The First Train Arrives in Town

The following information appears in a self-published book by former Raymond resident, David A. Sorrell, called “As I Remember.” The book features Mr. Sorrell’s recollections about the early days of Raymond. The stories appeared in a weekly column in The Raymond News from 1963-1972.  

The Wabash Depot in Raymond, Illinois

In the days I am thinking about and writing about, the Wabash Railroad could be likened to the artery of lifeblood to our town. This must have been a great day for our little town when a little tin pot engine came puffing up to the platform pulling a small string of dinky boxcars. So far as I know, there is no written record of what happened on this day of August 8, 1870, when the first train arrived in Raymond. Let me try to reconstruct in my imagination just what it was like.

Clouds of dust stirred up the by the rigs coming into Raymond would be seen in all directions. The word had gone out via the grapevine all about the vicinity of Raymond the railroad was finished and that the first train would come through our town. No time was set for the arrival of the train so everyone came in early so that they might not miss this great event for both the townspeople and the farms around Raymond. Already two elevators had been built there by the tracks and no longer would farmers close around Raymond have to haul their grain to Hillsboro or Litchfield to sell it. No longer would the people of Raymond have to drive to another town to catch a train to go where they wanted to go. All the hitch tracks on Main St. were full. Farmers coming later unhitched their teams and tied their horses to the wagon, spread a little hay for the horses to munch on, and headed for the depot. Mama and the kids followed papa as he headed toward the depot. To these farm children their leather boots sounded funny to them as they clumped over the wooden sidewalks. They had perhaps made a great fuss in the morning at home about wearing their boots, for they were used to going barefoot. The discomfort of the boots was forgotten there on the town sidewalks. It was so much fun for the boys to clump down hard on the sidewalks and hear the resulting noise so much that Mama had to tell them “stop acting so silly here in town, children.” Mother had to lift her long skirts as they came to the dusty street crossings. How quaint those old pictures of that day seem to us as we look at them now. The little girls with their long dresses and the boys with their leather boots and invariably scowling because they were having their pictures taken.

By this time, the boys have gotten ahead of Papa and were up nearly under the old cottonwood there on Main Street before he could get them stopped to stay by their parents. My, what a crowd of people. There was hardly standing room on the depot platform. The real depot had not yet been built. There was only a temporary shed there to house the stationmaster who was both telegraph operator and ticket seller.

The first thing our family wanted to know as they came up to the group of folks there under the big cottonwood “hear anything about what time the train is coming in?” Fred Mondhink replied that he would let everybody know when the word came over the telegraph wire that the train was leaving Litchfield. Some wooden benches had been set up there under the cottonwood tree for the waiting crowd. Papa found a place for Mama to sit behind some neighbor women and seeing young Reynolds Chapman in the crowd, an old war comrade moved over to reminiscence a bit about their days in the Union Army. Soon they were joined by Ab Kidd, Bill Guthrie, William Terry, and Cap Fisher. Only five years had passed since these young men have been discharged from the Union Army. Ridley Wesbrooks walked up to stand in the edge of the group listening to the Army talk he loved so well. Still a scarecrow from his terrible privations in Andersonville Prison, Ridley perhaps enjoyed the happiness of a life free from all the hardships of the Army more than any of the rest of these veterans who had not suffered what he had. Said Cap Fisher, “I hear that Ed Booth is going to build a brick building over there on the corner of Main and he told me that he was building it two story so that us Army boys will have a meeting place for our new Grand Army Post.” A murmur of assent ran though the group. What a strong comradeship there was between those young men who had suffered the hardships of the Civil War together.

A passenger train speeds through town in the 1960's. 

Just about this time, the crowd quieted down there on the depot platform. “Look, there’s Mr. Ling out there, wonder what he is saying?” They listened. “Listen everybody, the train was reported out of Litchfield about fifteen minutes ago. It should be here in about fifteen minutes.” A yell of approval went up from the waiting crowd. Little boys jumped down from the depot platform to the rails. Mother scolded them and told them to “get back up here this minute.” A half silence descended on the crowd. Pretty soon some said, “I heard a whistle and then someone yelled, “Look there she comes around the bend there by Sam Miller’s place.” Now a loud shrill blast came from the engine’s whistle and in a moment the crowd and even the little boys shrank back as the engine pulling a box car and a couple of passenger coaches jerked up to the depot platform and halted. The brakeman was twisting hard with his hickory stick on the brake wheel of the last passenger coach for there were no air brakes as yet on trains. For a moment, folks awed them to silence. Not for long, however, did the silence last for in a moment broke forth a mighty yell from the throats of these happy people. What a wonderful thing had happened to our town. At last, we had a railroad and now how the prosperity will come to our town.

Now some passengers were descending from the train. Coming down the steps of the passenger coach was Joe Potts followed by his little wife. Joe had gone to Litchfield the night before so that he might be one of the first passengers to ride into our town of Raymond on this wonderful new railway and further that he might write up in the newly established paper, “The Raymond Independent,” the story about just how it felt to ride into our town on a train. Following Joe Potts came Joe Kessinger and young Doctor Herman. And so came the first railroad train to Raymond or at least this is the way I like to think it all happened in my imagination for so far as I know there is no written record of what happened on that the day the trains began coming to our town.

So the years went on and light rails that were first laid to carry the small passenger coaches and light box cars were taken up and heavier rails laid down as the passenger trains grew heavier and the box cars bigger, and by 1905 there were long heavy trains thundering through Raymond night and day. There were the fast passenger trains that ran between Chicago and St. Louis and did not stop in our town and they were heavily patronized. I like to think of the railroad as then being the artery that keep the lifeblood of business and pleasure flowing through out town. That day is gone now it seems. The truck and the car have taken over. No longer is the little depot filled with folks of our town happily chatting as they wait for the “half past eight” to carry them to Litchfield or St. Louis for a day of shopping in the larger stores there. Litchfield is only twenty minutes away by car and hard road. Thinking of those pleasant and more leisurely days, I feel sad now when I come and look at the little deserted depot still there by the tracks and standing there by the old cottonwood. I keep looking there at the little depot and the long platform and I picture it again as it was in those dear dead days of so long ago. The trains, both freight and passenger, still thunder by the little depot both day and night, but none stop to let off the happy people as they did in those days when the “half past eight, the nine-ten, the three-fifteen and the last one in the evening -- the half past seven” that brought the Litchfield and St. Louis shoppers back home again.