Re: [CBQ] Who switched Mount Morris

["Q5632West" <bill.diven@gmail.com>]

Hi Bob:

I visited with Henry "Hank" Fruit at his Franklin Grove home in 1991 covering a lot of territory including his seniority date in 1920, which is when he went firing and took the day job in Forreston. He worked there some years, worked out of Galesburg for a while, and said he came to Oregon to run the Oregon-Mt. Morris job since it was close to his home in Franklin Grove. He said that was about the time the rails were pulled up from Forreston to Mt. Morris but couldn't give an exact date for his arrival.

Seems like with coal the prime heating fuel, the lumber/coal yard on the city spur in Oregon would be the most convenient source. The Feb. 1913 Sanborn map for Oregon shows coal structures on both sides of the track between Jefferson and Washington streets at the Spahn & Rose Lumber Co. Seems less likely that section hands would shovel coal from a company gondola somewhere in the yard. The only operation I know of like that was in the 1960s when the 4960 brought a couple of Oregon Turn excursion/wayfreights to town enlisting a truck-mounted clamshell bucket to do the work. To the local engine facilities, I'd add the wye on the south side of the yard although I don't know when that was taken out.

You and I swapped messages years ago with some chatter about the Forreston job moving briefly to Rochelle before landing in Oregon. I haven't found anything to confirm that.

Bill Diven

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