Library searches for Anaconda, MO currently come up with no hits other than mention of its depot being shipped bodily after 1930 to replace the one at Kirkwood, MO. Nature abhors a vacuum, and maybe so do I, so here is what the 1910 Official Guide reprint I have tells about it. It is between St. Clair MO and Stanton, MO around 57 miles from St. Louis. St. Clair is said to be 52 miles and Stanton 62 miles. It is southeast of I-44 and "Springfield Road" parallels the railroad for quite some distance on either side of Anaconda. This is where the railroad swings away from I-44 southwest of St. Clair. There is not much at Anaconda on modern Google satellite photographs. Does anyone know any more? By the way, a search for "St. Clair" comes up blank as well. That is somewhat of a surprise, but it may not be so important from the railroad standpoint. George
I apologize, there are postings about St. Clair if you search on "Clair" including a picture of the depot and nice ones of 4-8-2 SLSF 1522. George
Looks like there was something going on at Anaconda, MO once upon a time. I am looking at a Frisco Public Time Table (PTT) from December, 1927. Anaconda was at MP 57.2. It shows westbound stops at Anaconda at 10:55 am, flag stop. by No 3, the Ozark Limited, and at 7:41 pm on weekdays or 6:03 pm on Sundays, also flag stops, by No's 15/19 respectively, a St. Louis-Newburg local. These local trains must have been fun to operate. They had both the Texas Special and The Meteor on their tail and had to get down to Newburg before the two flagships of the railroad caught up to them. No 1 left St. Louis at 6:50 pm, and No 9 left at 6:58 pm. Neither of these limiteds planned on stopping for anything but a brief service stop until reaching Springfield, MO. Eastbound, stops at Anaconda were at 4:37 am by No 8, and 3:36 pm by No 12. Neither of these were flag stops, so they must have also had express or mail to drop off. I imagine all this had stopped by 1930, as the SLSF bodily picked up their depot and left town with it, along with the agent! Ken
From Richard Crabtree on the Frisco Rails Across Missouri Facebook group. Here we are the Frisco depot at Anaconda, Missouri also known as Dry Branch and Morrellton. Older variant names of the community were Dry Branch and Morrellton. The former variant name is after Dry Branch Creek, while the latter variant name honored one Mr. Morrell, a railroad official. The present name may be a transfer from Anaconda, Montana. A post office was established as Dry Branch in 1858. From 1892 until 1893, the post office was called Anaconda. The post office was renamed Morrellton in 1893, and remained in operation until it was discontinued in 1953. Photo 1) Frisco depot at Anaconda, Missouri pre-1915 Photo 2) Frisco depot at Anaconda, Missouri post 1915 Photo 3) Plat map showing Dry Branch / Morrellton / Anaconda, Missouri Photo 4) Frisco depot at Anaconda, Missouri blueprint - Missouri State university (MSU) Digital Collection. James F. Baker The post 1915 Anaconda depot was moved to Kirkwood to replace the two story depot that was razed. It was once again moved to the south side of the tracks in Kirkwood to make way for a Hill Behan Lumber store. It appears in a photograph by Joe Colias in his book Frisco Power, page 281.
