I posted a cropped version of this a while back and found a contact print from the Schaffner negative and though the local guys would like to see how things have changed. Off to the left is now the campus of Meramec Community College. Back in the '30s when Walter took this shot, Big Bend was little more than a dirt road. Sadly, I'm old enough to remember the stone entrance to the place on Big Bend. Unfortunately, the image of the depot in the background isn't any better than it was before. I know that's a depot though.
Don - What did the stone gate on Big Bend lead in to? As you said, that site is now the Meramec Campus of St Louis Community College. That school is known locally as "MIT", ..... Meramec In Town. A neat pic! SLSF 1512 is strutting her stuff for sure. ken
Nice that this picture includes more of the scene! The stone gate led to St. Joseph's College. The Meramec Campus has the cornerstone from one of the St. Joseph's College buildings in its main courtyard. The date is 1893 if I recall correctly. It is important to find plat books for around 1930, or the time of the photo, to see where any Windsor Springs depot might have been, or to get a clue what the building in the distance at the rear of the train was. The train blocks the view of the 1909 location of the depot. My visit to the Kirkwood Historical Society Thursday 3/12/09 was fun, but not very fruitful regarding Frisco suburban stations in the Kirkwood area. The librarian did mention her aunt (born 1911) did ride the train to go to Camp Ivanhoe south of Big Bend. The next visit to KHS will be to look up more on St. Josephs College.
I visited the Kirkwood Historical Society again yesterday. They are going to ask their membership, mostly Kirkwood residents, if anyone has a photo of the old Frisco South Kirkwood depot - torn down in 1930. Does anyone in frisco.org possibly have a pic of this old depot in their collection? It sat on the north side of the tracks at Kirkwood Road (Lindbergh Blvd), and was replaced in 1930 by a small former Frisco depot building brought up from Anaconda, MO. Ken
A photo of the two-story pre-1930 Kirkwood Station would be great to see. It would be almost as nice to see photos of the smaller suburban stations on the east end of the line in St. Louis County west of Old Orchard that are not covered somehow. These would be South Webster, Glendale, Oakland, Fairlawn and Windsor Springs.
I came to this page while looking for a photo of the Windsor Springs Station. Here are a couple of maps showing the location (not exact location, but clues maybe). 1. 1893 map - It's hard to read the writing on this, so I'll translate some here. Geyer Rd is not drawn in south of Big Bend but probably existed as a dirt road since houses were there. It is the road at the intersection of the Frisco and Big Bend. The southeast corner of that intersection appears to be where the station was. Written (vertically) there it says "Windsor Springs" and is by the properties of P Wilson and Thos. T Tutt (45 acres). The rest of that square was the initial property of Daniel Sydney Brown whose estate was referred to as Brownhurst. The road labeled as Denny is Lindbergh Blvd. 2. 1908 map - Again, Geyer Rd is not drawn south of Big Bend. Windsor Springs is written toward the east side of the property whereas it was toward the west side in the 1893 map. Helene A Tutt is now listed as the property owner for the Thos. T. Tutt property and 32 of her acres have been sold to Daniel Brown (whose name appears to be spelled as "Dennis" here). Rossou and Harrison now on the property that was P Wilson's in 1893. 3. 1909 map - Only one year (as far as the year given for the date of the maps) later. This one might be more complete being that Geyer is shown to extend for a block south of Big Bend. Daniel Brown's ("D.S. Brown" on map) property shows some of the features, "green house" and "pond" (he was an orchid collector, donated collection to MO Botanical Gardens). South of his property, in the northwestern corner of A B Cole's property, there is the phrase "Windsor Spring". This was the actual spring that the station was named for. The property owner sold bottled water to cure your face cancer and whatnot. It was sold under the label "Green Goose". 4. 1920 map - By now Daniel Brown sold his property, which was purchased by a developer who sold the eastern half to Chaminade College (Vianney now). "Windsor Springs" is written too large (for me, anyway) to tell where it was located specifically by looking only at this map. Later a development would be named Windsor Spring, but it is at the location where the natural spring was, so I don't think the label here refers to that. I hope someone finds pictures of the station! Thanks for those you've posted so far.
This thread is loaded with info, but I've been drooling just over the picture ever since I first saw it. It's a piece of art--photography wise AND Frisco wise! Perfect! Tom G.
I saw somewhere online that trains from this era are "rarely" run on the Frisco line now but are sometimes run on the Mo-Pac. Is there a site online where it lists if/when they do run? Floor plan of Windsor Station source: Frisco Lines Eastern Division floor plans of station buildings http://digitalcollections.missouristate.edu/cdm/compoundobject/collection/Depots/id/926
Seems like when the UP #844 has gone through Jeff City in the past on the old MoP line, I want to think that the UP's website had an itinerary. Not sure, though. Last time it came through, I had to work so the grandparents took the kids to see it. Best Regards,
It is most interesting to me that the Frisco consistently ran the RPO-baggage car at the very head end on some of its trains (as in the photo above) with the baggage and express cars immediately following, while on other trains (eg, all of the River Division and KC-Tulsa trains) the RPO-baggage car was located immediately behind the baggage and express cars, next to the coaches, Also, the RPO ends were placed facing away from the other cars, so that the RPO-baggage cars were reversed in direction in the two locations. This is a reliable identifier of all passenger train photos. I can understand why the storage end of the RPO-baggage car would always be coupled to the adjacent mail storage/express car so as to facilitate moving mail bags in and out between cars for sorting, but I don't know why the entire arrangement would have been reversed on some trains from the others. On trains having full length RPO cars, it seems that the RPO car was normally placed ahead of the baggage and express cars. Any enlightening information? Ken McElreath
