Hello, yes, I am new here, so this might be a dumb question from me. It seems like there used to be a spur 5 miles west of Rolla called Beaver Branch, and there is no other information than that. I looked everywhere. There seems to be an old station there, also, but once again, I couldn't find anything about this branch line. Is there anything from you guys?
Not much from me, but I did find: Place name: Beaver Branch Railroad Description: An abandoned branch of the Frisco Railroad running four miles from Beaver to Beaver Creek Mine. Named for Beaver (q.v.) which is at the junction of Beaver Branch Railroad and Frisco Railroad. (CAMPBELL'S GAZ., 435; Frank Groves) Source: Weber, Frank. "Place Names Of Six South Central Counties of Missouri." M.A. thesis., University of Missouri-Columbia, 1938. Beaver Creek Mine is located about on mile up Iron Ore Creek, high on the ridge on the east side of the creek. You can see it on the 1985 Rolla topo. (http://freepages.history.rootsweb.ancestry.com/~gtusa/usa/mo/county/phelps.htm) https://books.google.com/books?id=p...beaver valley branch phelps county mo&f=false This should give you a start
Brad, welcome to the Frisco website! I don't know the answer to your question but I noticed your question was your first post. Joe
Now that's interesting, never heard of it. Looking deeper into my timetables I did find the station of Beaver listed in the 1881 Official Guide but not in the 1899 TT, must have missed it when I did the Frisco Google Map. It looks to be just east of the station of Piney where the spur could have branched off. I looked at the sources Joe listed & found the mine about 3-1/2-miles SE of Piney, it is shown on several topo maps on the Historical Aerials website. Beaver Branch RR is not listed as a predecessor company of Frisco so either it was a private RR (doubtful) or that was just the name Frisco gave it for reference (probable). Joe's research gives us a clue as to the years the spur was in operation, perhaps Piney & Beaver are the same station? Roger
Out of curiosity: what type of mine was it and what was the volume of the the mine to justify a spur? If memory serves, that is some hilly country so it would have taken some major work to reach the mine. Larry
Mines in this area produced iron ore from filled-sink deposits in the Roubidoux Formation. The iron ore was hematite.
Karl, your notation regarding Filled-Sink deposits triggered one of my knowledge-expanding roams through the vast expanse of the internet. Lots of cool stuff out there regarding their existence in central Missouri. https://pubs.usgs.gov/of/1992/0014/report.pdf is one example.
Here' a pic of one that is exposed in a cut along I-44 at Rolla. The bedded Pennsylvanian shales are easy to spot in the Ordovician sinkhole,
All of that sink hole is buried behind retaining cribbing and poured concrete nowadays. I guess somebody has figured out what a stupid idea it was to build there in the manner they have.
Hello, all! Brad again. I think I've finally made a breakthrough in finding the branch. It may not be correct, but it's a step in the right direction. I stumbled upon Explorer Chris' thread about the Salem Branch and it had a few maps with it. I looked on a few of them and they all showed the location for the station/junction named Beaver. So now I've gotten a possible area for where it was, but that's not all. I think, and I repeat, think that I've found a possible place where the roadbed could have been. It snakes, and the treeline doesn't seem natural for what it is. Red marker is where Beaver Creek Mine was formerly located Black line is what I think is the possible roadbed. Can anybody with sharp eyes for old roadbeds confirm or deny my claim? I'm still a rookie at finding things like this
I thought I posted a follow up on this but I guess I forgot. The was no company called the Beaver Branch RR, that is just what they called the spur for reference. Beaver was renamed Piney at an unknown time, probably after they pulled the branch up. Attached is a map of the ROW drawn according to the maps on Historical Ariel, it's fairly easy to see unlike the one out of Fanning, I never could find that one though folks swear there was one. There is a sinkhole that marks the end of the line, don't know what they were digging up, maybe charcoal, I'll leave it up to the rock hounds on this board to figure that out...Roger
Yeah it's off on the plus side by about 2.5-miles, probably because they were still running on the MOP out of Pacific at the time....Roger
I you click on the link, it'll bring up Google Earth. You might have to had previously loaded the app. I got an error message, clicked OK, and it took me to the linked location. And Roger, perhaps you meant coal and not charcoal.
Google Earth, should go to the bottom under "Temporary Files" you can then drag it to where you want to save it...Bob, yeah probably coal, I was thinking Salem Branch for some reason, that's where the charcoal came from...Roger