Bainbridge was a station north of Cape Girardeau and about three miles east of the town of Egypt Mills, where my mother was raised. In the early 1800s, it had been a little village in its own right, with a post office for a while. It was called Bainbridge Crossing in those days, where a ferry plied the Mississippi River, and the location that the Cherokee Indian nation crossed the river on the "Trail of Tears" trek to Oklahoma. But when the railroad river line came along in 1902, there was only a small station that they built to serve the rural community around Egypt Mills. My mother told me that she and her father would take the team of horses and wagon several times a week to Bainbridge station to deliver cans of fresh milk and cream to a southbound passenger train, bound for Sugar Creek Creamery in Cape Girardeau. The timetables of that era show that all six of the Frisco passenger trains had a scheduled flag stop time for Bainbridge. For myself, I remember going with my family in the early 1950s on the gravel road to Bainbridge in the summer to pick pecans from the huge trees left standing in the farmland of the river bottoms, which flooded every couple of years. The station was still standing then, but unattended (I'm not sure it ever was.) It was a combination closed section and covered freight platform affair built on piles, and I loved to play on the freight platform in the shade. Since I know of no photographs of this station or any other resource for information, I thought I would write this little treatise and attach a crude drawing (I'm no artist) from the images in my memory. So here, if you will, is a southbound view of Bainbridge Station with a can of milk waiting for the next train. Enjoy. Ken McElreath
Ken - I like it. Had never heard of Bainbridge outside of seeing in on the timetables. This would a fun one to model. For what it's worth, your drawing skills are much better than my own. Very glad you shared both the sketch and the story. Best Regards,
Ken, The Brands hail from Egypt Mills and they attended Trinity Lutheran Church. What was your your mother's maiden name? Is this depot a replacement for the original? -keb-
Karl, My mother's name was Marie Exler, daughter of George Exler and Laura (nee Gerlach.) They also belonged, with all of the other Exlers and Gerlachs in the area, to the Egypt Mills Trinity Lutheran Church. Mom attended the church school there through eighth grade as well. We visited the church often when I was still at home in Cape, as many of my aunts and cousins were there. I remember also many wonderful ice cream socials at the church on steamy summer Sunday afternoons. I thought the depot was the original 1902 wooden structure. It would have been only 50 years old when I played on the platform. But the 1903 plan on Mike Condren's website shows a different one, which must have been replaced. Ken McElreath
I lived in Egypt Mills for about a year and a half (1990 ish) next door to the Pulliams. There was an old store building across the road from us.
Mike Condren's Frisco website is back up, which gives us access to station floor plans including the one for Bainbridge: http://condrenrails.com/Frisco/Station Floor Plans/Missouri Stations/MO.Bainbridge.pdf Rich
