From Richard Crabtree on Frisco Rails Across Missouri. Watermelon season was big business on the Frisco Lines. Although they would receive watermelons from Arkansas and Oklahoma, Missouri would reign supreme in its watermelon shipments. In 1925, they had 1413 railcars dedicated to shipping watermelon. The top three cities receiving railcars to ship watermelon during the 1925 season were, Kennett ~300, Frisbee ~ 150 and Morley 150. Frank Bagbee: They used to ship them out of Bertrand and Charleston to Chaffee, where they were iced up and moved on to St. Louis, Chicago, etc. Interestingly, growers have gotten away from growing such big watermelons because they do not fit into refrigerators.
The sandy, loamy soil in Southeast Missouri was especially good for melons. I remember taking weekend day trips from Cape Girardeau into the area to the east of Benton and around Blodgett and Bertrand so my dad could pick up some cheap watermelons.
There was a very interesting man in Enid, OK. I do not know his name, but everyone called him "watermelon" because, as the story I have heard was that he grew them and took them to the depot in the back of his pickup. He let them sit out and anyone who wanted just picked one and went on his way. Most of the china, silver on display at the Railroad Museum of Oklahoma are his. Tony LaLumia
Note the use of what I am going to say was a stock car for transporting the melons. For railroads who did not roster SAL-type ventilated boxcars, I have heard of stock cars being multipurposed. I think they still grew them that big when I was a kid. Put them in a cold creek to chill them on a hot day. My great-great grandparents lived in Morley adjacent to the St. Louis, Iron Mountain and Southern (SLIM&S), Missouri Pacific (MP) line that ran to Charleston. That is how my Great Grandpa Harry met his bride to be, when he and his brother started farming cotton near Brooks Jct.
