken rail threw the rear two coaches from the track and into the ditch.

"The passengers were terribly shaken up, but none much injured," the Times reported. "The coaches were quite well filled and it was almost a miracle that some were not killed or severely injured."

The engine and the mail and baggage cars remained on the track, so the passengers were loaded into the baggage car and brought to Downs. Three children with injuries were examined by Dr. J. G. Poole, the local railroad surgeon.

Another broken rail strung nine freight cars across the prairie a mile west of Cawker City on a Saturday afternoon in October 1892.

"The cause of the wreck was a broken rail, which engineer Shippee discovered as he passed over it," the Times reported. "He put on all steam and broke away from the train and got away...."

All of the cars except the caboose went into the ditch, tearing up the track for 600 feet. The cars were loaded with wheat and corn, and only four of the nine suffered extensive damage. The section crew built a track around the wreck and traffic was moving by midnight the same day.

In the aftermath of this accident, the trainmen said engineer Shippee had displayed great presence of mind by putting on steam. "Had he attempted to stop his engine, instead breaking loose...the wreck would have been a terrible one," the Times stated.

Though the trainmen were escaping disaster in this area, danger still lurked along the Central Branch. In November 1892, engineer Hale Wheeler and his fireman, Dave Graves, were killed when their westbound engine No. 156 jumped the frog and crashed into a train waiting on a siding at Farmington. Both locomotives crashed onto their sides and were badly damaged.

The hot water and steam that propelled the engines also created a hazard to all railroaders. The South Branch freight headed by engine No. 171 was pulling up the hill southwest of Downs on a December day in 1892 when one of the flues burst.

Hot water shot back against the fire door, and would have scalded the fireman if the door had been open. Engineer Kienzle used the little remaining steam to whistle the back-up signal. He threw the lever and rolled back down the hill and across the Solomon bridge, where the engine died and was replaced by another engine to continue the trip. No one was hurt.

Quick thinking avoided an accident in the Downs yards as January 1893 ended. The Times described this incident:

"Someone threw the switch which connects the north and south branch tracks and, when the passenger train from the east pulled in, it took the one leading to the south side of the depot. The South Branch passenger train was standing in its accustomed place, awaiting its time of departure....

"But for the watchfulness and cool work of engineer John Reynolds, who saw and averted the accident, the two trains must inevitably have come together, causing loss of life and property. But few passengers on either train realized the danger they had been in."

A brakeman named Simpson, working with conductor Landers' crew, suffered a serious hand injury while attempting to make a coupling at Osborne in May 1893. "One of the cars was loaded with old rails," the Times reported, "and as Simpson was holding to the other car with his left hand, the rails were driven forward by the force of the cars coming together and mangled his hand in a horrible manner." The brakeman was taken to a hospital the next morning and it was hoped that a part of his hand could be saved.

@BULLET = The locomotives survived accidents much better than the railroaders fared. Engine No. 162, which engineer Brit Craft and fireman Charles McGee had ridden to their deaths, came out of the Atchison shops after a general overhaul and a new coat of paint in June 1893. It was 28 years old, the Atchison Champion stated, and was one of the old historic engines of Kansas. Old 162 returned to the passenger runs between Lenora and Stockton, the Champion writer added, with engineer Wm. Duden of Downs at the throttle. The Times claimed No. 162 was the pioneer engine of Kansas, and railroaders thought it was the first locomotive to cross the river into Kansas.

Living with injuries was difficult for the Central Branch men. For instance, injured brakeman Frank Burton was working on a fence gang when he went to Kansas City for a new leg that was made to order by J. H. Kane, "whom he considered the most skillful maker in the city," the Times noted. "The artificial member is giving him excellent satisfaction."

The local railroad men were learning to use air brakes. An air brake inspector, C. S. Sanders, examined several engineers and trainmen on their knowledge of air. "They all seem glad of the opportunity for obtaining additional information on this important subject," the editor noted.

The railroad company inspected its bridges too, according to a Times report in August 1896: "R. M. Peck's special reached Downs Wednesday evening on the annual tour of the Central Branch. The special car has steps from the rear, and an inspection is made of almost every bridge and trestle. It generally takes from four to five days to inspect the Central Branch."

Larger locomotives were reported on the Central Branch by that time, a safer method of coupling cars had been adopted, and the Central Branch had matured in some ways. The horrible accidents that plagued its first years here became more rare during this period.

But, whenever a fireman shoveled coal into the firebox, and the steam pressure began to rise, those heavy locomotives would once again pound along the rails, dragging their strings of freight and passenger cars. Wherever such a train operated, danger was not far away...and other railroad men would be injured.