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057
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Transcription
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With the good memories, there are bad ones. The railroads were a blessing for the early homesteaders. My parents moved their entire belongings in one box car to the land where they lived for over 40 years. The coal burning engines brought with them the dreaded grass fires that put fear into the hearts of every settler. Fire guards were plowed on both sides of the track to prevent fires fro burning the grazing land, crops and homes.
I have seen as any as 5 fires started in a single mile. The plowed fire guards usually stopped them, but if one jumped the guards, an emergency call would go out over the party line, and every settler available would come as fast as he could with plow and team. Guards would be plowed around hay stacks, homes and barns.
The Chicago, Burlington and Quincy, (CB&Q), known as the Burlington, ran thru our ranch. My brother and I would, occasionally walk along the tracks and place a penny on the rails, and then crawl out of sight under the bridge and wait for a train to run over it. We couldn't always find it afterward, but when we did it was just a thin copper wafer.
The wooden bridge, that spanned the drainage way, was a casualty of fire. After it burned a couple of times, it was replaced with a large concrete culvert. My father did some work for the Burlington Railroad, with a four horse team and fresno, (a large earth scoop), he moved earth over the concrete culvert, so that the rails could be relayed.
I suppose the reason the memory is so vivid in my mind, is because I had a part in the project. The earth moving job was hard on horses, it took a team in good working condition to walk in the soft earth for more than three or four hours. This meant that if Dad put in a full day, he needed more than one team.
The task of changing teams was partly my job. I was only 9 or 10 years old and I would bring a fresh four-horse team to him each day. Dad would have the extra team tied in the barn, and at noon I would go to the barn, and put the collars on the horses, I would take one horse at a time and tie it to a post, I would then take the halter rope for each horse and lead them to where he was working. Four horses, weighing 1800 pounds each, breathing down my neck didn't make me feel very comfortable. It only took about thirty minutes to get to the job. Dad would change the harness from the team he was using to the ones I brought an I would take the tired team back to the barn, to water and feed them.
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Rights
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Metzger Memories
