Burma, AR, Arthur Subdivision, Mansfield Branch, MP 440.6

Looking for a photograph or postcard of the Burma, AR Frisco depot.

This was on the Mansfield Branch. This was a very early depot that was gone by 1910.

I have no description. I do not know if it was an actual building, a car body, or whatever.

A while back a railroad researcher mentioned to me that he had once seen a photograph or postcard of this depot for sale on eBay.

He could not remember any details, but it must have been at least a couple of years ago.

Does any Frisco.org member or guest have a picture of this depot?

 

Hello John!

Been a long time since we have crossed paths.

Here is to hoping you unearth a picture of one of the most least photographed lines and depots on the Frisco!

 

Hi Andre,

As you say, finding anything about the Mansfield Branch is a long shot!

Still, you would have thought someone, somewhere, would have taken some photographs, sometime.

I fully understand why it holds little interest to many people, even most Frisco fans.

Keith,

I believe the photo does exist, somewhere, but locating it is going to take some luck.

Thanks for looking.

 

Hello again John!

Hope you are enjoying retirement. I still have a bit over 2 years before I can do the same.

The Mansfield Branch truly is an overlooked jewel in the modeling department.

If one is willing to retreat back toward its earlier years, when it was a booming, going place.

What was the tidbit you uncovered about how many jobs worked that branch during its glory years?

As you well know, I have created the Mansfield Branch and much of the Frisco's Central Division in virtual scale.

However I did cheat. I have anachronisms and historical overlaps that should not be.

But the information and data you were uncovering was just too good to pass up.

So there are more mines on my V-scale version than ever existed at a given point in time, but all mines that I represented have historical basis, courtesy of your hard work.

One of these days, I really do need to at least finish the Mansfield Branch segment of my little V-scale Frisco world.

I want to make it available to any others that would be interested.

All for now!

 

There is a photograph of a mine on the Mansfield Branch in a Frisco newspaper but I do not remember where.

As far as depot photographs I do not think there are any.

Maybe someone more familiar with the Frisco website can direct us in that direction.

Joe

 

Joe,

I am aware of 2 photographs.

The Frisco Employee Magazine Number 5, 1934, had a photograph of the Pendergrass Mine at Bonanza, AR. But that is on the "main" not actually the Mansfield Branch.

The only photo that I remember of a depot is a small, blurry photograph of the new depot at Midland, AR in 1910.

The only good photographs of depots on the Mansfield Branch that I have seen are the three I posted a while back at Huntington, AR, Midland, AR and Hackett, AR in 1932.

These were taken just before two of them were retired. I do not know how to link to that from here.

This leaves 6 depots for which I have not seen any photographs.

Midland, AR was a coal town, laid out and built after the construction of the Midland Valley Railroad in 1903. The Frisco tracks were north of the town, on the north side of James Fork Creek.

In 1909/1910 there was a push to get a Frisco depot at Midland, perhaps in part because the Frisco would be a much more direct connection with Fort Smith, AR for the miners.

The Frisco resisted, no doubt because they already had depots at Montreal, AR, MP 438.7 and Burma, AR, MP 440.6. In the end the Frisco gave in and established a depot at Midland, AR, MP 440.

My guess would be that the new depot at Midland made those at the smaller communities of Montreal and Burma unnecessary.

Mansfield Branch, stations with no photographs include the following.

1) Jensen, AR. This was at the junction with the main line. There was a two story structure, apparently similar to the well photographed contemporary depot at Winslow, Arkansas. The Jensen depot was retired (AFE 22022) on April 29, 1935.

2) Montreal, AR. This appears on early maps and timetables but was gone before 1918.

3) Burma, AR. Not in an 1898 Employee Time Table (ETT), but there was a small mine spur there, the Red Rock Mine spur. At some point between 1898 and 1903 a depot was built, but it was gone before 1918.

4) Mansfield, AR. The Frisco operated a depot at the end of the Mansfield Branch from the beginning. During the period of cooperation with the Rock Island, that depot was discontinued and the Rock Island's depot was used as a joint agency.

5) Frisco records show that a new depot was constructed at Mansfield at about the same time the use of the Huntington, AR depot was discontinued. It was a 20'-6" x 45'-0" frame depot, with a coal house, etc.

6) Arkoal, AR. I saved this for last although it was actually located between Burma, AR and Huntington, AR.

There was some industry at Mansfield early on, primarily a brick plant and a roller mill. Other than that just about everything was coal.

As Andre said, the Mansfield Branch circa 1910 makes an awesome modeling opportunity. At one point 5 full time freight crews worked the branch. In addition, there were two Frisco passenger trains.

Also, the Rock Island has trackage rights on the northern end. The Missouri and Louisiana also exercised trackage right on part of the branch.

The last 10 miles consisted of one set of mine tracks after another. In total industry tracks almost equaled the entire length of the branch.

The largest collection of tracks was at Arkoal, AR. It rivaled what you would see in a very much larger town. There were 8 parallel tracks, three of them associated with a mine, on what was called the Mine 5 spur alone.

John

 

Hi Joe,

Are you referring to these photographs, taken at Huntington, AR?

 

There is no depot listed in the 1907 Station List for Burma, AR.

It was a short-live structure to be sure.

 

Here is a segment of a Sebastian County, AR map which was published in 1903.

Allowing for the time it took to produce maps in those days, this was probably drawn just prior to the start of construction on the Midland Valley (MV) Railroad.

There is no sign of the future town of Midland which will be in Section 19.

The Montreal Coal Company tracks in Section 18 are "Williams", MP 439.3, in early timetables.

After the Midland Valley Railroad was built, these mines were connected to it and this spur was unused.

However, it remained in place for many more years. The rails were still in place in 1910, and the bridge, with no rails, was still there in 1918.

 

Here is the same area in 1948.

This section is from a U.S. Army Map Service map based on 1946 aerial photography, sheet 7154 III SE, with a scale of 1.:25,000.

Virtually everything is changed from 1910. It is easy to see that Midland grew and Burma disappeared.

These mine tracks at Midland date from the late 1930s. It is the mine you can see in the background of the Midland depot photograph that I posted on a previous thread.

The Midland Valley Railroad Hartford Branch was removed in 1943. It is shown by a dashed line.

The Midland depot sat in the "V" created by these tracks, the Mansfield Branch, and the road.

 

Thank you Andre for posting those photographs.

The tipple I saw was a three or four story building with unpainted tin siding. I came across it while researching the Mansfield Branch for a tipple to use on my N-scale layout.

I did not really like it, so at this time I will probably scratch build a model loosely based on some of the commercial kits available unless something changes.

I cannot seem to find a link for the Frisco Employee Magazine that John references.

Could someone please help me out?

Are there any photographs of depots in the Frisco Employee Magazine?

Joe

 

Joe,

What time period are you looking for a Mansfield Branch tipple?

I might be able to help.

John

 

There are pictures of depots in the Frisco employee magazines.

These are posted on the Frisco local history segment of the Springfield-Greene County Library website.

A good number are background to images of Frisco employees.

 

John,

The time era I am looking for would have to be any photographs of the Mansfield Branch when it was in operation.

Tom,

I cannot seem to find the Frisco employee magazines at the library.

Do you have a direct link?

Joe

 

Here is the link to the digitized Frisco employee magazines at the Springfield-Greene County Library.

https://thelibrary.org/lochist/frisco/magazines/magazines.cfm.

One of the 1934 issues has a good picture of a new coal tipple on the Mansfield Branch.

Tom

 

Okay, here are few mine photographs.

These are some of the oldest mines. Good photographs are tough to find. You take what you can get.

This is the Hackett City Mine owned by Kansas and Texas Coal Company. The mine was at Hackett, AR but predates the Mansfield Branch.

The 1886 records are all in agreement that this mine was originally located on the Hackett City Branch of the Frisco. This early track ran from Jenson, OK, or Jensen if you wish, records spell it both ways, to the mine at Hackett.

The mine was connected to the main line by at least February 1887. The Little Rock & Texas, the Mansfield Branch of the Frisco, was only authorized a month later in March.

As the attached 1887 map shows, the Mansfield Branch probably originally began at Hackett, AR not Jensen, OK.

 

On the 1887 Hackett map the original Hackett depot location is shown.

This depot burned around a year after it was built. Its replacement was built on the Mansfield Branch on the opposite side of town.

Something apparently happened to the replacement, because a new depot was built in 1910 making 3 total depots for Hackett, AR.

The mine lasted in production for less than three years. The 1903 map of Hackett, AR shows only abandoned right of way where this part of the Hackett City Branch had been located.

Somewhere around 1910 the Hackett City Branch right of way was reused. A new mine, Branner 2, was built between Hackett and the Oklahoma line.

Track was re-laid almost down to the Midland Valley track on the south side of town, and then west to the new mine.

This is now the Branner spur, MP 430.5, a little over 1/2 mile in length. This spur lasted until it was retired, in pieces, between 1923 and 1927.

What happened next may be a Frisco record. Around 1930 the east end of the track was re-laid a third time to yet another mine. This one lasted until 1933, when it dug into the original K&T Hackett City Mine and flooded out.

Attached are two photographs of the Branner 2 Mine taken from slightly different angles and a portion of the mine blueprint showing the mine track arrangements. The railroad which runs across the Branner mine on the blueprint is the Midland Valley.

This is a pretty good example of a mine from the 1910 era.

 

I am going to stop for now where we started, with Burma.

I have already posted the 1903 map of that area. Within a few years of 1903 new mines were opened at Burma and much more track laid. I have had more trouble working out the track arrangements at Burma than anywhere else on the Mansfield Branch.

This is largely because this is the only area where I could not locate a single, detailed map showing the rail facilities. What I did was combine individual mine maps which showed small sections of the railroad and then draw in the "missing" tracks using information from various sources, mostly the 1918 ICC chain survey.

The pictured mines at Burma all date to around 1905 - 1907. Just for fun I am going to post my latest, incomplete attempts at mapping the track layout there. Actually the tracks have all been identified in various sources. They can be approximated fairly easily, except I have had no luck at successfully drawing the switchback track to Dallas Mine 8, ICC 25.

If anyone wants to give it a shot, the Mansfield Branch right of way can easily be made out along the north bank of James Fork Creek, east of Midland, Arkansas. To find the former location of Burma on Google Earth, type in 35 degrees, 05', 36.89" N - 94 degrees, 20', 24.30" W, or cheat like I do and type in Midland, AR, and follow the ROW east until the coordinates match.

In Google Earth, select View - Historical Imagery, and slide the date to 1994. The former location of the switchback can be easily seen. If you move the slider back to 2012, the collapsed entrance to the Dallas 4 Mine can be made out. Note this is private property, stay out.

The Missouri Arkansas Mine was built in 1898. It is located on a siding on the "main" Mansfield Branch. The Dallas #4 Mine appears to date from around 1904 and the switchback track to Mine 8 was in place by 1907.

I must confess here that the mine pictured is not Dallas 4, but the neighboring Dallas 1 on the Midland Valley, which was built about the same time, apparently to the same plans.

The Dallas 8 tipple was a small tipple that handled coal which was brought down from smaller mines to the north, Dallas mines 8-13. In 1910 coal was brought to this tipple via narrow gage, mule power. In later years a small steam engine brought the coal down to the tipple.

The ICC 24 track is the old Red Rock Mine spur which was shown at Burma on the 1903 map earlier. It is the track that now services the Dallas 4 Mine. ICC 24 is 1625 feet long with the entrance to Dallas 4 Mine located 732 feet from the switch at the main branch.

The switch connecting ICC 25 with ICC 24 is 1223 feet from the main. The number 8 tipple shown on the upper part of the maps, is 2210 feet from the switch connection with ICC 24. ICC 25 is a total of 2620 feet in length including the curved track.

For clarity much of the ICC 25 track over the Dallas 4 Mine was omitted from the original 1907 blueprint. It is this track that I did not attempt to draw in which curves down left to right on Google Earth.

 

Thank you for the photographs John!

Tom,

I found the photograph of the Bonanza, AR mine in the May 1934 Frisco Employee Magazine on page 19.

Thanks for the link to the library.

Joe