Sarcoxie, MO depot. The line between Pierce City, MO and Carthage, MO has been abandoned. But there is still a lot of track laying out there to find. Photograph of depot site 2009.
From Richard Crabtree on the Frisco Rails Across Missouri group. Here is the Frisco depot at Sarcoxie, Missouri. Now this Depot was one of the busiest in Southwest Missouri for several things; strawberries, peonies and lime. At One time Sarcoxie, MO was the number 2 producer of strawberries in the U.S. The town is still there and the abandon tracks, but the depot is long gone. Click here for current view of were the depot was located. https://www.google.com/maps/@37.0658249,-94.1170363,3a,90y,170.27h,78.68t/data=!3m7!1e1!3m5!1sZmnhGchRSGCuOsqTNVLSlw!2e0!6s%2F%2Fgeo2.ggpht.com%2Fcbk%3Fpanoid%3DZmnhGchRSGCuOsqTNVLSlw%26output%3Dthumbnail%26cb_client%3Dmaps_sv.tactile.gps%26thumb%3D2%26w%3D203%26h%3D100%26yaw%3D25.535948%26pitch%3D0%26thumbfov%3D100!7i3328!8i1664 Photo 1) Frisco depot in Sarcoxie, Missouri built in 1874. Photograph circa 1960. Photo 2) 1928 Sanborn Map Sarcoxie, MO Missouri University (MU) Digital Collection. Photo 3) Sarcoxie, Missouri circa 1960 looking South; Joplin Street bridge in foreground, Frisco depot at 5th and Franklin. Photographs used with the permission of the Springfield News-Leader. Photographs may be shared but cannot be downloaded and used for any commercial purpose. Photo 4) The view of where the old depot was in 2009.
I am from Sarcoxie, but the depot was gone before I was born. I was planning on making a T-Trak module to have the depot, strawberry sheds and maybe a couple of buildings on it selectively compressed. Anyway, I had come across the floorplan from a book that said it was for the depot. It was a Frisco book from state historical society. However, it shows that there was a ticket window bump out on the trackside and the doors and windows are not in the same place. Overall size is about right though. So, here is a question. Is it common to see these discrepancies?
With regard to your question about commonplace discrepancies, the answer is no. When the depot diagrams were drawn, in this case May 19, 1915, the drawing is an accurate representation of what existed at that time. Only in rare cases do the diagram books depict changes, as in the completely new, during 1928, freight house and depot at Pittsburg, Kansas. Updates to the depot diagram books that show minor architectural changes to details such as add-ons, partial demolitions, or door and window placements are also rare. During times in which depots were lit by flame, heated with coal stoves, and sat next to tracks, which carried spark producing locomotives, fires were common. When fires occurred, the Frisco had to rebuild the structure in part or in total. In a couple of cases, the Frisco moved, by flat car, an entire structure from one town to another. Any depot built to the 1906 standard plan is a replacement structure. Of course, except where the construction of that line segment post-dates 1906. I do have a Northern Division B&B record that does record changes that were made to the bridges and buildings. My Dad found it in the Centropolis, Missouri depot before it was razed. It is a singular work, and by my estimate, it was made during the 19-aughts. It is hand-drawn and hand-lettered in pencil on Manila paper. Over the years, changes were recorded up to the early 1940s. 1. The 1918 Sanborn Map shows a depot that looks like the Frisco diagram. That supports the notion that the structure in the diagram book existed at Sarcoxie, MO. 2. My Northern Division B&B record shows an unaltered plan, which matches the diagram book. This implies that the original 1874 structure remained in place and “as is” until the early 1940s. 3. There is no record that the Sarcoxie, MO depot burned. From the earliest days, railroad depots were the targets of robbers and burglars. They were easy marks, because they had cash in a safe, were often isolated, and they were secured only by locked doors. The burglars defeated the safes with explosives, which were easily obtained. Such was the case in Sarcoxie during the night hours of March 8-9, 1949, when burglars broke into the depot and used explosives to blow the American Express Company’s safe. Sources are silent with regard to the depot, but this is the only event in the depot’s history that might warrant remodeling. It is a WAG to be sure.
