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COLUMNISTS


ALEXANDER B. CRAGHEAD THOMAS KELCEC GREG MONROE GEORGE M. SMERK JEFFREY D. TERRY WES VERNON


CITY OFFICIALS FROM MADRAS, OREGON, ON FEBRUARY 19, 2011, RE-ENACTING THE WELCOMING SPEECHES GIVEN TO THE OREGON TRUNK RAILROAD ONE HUNDRED YEARS BEFORE. PHOTO BY ALEXANDER CRAGHEAD


Searching for small town pride


IT WAS BRIGHT, but the white February sky dropped, now and then, a confetti of the tiniest snow, enough to settle in the cracks of the road and among the dried twigs of the sagebrush. To one side of the old blacktop road stood a white-painted, humble, wooden homage to a Roman triumphal arch, with big black letters reading Welcome and Madras—The Gateway to Central Oregon. On the road, a herd of rickety old motorcars — Ford Model Ts and their brethren — sat in formation, and back under the arch stood three men in long black coats and old-fash- ioned hats, trying not to look silly. A small crowd huddled with coffee, cookies, and ex- pectant gazes, awaiting speeches from the men. What was all this hullabaloo? A clue might be taken from the road, that


was once a railroad grade, and above and be- yond the little gathering, where stood a great soaring steel trestle. The group was citizens of Madras, a small town in the high desert of Oregon, the arch a scaled-down replica of one that stood here exactly one century before to honor the arrival of the Oregon Trunk Railroad, and the men stand- ins for that line’s builders. This was a re-en- actment of the arrival of the railroad in 1911, an event that turned Madras from a tiny encampment in a distant corner of the West into a city connected to the economy of the larger world. It was a moment that marked the end of the Old West and the be- ginning of a new one, and an event that, to this rural community, remained important enough to celebrate a century later. This is a story far bigger than Madras, or


Oregon. The railroad’s progress across the North American continent throughout the 19th and early 20th centuries marked the spread of modern civilization. Railroads broke the Midwest out of its river-bound de- velopment, bringing commerce and growth to previously land-locked small towns. They laid out the path of settlement through


4 JANUARY 2012 • RAILFAN.COM


Kansas, Nebraska, and the Dakotas. They turned the Pacific Coast from a colonial out- post commercially linked only by long dis- tance sea voyage into an integrated part of a rapidly industrializing nation. Railroads and small towns: it’s a fitting relationship. In the cities, railroads are of- ten viewed as a nuisance, a cause of noise, pollution, and inconveniently blocked road crossings. In rural places, however, the rail- road’s role in building towns is still remem- bered. The local depot becomes a meeting- place, the town deputy still refers to the railroad by the name it was called in his grandfather’s day, and the passing train rushes by, filled perhaps with grain from the big new elevator seven miles down the line, and with promises of something larger on the horizon that the watching town is a part of. In the case of Madras, not long after the re-enactment and the parade of Tin Lizzies, the local folks retired to an old depot in near- by Metolius, where, seated community-style at picnic tables in the former baggage room, old memories of the railroad were traded back and forth over barbecue and carrot cake. Sometimes, in the pursuit of this hobby


we call railfanning, we get stuck on things like locomotive types, operating practices, or the appearance of specific equipment. More often, we should learn the lesson that towns like Madras can teach: the railroad is a part of the larger world, and part of our commu- nities.Go to the neighborhood trackside diner, the community museum, the local Amtrak depot. Go discover what kind of American landscape is still to be found out along the railroad lines. You might be surprised about what you find.


Alexander B. Craghead is a writer, photog- rapher, watercolorist, and self-described “transportation geek” from Portland, Ore. You can reach out to Alex on our web site at www.railfan.com/departures.


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