I've seen a standardized, segregated depot plan produced by the KATY. Their engineering office in St. Louis had a plan for its southern depots and I wondered if the Frisco did the same thing. Has anyone seen plans for Frisco depots that provide separate, racially segregated waiting rooms or restrooms? Thanks, Paula
Many Frisco depots had a "colored" waiting room. They're pictured in the company station drawings. In the late 1940s and early 1950s, the Springfield depot didn't have a separate waiting room. But there were "white" and "colored" restrooms. Tom
Some of the earlier Frisco Modelers Information Group (FMIG) Newsletters edited by Charlie had drawings for the standard depots. Check newsletter numbers in the low 30s.
I don't know if the Newburg depot was segregated or not, but the Newburg city limit sign was posted with a sundown ordinance sign. During the race riots of the 1950s and 1960s the sigh said "All Negroes must leave town before sunset, city ordinance". Also there was a KKK march held in Newburg in 1965, and a cross burning at Jacklin Field in Rolla the same day as the Newburg march.
My Floor Plans of Stations book has a floor plan for Newburg dated December 28, 1916. There is only one waiting room. It was a standard plan 56'-11" x 20'-2". Ron Williams
The Tulsa Union Depot had segregated waiting rooms. The further South, the more likely it would be the case. Tom
Thanks so much for your responses. I'd love to get my hands on the standardized company plans. Would someone help out this newbie and tell me what FMIG Newsletters are and how I can hold of them, as well as the Floor Plans of Stations book? Thanks, Paula
Paula, Go to "Search". Type in - FMIG Newsletters. Scroll down to: FMIG & All Aboard newsletters Never mind, just click on the link.
The "farther South" comment is probably true. I believe the Mason Dixon line was loosely the norm. As as example, we here in Kansas were on the North side while Oklahoma was on the South side. This is not particularly a Frisco example, but several years ago we went to Pawhaska, OK. The Midland Valley depot was still standing. About 100 feet east of it was a cement structure with 4 doors along the front on it. Upon further inspection, behind each door was a molded cement toilet seat. I for one and glad those days are now history, and honestly wish they would have never happened in the first place.
The Separate Accommodations Act of 1891 required railroads in Arkansas to maintain separate waiting rooms for blacks and whites. In Northwest Arkansas the black population was modest but most of the Central Division depot plans I have seen had black and white waiting rooms. The black waiting rooms generally abutted the baggage room and quality of room finish was less than that for whites. The law also applied to passenger trains. A Frisco train from Fayetteville was jammed with whites headed for a nearby town. They filled one car completely that was adjacent to another car with a black man who was sole occupant of that car. The law was changed shortly afterward to allow the use of wood partitions in a car so that they would not have the same problem.
Living in Springfield in the late forties in my early teens, I hung out at the passenger station alot to watch trains. I remember going in the colored restroom one day and there was a colored porter there. He said you are in the wrong section boy. You belong in the white section. I said so what and then left.
"...The law also applied to passenger trains. A Frisco train from Fayetteville was jammed with whites headed for a nearby town. They filled a car completely adjacent to a black man who was sole occupant of a car..." I don't care who you are; that's funny right there. That's the trouble with discrimination, it works both ways.
According to a retired conductor I knew, the way the Frisco handled larger and smaller segregated traffic varied. If the "colored" traffic was larger than the "white," the larger section of the car became the "colored" section, and the whites went to the smaller. On the KCS, doorways between the divided sections had removable "colored" and "white" placards that could be switched around as necessary. Tom
The Hugo, OK depot had separate waiting rooms for "colored" men & women, but one waiting room for whites of both sexes. Since this was also in the Choctaw Nation, I wonder where the Indian population went?
At least in later years the depot in Fort Smith had, according to the sign, a "Colored Intrastate Waiting Room". I gather this had to do with complying with state law in Arkansas, but which didn't apply if a person was travelling out of the state. The White and Colored waiting rooms were located either side of the ticket office, so a single ticket clerk would serve the ticket window in both waiting rooms. Gordon
The United States Supreme Court in late 1955, in the case of NAACP vs St. Louis San Francisco Railway Co., determined that racial discrimination of interstate rail passengers was illegal. This is probably why Colored Intrastate waiting rooms continued to exist after the interstate ban.
