LIMA — To close their special exhibit of Richard J. Cook railroad photography, the Allen County Museum hosted Donna Carver, of Mount Gilead, to give a talk on her research into the railroad history of Morrow County.
The lecture was sponsored by a grant from Ohio Humanities Council. Carver was introduced by Allen County Museum Director Amy Craft.
Carver created a relationship with the museum based on an image courtesy note in a railroad history book that cited the Allen County Museum. She contacted Charles Bates, curator of railroad archives, to find out more and to dig up photographs and maps from the Morrow County stations. The museum houses a large number of maps, photography and paperwork from the Toledo and Ohio Central Line and many other railroad companies.
“This is a hobby for me, but my education on the railroad is really centered on Morrow County,” Carver explained.
Carver was a nurse for 35 years and became a reporter for the Morrow County Sentinel. Her interest in the subject matter began with assignments to write a series of historical articles on topics like the oil boom and railroads. What started as a hobby quickly became a personal passion, as she invested her time into researching the railroad history of Morrow County. Carver also is a member of the Morrow County Historical Society and serves as an Mount Gilead councilor.
Carver’s engaging lecture included many photographs, some sourced from the Allen County Museum collection, to show the development of the railroad industry in Morrow County from the 1860s to its end in the 1950s.
Railroad junctions were important parts of the communities, not just because of the jobs and industries they supported.
“The railroad depots were a local social center,” Carver said. “Folks would go down to people-watch or get the local gossip from passengers and telegraph operator, or just to see who bought what.”
A proud Mount Gilead resident, Carver shared a shortsighted moment in the town’s history. Railroad companies often required communities to raise funds to pay for the lines. Mount Gilead, at the turn of the 19th century, was proud of its county seat status and felt that it didn’t need to raise the funds. This did not impress the railroad company managers. She shared that as the managers were traveling back to Columbus, they stayed over in Cardington at Shunk’s Hotel.
“John Shunk was a shrewd businessman,” Carver said. “He convinced them to follow the pre-surveyed route for the Ohio Canal, and that they wouldn’t need all that money.”
The result was that the first train in Morrow County came not through the county seat of Mount Gilead but the small village of Cardington.
Carver shared a number of stories and facts, such as the story of a St. James Station agent, Kenneth Grooms, who was hit by a train. Grooms was a station agent from about 1924 through the 1940s.
“Back then, they didn’t have ambulances,” Carver explained, “the funeral director would pick them up in his hearse.”
She continued that “he didn’t really like that idea, so he convinced them to put him in the baggage car and back the train up to Galion to take him to the hospital.”
Another interesting part of the presentation was Carver’s tracing of the uses of the depot buildings. After many years on the railroad, many were moved onto farms for second lives as feed, grain or corn storage. In one case, the Peerless Station became a house.
Many of the depots did not build restrooms until nearly 20 years after the original station was built. Traveling on the railroad could be a tough ordeal in the beginning, as it was dusty; there were no dining cars or restroom facilities.
After the presentation, Craft shared details for the museum’s next large exhibit. On June 24th, an exhibit on the eight Ohio presidents will be opened. It’s one of the largest exhibits of its kind that the Allen County Museum has hosted and will feature artifacts from several presidential sites and other institutions. The exhibit is happening in part from grants from the National Endowment for the Humanities.
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