WaltersRail

After deregulation, American railroads copulated like hormone-saturated teen-agers, producing four offspring: CSX, Norfolk Southern, BNSF and Union Pacific. Throughout this orgy, the Kansas City Southern remained chaste, following the advice of Saint Paul:

It is good for a man not to touch a woman. Nevertheless, to avoid fornication, let every man have his own wife, and let every woman have her own husband. . . . I say therefore to the unmarried and widows, it is good for them if they abide even as I. But if they cannot contain, let them marry: for it is better to marry than to burn. I Corinthians 7: 1-2 and 8-9. KJV.

Southbound manifest approaching Rich Mountain, Arkansas.

Northbound trailers approaching the Oklahoma-Arkansas border.

Eventually, however, the KCS could not “contain,” succumbing to the passion that drives human reproduction and joining in holy matrimony with the Canadian Pacific. This union in 2023 produced a child christened CPKC, which sounds like Sleepy Casey, a conglomerate connecting the three countries of North America, a super colossus, an industrial powerhouse, a giant to bestride the fruited plain. Part of the new behemoth traverses the Choctaw Nation in southeastern Oklahoma, then runs east into Arkansas before turning south again. In this article, we will concentrate on the portion of the railroad within about 15 miles on either side of the Oklahoma-Arkansas border.

The Kansas City Southern was the love child of Arthur Stilwell, a Kansas City entrepreneur with visions of grandeur in the late age of railroad building, a uniquely American personality reflected in the 21st century by the tech titans who rule the internet, men of conquest and empire – often wrong but never in doubt. America offers perhaps the last fertile ground for such flora, and Stillwell was a member of an exclusive species that included, among many, James J. Hill, Leland Stanford, Charles Crocker and Cornelius Vanderbilt.

Northbound grain at Page, Oklahoma.

Pushers on southbound grain.

Stilwell’s vision was to build a railroad connecting Kansas City with the Gulf of Mexico. Several routes were already in place -- Katy, Santa Fe, Frisco and Rock Island – but all swung well to the west to avoid the Ouachita Mountains, which extend east to west for about 225 miles from central Arkansas into southeastern Oklahoma. The range's tallest peak is Magazine Mountain at 2,800 feet, which doesn’t sound very tall until you learn that the mountains rise out of the Gulf Coastal Plain to the south, once under water, with elevations of a few hundred feet above sea level.

To give a sense of perspective: the summit of Marias Pass (home to the BNSF) is approximately 5,000 feet, while the peaks to the north top out at about 7,500 – a rise of approximately 2,500 feet. By contrast, the elevation of Page, Oklahoma (the eastern beginning of CPKC’s Rich Mountain grade) is about 600 feet, while the top of Rich Mountain above it is approximately 2,600 feet – an increase of about 2,000 feet. In other words, the peaks overlooking both railroads are similar in their height above the valley below, but Rich Mountain is covered with pine and hardwood and rises so close to the tracks that it looks almost feasible to jump from the summit to the valley and land on top of a moving train.

Page, Oklahoma.

Stilwell decided to build directly through the mountains, creating a significantly shorter route to the Gulf, and his locating engineers chose an east-west grade beginning at Page, Oklahoma, cresting the summit at Rich Mountain, Arkansas, then descending rapidly to a valley north of Mena, Arkansas.

Northbound along the Page siding.

In Oklahoma, this mountainous land is home to the Choctaw Nation, set aside by the federal government when the Choctaw were forcibly removed from Mississippi to a Western wilderness, a horrible journey known as the Trail of Tears. Nearly 15,000, plus about 1000 slaves, migrated in three stages from 1831 to 1833, through the blizzard of 1831 and the cholera epidemic of 1832. Approximately 2,500 died.

Blue Cut, Oklahoma.

The photographer is standing in Arkansas, looking back into Oklahoma.

“My people are dear to me, with them I must go. My destiny is cast among the Choctaw people. If they suffer, so will I; if they prosper, then will I rejoice.”

Those words were written by George W. Harkins, an attorney and Chief of the Choctaw Nation during the removal. Most Americans today (February 2025) are unaware that in the 19th century the Choctaw were about as educated and literate as European Americans, in many cases more educated and more literate. But the 19th century was awash with a tsunami of racism. Not only did Europeans dislike Native Americans, Africans, Chinese, Japanese and everyone else not from Europe, the Europeans hated each other. The English hated the French, who hated the Germans, who hated the Italians, who hated the Russians – which led to the Great War and then the Second World War.

Northbound.

Harkins published his “Letter to the American People” in the Natchez Weekly Courier in December 1831. Reading it today makes one realize that heartbreak and suffering are not unique to the 21st century, that although technology has progressed greatly since that long ago day, human nature has not, that human nature is like the wind – sometimes strong, sometimes weak, always present even when stagnant, never changing from generation to generation to generation.

"We go forth sorrowful, knowing that wrong has been done. Will you extend to us your sympathizing regards until all traces of disagreeable oppositions are obliterated, and we again shall have confidence in the professions of our white brethren? Here is the land of our progenitors, and here are their bones; they left them as a sacred deposit, and we have been compelled to venerate its trust; it is dear to us, yet we cannot stay, my people are dear to me, with them I must go. Could I stay and forget them and leave them to struggle alone, unaided, unfriended, and forgotten by our great father? I should then be unworthy the name of a Choctaw, and be a disgrace to my blood."

https://www.choctawnation.com/biskinik/iti-fabvssa/george-w-harkins-letter-to-the-american-people/

Northbound trailers at Heavener, Oklahoma, a division point on the CPKC.

Northbound empty coal at Heavener. Coal trains originating in the Powder River Basin often run through with UP or BNSF power.

At the end of their journey, which was also the beginning of another, the Choctaw found forests and mountains, wild bear and bobcats, cypress swamps in the broad valleys, even alligators. The pine forests reminded them of home, but the undergrowth was too thick to cut by hand and required burning, not always feasible in the torrents of spring. There was no civilization, no towns, no schools – nothing. The Plains Indians would come to the mountains to hunt, then depart, preferring open skies and broad vistas to the forests, mountains and swamps that felt like closed rooms.

Loaded coal.

Sundown in the Ouachita National Forest.

Most outsiders picture Oklahoma as flat and dry and desolate, and nothing could be further from the truth. Southeastern Oklahoma is mountainous and remarkably beautiful and mostly unknown to the outside world, in large measure because it is the home of a nation that both history and modern American have forgotten – because the Choctaw generally are proud and optimistic and quiet. They do not create spectacles, which are the only things that can gain traction in an age of instant gratification. If you do not shout and scream in the 21st century, no one will notice you. So our politicians and celebrities shout and scream, while the Choctaw quietly practice the old ways, the old traditions, quietly optimistic that in the end they shall prevail.

They established a new civilization one day at a time, persevering through rain, wind, disease, heartbreak and everything else that life throws at us, aided in part by the Lighthorse, the law enforcement arm of the tribe created after the Treaty of Doak’s Stand in 1820, the seventh of nine treaties between the tribe and the United States. In each, the Choctaw gave a little more and gained a little less.

Southbound coal from the Powder River Basin.

Southbound.

Grainer in Oklahoma.

Throughout the early nineteenth century, Choctaw society interacted with and adapted to European schooling, religion, trade, intermarriage and alcohol. The Lighhorse were tasked with the removal of whiskey from the Nation. Laws were also passed prohibiting theft, adultery and murder.

None of this was needed prior to the introduction of European civilization. This does not mean that the Europeans were devils and the Choctaw angels. People are people, with the same desires and demons. It simply means that prior to the European invasion, the Choctaw had established their own methods for dispute resolution. But the tide of American westward expansion was inexorable, and the Choctaw did what every other civilization has done when under duress. They adapted.

Loaded coal leaving Heavener.

I do not know the level of success obtained by the Choctaw Nation in prohibiting alcohol. Years ago, an elderly gentleman (about the same age as I am now) told me a story that may or may not be true, but is worth repeating if for no other reason than to demonstrate the universality of human nature.

At a Council Meeting, speeches were made against the evils of drink, and it was agreed that any citizen bringing alcohol into the Nation would be punished by lashes and the destruction of livestock.

The law, however, was not made retroactive, and the Council soon discovered that liquor consumption would continue until all the booze currently in the Nation was swallowed. The Council reconvened after gathering much of the existing alcohol. They could have destroyed it, but common sense prevailed. Instead, they drank everything in about two hours. Or so the story goes.

Southbound beginning the climb to the summit at Rich Mountain.

Southbound pushers at summit.

When the Choctaw settled in southeastern Oklahoma, the federal government recognized them as a sovereign independent nation – like Mexico. Among many things, this meant that there were no federal or state courts, and no federal or state law enforcement officials in the nation. If you were an outlaw wanted by the authorities, and if you had absconded to the Choctaw Nation, the government could not touch you – the same as if you had absconded to Mexico. Since many miscreants were closer to southeastern Oklahoma that Mexico, the Choctaw Nation quickly became a haven for some of the worst elements of society.

After the War Between the States, in the Treaty of 1866, the Choctaw and Cherokee agreed to eliminate slavery. The treaty also stipulated that “no white person, except officers, agents, and employees of the Government shall be permitted to go into said Territory.” I believe this was interpreted to mean that federal marshals could enter the Choctaw Nation in pursuit of miscreants.

Article 42 of the Treaty provided:

"The Choctaw and Chickasaw Nations shall deliver up persons accused of crimes against the United States who may be found within their respective limits on the requisition of the governor of any State for a crime committed against the laws of said State, and upon the requisition of the judge of the district court of the United States for the district within which the crime was committed."

https://www.choctawnation.com/wp-content/uploads/2022/03/1866treaty-with-chickasaws-and-choctaws.pdf

U.S. 59 follows the tracks closely from Page to Rich Mountain.

Northbound.

The effect of the treaty was to deputize many of the Lighthorse who now had the authority to chase outlaws and bring them to justice in the Federal District of Arkansas, which Congress deemed to include the Choctaw Nation.

The Lighthorse did what they could, but the outlaws were many. This is an exaggeration, but it makes the point. Imagine sitting alone on the beach at Normandy when the Allied invasion fleet appeared on the horizon.

A notable member of the Lighthorse was Charles LeFlore, who owned a ranch at Limestone Gap southwest of McAlester. He joined the Lighthorse in 1882 and soon thereafter rode with Sam Sixkiller, another notable, in tracking down and apprehending Dick Glass and his gang near Atoka.

A southbound manifest chased by a small afternoon shower.

In 1884, Leflore led twenty-five Choctaw Lighthorse in a gunfight with the Christie Gang, which had robbed multiple trains on the Katy line – the first railroad across the Choctaw Nation. During the gunfight, five outlaws were killed and as many wounded.

On another occasion, Leflore and his posse killed three wanted outlaws in the mountains during the worst of summer. Fearing that the bodies would decompose before they could be transported to the authorities for identification, LeFlore salted them like cured beef or pork.

One of Leflore’s most publicized arrests was of Gus Bogle, a black man who had murdered a white coal miner named William D. Morgan at Blue Tank. The arrest was made June 30, 1887, in Dennison, Texas, just across the Red River. Bogle was convicted and executed in the court of Judge Isaac Parker, the “hanging judge,” in Fort Smith, Arkansas, just across the Poteau River, the only water course in Oklahoma that flows north.

Rich Mountain. You may have noticed that this same train is shown above in a different location. A favorite tactic is to chase a train from Page to the top of the grade. Even the lightest consists slow to about 15 mph, while loaded coal trains often struggle at 10 mph or less. Trains with more than one image were all chased.

Another chase.

Isaac Charles Parker served as a United States representative in two separate Missouri districts and was appointed by Ulysses S. Grant as United States District Judge for the Western District of Arkansas. Parker served until his death in 1896.

In over 20 years on the bench, he sentenced 160 people to death, about 8 per year. 79 were executed, while most others died in jail. A very few were pardoned. All executed were convicted of rape or murder.

The National Park Service provides a list of those executed: https://www.nps.gov/fosm/learn/historyculture/executions-at-fort-smith-1873-to-1896.htm, including:

1. George Young Wolf Sixkiller, age 38, convicted of the murder of “2 white men, names unknown.”
2. Isaac Filmore, age 16, convicted of murder of a “traveler from California.”
3. Edmund Campbell, age 20, convicted of the murder of “Lawson Ross and a young girl, name unknown.”
4. Gus Bogle, age unknown, convicted of murder of William D. Morgan.

Near Howard, Arkansas, which consist of a single grade crossing and one house.

Parker presided over several notorious cases, including the trial of Crawford Goldsby, known as "Cherokee Bill," charged with killing a bystander during a general-store robbery in 1894. He was convicted in a trial that lasted four months, a length unheard of at the time, and Parker sentenced him to death.

Awaiting execution, Goldsby unsuccessfully attempted escape and killed a prison guard. He was tried again for that murder and convicted again in Parker's court. The judge sentenced him to a second death penalty. Goldsby was hanged three months later.

Parker once tried 18 men simultaneously, all charged with murder. 15 were convicted. Parker sentenced eight to the death penalty and ordered six to be executed on the same day. The Arkansas Governor commuted the sentence of one to life in prison due to his youth.

Another grainer has reached the summit at Rich Mountain. Along with coal, grain is the most common commodity on this line.

Deep in the National Forest.

The KCS brought a measure of prosperity to the mountains, but prosperity is relative -- like everything else in life. If I say that I am prosperous as an old man, I mean that I have a better living standard than when I was young. But I was dead broke when I was young, so my latter day “prosperity” is minimal compared to others. It was and is much the same in the Ouachita Mountains, where in the 21st century many still scratch a subsistence living from the forest that stood tall long before humans appeared on the planet and will stand tall long after the last woman is gone (because women live longer than men).

South of the mountains, the Choctaw Nation encompasses part of the Gulf Coastal Plain. Here the vegetation and cypress swamps are thick, almost impassable. You can hide in the forest for years without detection – if you have a reason to. In the 1960’s, a draft-dodger from World War II turned himself in to federal authorities, ready to accept his punishment. He had been hiding in the woods north of Hugo, Oklahoma, for about 20 years.

The authorities let him go, because no one cared anymore.

East of the Rich Mountain Summit, U.S. 59 does not follow the tracks closely enough to allow chasing. It is possible to chase west from the summit, but this section is downgrade and trains run at 45 mph, so one can obtain at most three images before the tracks diverge from the highway at Page. This westbound was followed at speeds that your aging author probably ought not to drive anymore.

Crawling up the mountain.

I leave you with one last story, quoted directly from the July 21, 1975 edition of the The New York Times:

HUGO, Okla.—A pair of elephants has been lost here for a week and the people of Choctaw County are becoming a little defensive about it.
The first person questioned by a reporter about the matter said, “They're just baby elephants, you know.”
Within an hour, Sheriff James Buchanan, the head of a search party, took the reporter to the woods at Lake Hugo and showed him how it was possible to lose a herd of elephants there.
“You could be within 25 feet of them and not see them,” he said, pointing to dense brush and tree branches hanging to the ground.
The elephants broke away from a handler last Saturday at the Carson and Barnes Circus winter quarters on the edge of town.
$150 Reward Offered
There was a flurry of interest here for a while. The circus offered a $150 reward. Dozens of people drove up and down the country roads peering into the trees. The new Citizens Band Radio Club deployed its members around the countryside, and they spent a lot of time on the air.
A pilot from Oklahamo City flew his plane down to join the search, saying, “It's not every day you can go out and hunt an elephant.”
But the elephants—one 5 years old and the other 6, each about 1,500 pounds and four feet tall—had disappeared into the tangle of woods near the circus property. People soon lost interest in “wandering around in that tick‐infested place,” one man said.
By the end of the week, only a sheriff's posse and a handful of volunteer cowboys were still looking for them. Speculation is beginning to be heard that they might not turn up until the leaves fall.
Competition From Rodeo
The elephant hunt might have drawn more participants if it had come at a different time. The Future Farmers of America rodeo opened this week and diverted the interest of many people. The vacation Bible school began at the First Baptist Church and that occupied the younger set, as well as their mothers.
There is also a brisk election campaign for chief of the Choctaw Nation, and feverish preparations are under way for the annual Blue Grass Music Festival, both early next month.
Sheriff Buchanan found the elephants' tracks yesterday. They led to a shallow cove and disappeared into the water.
“We've narrowed it down to five or six thousand acres,” he said. “These things are satisfied, they've got plenty of water, plenty to eat. They ain't going nowhere.”
Nevertheless, the sheriff is becoming a little impatient. He is taking a lot of ribbing. Last night, one old friend laughed and said, “I swear, anybody that can't track an elephant . . . .”
So the sheriff was almost relieved when a convict escaped yesterday from the county prison farm. That gave his deputies something else to search for, and the townspeople something else to talk about.

Eventually, they captured the elephants.

To see my other posts, go to waltersrail.com.

To see my photographs on Flickr, go to https://www.flickr.com/photos/jpwalters/.

WaltersRail

Monday, February 10, 2025

TABLE OF CONTENTS

CPKC in the Choctaw Nation

The Author