Nearby Britt, IA has its annual 'Hobo Festival' and although real old time
Hoboes are scarce due to advanced age, I had the chance to visit with a few a
couple yrs ago including the well-known "Steam Train" Maury. Of the two I
spoke with who traveled the midwest 'in the day' they affirmed what some RR
authors have said as to certain RR's and cities being very tough on "bo's" and
others being easier to get along with. The Burlington was considered a
'friendly' RR.
Dubuque still had vestiges of a "Hooverville" when I was a kid in the late
50's. Was on a pond (Mississippi R backwater) on far south end of town where
Milw & IC tracks converged. Depending on whether a 'knight of the road' was
coming of going, in-bound trains slowed down a lot as they reached this point
even if continuing across the bridge to E. Dbq (IC) or northward to Marquette
(Milw). Outbound were starting up as IC yard was just north of this point and
Milw had to go thru crossovers. Our one-time neighbor was a Milw Detective
(covered Savanna to LaCrosse) and he made the point that he & his buddies were
less concerned with 'migrant workers' as they were with thieves who broke into
cars (lot of meat reefers coming out of Dbq at the time). To my knowledge
there was no such camp on the Illinois side where they might have boarded Q
frts stopped for the IC crossing the Q main at the west portal of the tunnel as
they came & went off the Dbq bridge. Possibly because the 'downtown' was close
to the riverfront, depot, etc - i.e. no space to have an out of sight, out of
mind hobo camp.
I knew one long-time Q 'cinder dick' at Galesburg (re'td in the 70's) and he
generally had no great difficulty with true hoboes "in the day" as compared to
the tramps & thieves. The biggest concern in the area, as he had been told by
oldtimers when he hired on in the 40's, was guys opening cars of Hiram Walker
whiskey coming out of Peoria during Prohibition. The was destined for Canada &
thus the distillery was still in operation legally just for 'export'. He
commented legend had it that Q & C&NW crews (the 2 RR's carrying most of the
output to Canadian connections) would be sure to grab a sample of two if they
came across an open car before calling authorities.
Gerald
To: CBQ@yahoogroups.com
From: bkewinger@yahoo.com
Date: Sun, 1 Aug 2010 21:55:15 +0000
Subject: [CBQ] railroad history
I have a question
one thing you don't see much printed or talked about are the hobo's of yester
year refurring to the 1930's when they were at the high point.I assume there
were two camps here in burlington iowa one along the cbq and one along the rock
island but where were they located and how big of problem was around the
midwest because of the cold winters
bill ewinger
burlington iowa
[Non-text portions of this message have been removed]
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