In Memoriam: A Girl & A Train
June 11, 2020
Sheila Harris
Editor’s note: Although many historical accounts have been written about the short railroad which once served Cassville, I am new to its history, and am thus newly fascinated. I’ve been particularly intrigued with trying toretrace the route of the tracks and the location of various landmarks associated with the railroad. If you’ve seen me circling city blocks with seemingly no purpose, I’ve actually been on a mission to recreate the past in my mind, in order to tell the following story. - SH
Harold Henson, of Cassville, never rode in the passenger coach on the C & W Railroad (later renamed the
C & E), but his memory of the nation’s shortest standard-guage railroad, which made daily runs from Cassville to Exeter and back, are vivid, nevertheless.
“We used to steal cars from the train,” he said, confessing to boyhood transgressions he, his brother and
a neighbor committed.
“We didn’t mean any harm,” he continued, although by hindsight he admits harm could have resulted.
“Sometimes the engineer left a freight car or two parked on the track across from the depot overnight,”
he explained. “A time or two, when we thought we could get away with it, we boys would release the parking
brake on a car, so we could watch it roll down the track to the end of the line, just around the corner. Strictly
speaking, I guess it wasn’t stealing, but we knew we’d get in trouble if we got caught. We were too young to realize
someone could have gotten hurt.”
About thirty-five years prior to Henson’s misdeeds, in an incident Henson was unaware of, a similar scenario
unfolded: one with tragic consequences.
Around 8:30 p.m., on October 4, 1917, Cassville school teacher, Mrs. Zuma Talbot Bloomer, was seated at her dining room table with her son, 15-year-old Laverne, and oldest daughter, Francis “Ruth,” who had just returned from a neighbor’s
house. Ruth, a freshman at Cassville High School, had turned 14 the day before.
While the three at the table worked on school lessons, Bloomer’s 12-year-old daughter, Willie, practiced
playing the piano in an adjoining room. When Willie heard rumbling, at first distant, but growing ever louder, she rose from the piano bench and headed for the dining room to ask her mother what it could be. She never made it.
Two runaway freight cars, heavily loaded with gravel and pushing an empty box car in front of them, jumped the end of the track, barreled across the street and smashed into the house with such force it was knocked from its foundation.
Ruth, seated with her back to the outside wall of the front of the house, bore the full brunt of the impact. She died
30 minutes after being located beneath the wreckage, from massive trauma to the head and spine. Her mother and
siblings were unharmed.
The catastrophe, which left the community reeling in shock, nearly spelled an end to the railroad – which was
judged to be at fault in the tragedy. While attempting to pull a trainload of gravel up the five-mile incline from Cassville
to Exeter, the engine proved incapable of the task, so two loaded gravel cars were uncoupled three miles west of Cassville. They were left sitting on the track while the engine pulled the rest of the cars on into Exeter. Afterward, the engine returned for the two remaining cars. However, when the engine bumped the leading car in an attempt to recouple,
the pin failed to lock into place. Instead, the engine’s nudge pushed the cars into a gravitational descent into
Cassville, one in which they gained momentum with every turn of their wheels.
The engineer followed with the engine in a desperate attempt to catch up with them and recouple to prevent
the loaded cars from hurtling into an unsuspecting town. When he saw that his efforts were futile, he put in a call
to a switchman in Cassville in hopes that he could divert the runaway cars, but the call was received too late.
The two gravel cars swept around the final bend in the track near Mill and 9th Streets, crashed into an empty
box car, and, pushing it like a ramrod, plunged across 7th Street, directly into the Bloomer home.
After the 1917 tragedy, Mrs. Bloomer, who had lost her husband (W. J. Bloomer) when her children were infants, opted to relocate with her remaining two children to Columbia, Missouri, where her brother was a professor at the University
of Missouri. There, she accepted a position with the Department of Agriculture and, to the best of her ability, put the past behind her.
The C & W (Cassville & Western) Railroad was originally funded and constructed by Cassville citizens in 1896, after the Frisco had opted to run their north/south line five miles to the west, through Exeter, in 1881. The new, privately-financed line from Cassville to Exeter - short though it was – was a boon to merchants and industries in Cassville. It was
often the sole means of transportation for goods, supplies and travelers in a town with roads frequently impassable
due to flooding.
After the 1917 accident, the railroad was purchased by Cassville businessmen Dave Dingler and James C. Ault, who changed its name to the C & E (Cassville & Exeter) Railroad. A new name and new owners gave fresh life to the railroad, which gained renown as the nation’s shortest, privately-owned, standard-guage railroad. Being featured in Ripley’s Believe
It or Not didn’t hurt its reputation either.
In addition to providing much-needed freight service to Exeter, the C & E catered to tourists, who bought tickets
for round-trip rides in its sole passenger car. Field trip outings on the train were also the highlight of many a
schoolchild’s year.
The depot in Cassville, touted for its “commodius and tasty” amenities, was located where Bob’s Appliance now is, on the west side of Main Street just north of the BBQ Station. As the train made its downhill coast into Cassville
from the west, it swept around the picturesque “high road” (10th Street), hugging the bend at the base of the
tree line above the drainage ditch separating it from what is now 11th Street below.
When the train reached town, it crossed Townsend Street, ran along the back of the yard where The Barry
County Advertiser and Litho Printers are now situated, then stopped at the depot for passengers to disembark,
before crossing Main Street with freight cars.
The track split as it crossed Main Street and diverged in what is now the diagonal parking lot on the north side
of Copy Cat Printers. One track ran south on East Street and ended at what is now 7th Street. A second line ran farther
to the east and curved southward on Mill Street, likewise reaching track’s end at 7th Street, in front of where Cassville Mill & Power once stood.
Across the street from the old mill site, to the south, a swing set now stands in the public playground: a fitting
memorial to a young girl taken too soon, whose home once stood in the immediate vicinity.
There is no record of another accident involving the short railroad which once ran between Exeter and
Cassville. It served its intended purpose for 60 years. After a couple more changes in ownership, it became a
victim of changing times in 1956, when a last run was made on its rails. The depot was torn down and the tracks were pulled up – except for a few which, according to Harold Henson, lie beneath pavement.
* In Cassville’s past, 7th, 8th and 9th Streets were called Water, North and Paint Streets, respectively.
Many thanks to Jeremiah Buntin at The Barry County Museum for his help and for the great work he does in archiving
Barry County’s history.
Much information for this article was found on the museum website (barrycomuseum.org) and in books printed
by Litho Printers, including a 1976 Barry County Advertiser article by Irene Horner and accounts by Senator Emory
Melton, as well as the Bloomer obituaries on the Rootsweb archives of Oak Hill Cemetery in Cassville.
Sheila Harris
Editor’s note: Although many historical accounts have been written about the short railroad which once served Cassville, I am new to its history, and am thus newly fascinated. I’ve been particularly intrigued with trying toretrace the route of the tracks and the location of various landmarks associated with the railroad. If you’ve seen me circling city blocks with seemingly no purpose, I’ve actually been on a mission to recreate the past in my mind, in order to tell the following story. - SH
Harold Henson, of Cassville, never rode in the passenger coach on the C & W Railroad (later renamed the
C & E), but his memory of the nation’s shortest standard-guage railroad, which made daily runs from Cassville to Exeter and back, are vivid, nevertheless.
“We used to steal cars from the train,” he said, confessing to boyhood transgressions he, his brother and
a neighbor committed.
“We didn’t mean any harm,” he continued, although by hindsight he admits harm could have resulted.
“Sometimes the engineer left a freight car or two parked on the track across from the depot overnight,”
he explained. “A time or two, when we thought we could get away with it, we boys would release the parking
brake on a car, so we could watch it roll down the track to the end of the line, just around the corner. Strictly
speaking, I guess it wasn’t stealing, but we knew we’d get in trouble if we got caught. We were too young to realize
someone could have gotten hurt.”
About thirty-five years prior to Henson’s misdeeds, in an incident Henson was unaware of, a similar scenario
unfolded: one with tragic consequences.
Around 8:30 p.m., on October 4, 1917, Cassville school teacher, Mrs. Zuma Talbot Bloomer, was seated at her dining room table with her son, 15-year-old Laverne, and oldest daughter, Francis “Ruth,” who had just returned from a neighbor’s
house. Ruth, a freshman at Cassville High School, had turned 14 the day before.
While the three at the table worked on school lessons, Bloomer’s 12-year-old daughter, Willie, practiced
playing the piano in an adjoining room. When Willie heard rumbling, at first distant, but growing ever louder, she rose from the piano bench and headed for the dining room to ask her mother what it could be. She never made it.
Two runaway freight cars, heavily loaded with gravel and pushing an empty box car in front of them, jumped the end of the track, barreled across the street and smashed into the house with such force it was knocked from its foundation.
Ruth, seated with her back to the outside wall of the front of the house, bore the full brunt of the impact. She died
30 minutes after being located beneath the wreckage, from massive trauma to the head and spine. Her mother and
siblings were unharmed.
The catastrophe, which left the community reeling in shock, nearly spelled an end to the railroad – which was
judged to be at fault in the tragedy. While attempting to pull a trainload of gravel up the five-mile incline from Cassville
to Exeter, the engine proved incapable of the task, so two loaded gravel cars were uncoupled three miles west of Cassville. They were left sitting on the track while the engine pulled the rest of the cars on into Exeter. Afterward, the engine returned for the two remaining cars. However, when the engine bumped the leading car in an attempt to recouple,
the pin failed to lock into place. Instead, the engine’s nudge pushed the cars into a gravitational descent into
Cassville, one in which they gained momentum with every turn of their wheels.
The engineer followed with the engine in a desperate attempt to catch up with them and recouple to prevent
the loaded cars from hurtling into an unsuspecting town. When he saw that his efforts were futile, he put in a call
to a switchman in Cassville in hopes that he could divert the runaway cars, but the call was received too late.
The two gravel cars swept around the final bend in the track near Mill and 9th Streets, crashed into an empty
box car, and, pushing it like a ramrod, plunged across 7th Street, directly into the Bloomer home.
After the 1917 tragedy, Mrs. Bloomer, who had lost her husband (W. J. Bloomer) when her children were infants, opted to relocate with her remaining two children to Columbia, Missouri, where her brother was a professor at the University
of Missouri. There, she accepted a position with the Department of Agriculture and, to the best of her ability, put the past behind her.
The C & W (Cassville & Western) Railroad was originally funded and constructed by Cassville citizens in 1896, after the Frisco had opted to run their north/south line five miles to the west, through Exeter, in 1881. The new, privately-financed line from Cassville to Exeter - short though it was – was a boon to merchants and industries in Cassville. It was
often the sole means of transportation for goods, supplies and travelers in a town with roads frequently impassable
due to flooding.
After the 1917 accident, the railroad was purchased by Cassville businessmen Dave Dingler and James C. Ault, who changed its name to the C & E (Cassville & Exeter) Railroad. A new name and new owners gave fresh life to the railroad, which gained renown as the nation’s shortest, privately-owned, standard-guage railroad. Being featured in Ripley’s Believe
It or Not didn’t hurt its reputation either.
In addition to providing much-needed freight service to Exeter, the C & E catered to tourists, who bought tickets
for round-trip rides in its sole passenger car. Field trip outings on the train were also the highlight of many a
schoolchild’s year.
The depot in Cassville, touted for its “commodius and tasty” amenities, was located where Bob’s Appliance now is, on the west side of Main Street just north of the BBQ Station. As the train made its downhill coast into Cassville
from the west, it swept around the picturesque “high road” (10th Street), hugging the bend at the base of the
tree line above the drainage ditch separating it from what is now 11th Street below.
When the train reached town, it crossed Townsend Street, ran along the back of the yard where The Barry
County Advertiser and Litho Printers are now situated, then stopped at the depot for passengers to disembark,
before crossing Main Street with freight cars.
The track split as it crossed Main Street and diverged in what is now the diagonal parking lot on the north side
of Copy Cat Printers. One track ran south on East Street and ended at what is now 7th Street. A second line ran farther
to the east and curved southward on Mill Street, likewise reaching track’s end at 7th Street, in front of where Cassville Mill & Power once stood.
Across the street from the old mill site, to the south, a swing set now stands in the public playground: a fitting
memorial to a young girl taken too soon, whose home once stood in the immediate vicinity.
There is no record of another accident involving the short railroad which once ran between Exeter and
Cassville. It served its intended purpose for 60 years. After a couple more changes in ownership, it became a
victim of changing times in 1956, when a last run was made on its rails. The depot was torn down and the tracks were pulled up – except for a few which, according to Harold Henson, lie beneath pavement.
* In Cassville’s past, 7th, 8th and 9th Streets were called Water, North and Paint Streets, respectively.
Many thanks to Jeremiah Buntin at The Barry County Museum for his help and for the great work he does in archiving
Barry County’s history.
Much information for this article was found on the museum website (barrycomuseum.org) and in books printed
by Litho Printers, including a 1976 Barry County Advertiser article by Irene Horner and accounts by Senator Emory
Melton, as well as the Bloomer obituaries on the Rootsweb archives of Oak Hill Cemetery in Cassville.
Above, left to right: Ruth, Lavern and Willie Bloomer, taken a few years prior to the train accident.
The Bloomer home, which sat across from the end of the railroad track on the south side of what is now 7th Street.
The train, facing east, preparing to cross Main Street in Cassville, called Springfield Street or Springfield Road on old maps. The depot was situated on the property where Bob's Appliance is now located.
The swing set in the park on 7th & Mill, which now sits near where the Bloomer home once stood.
Old map of Cassville, showing the railroad tracks coming into town from the west, splitting, then ending near (unmarked) Water Street (or 7th Street, as it is now called). The Bloomer property is shown at the bottom of the map, on the right.
The depot, as seen from the west, with the current BBQ Station restaurant building to the right in the photo. The westbound C&E train can be seen preparing to cross Main Street, in the background of the photo.