Hayden creates 1890s railroad depot vignette
MARY LOU MONTGOMERY
A number of years ago, while perusing the Library of Congress’ digital photographic collection, Archie Hayden’s attention was drawn to one particular image.
It was a picture of “two little kids” seated in an old railroad station, as if waiting for their train.
As a life-long railroad aficionado, this photo captured Archie’s imagination
“I’ve always been a sucker for small town depots,” the retired railroad conductor said. “They just have a charm to them, something nostalgic. They sit there,” and sometimes “nobody will be in them. Sometimes the whole town will be there to see who would show up on the train.” A depot “was a spot where people connected.”
Intrigued by this image, he decided to recreate a life-size version.
And through out the month of October, this vignette is on display at the Hannibal Arts Council, 105 S. Main St.
Calendar
In the picture, a Burlington Route calendar hangs on the wall behind the children. “It was just a logo for the Burlington Route, and it had these little date pads that you tear off.
“I have a couple of Burlington calendars in my collection,” he said, “but you don’t find them in that vintage anymore. You find (calendars) from the 1950s and 1960s, but you don’t find them from the 1890s.”
Meanwhile, “I was participating in some online auction,” he said, where someone was selling an 1895 calendar with a date pad still attached.
“It wasn’t a full calendar pad,” Archie said, “it had nine months left on it.”
He talked to the seller, and agreed to purchase that 1895 calendar.
In turn, Archie took the staples out of a Burlington calendar from his collection, removing the existing vintage calendar pad. He took the cardboard back to a print shop, “Iva’s on Market Street, and he made me a dozen cardboard calendar backs. They were identical to the original. I took them back home and put the original calendar back together.”
He then affixed a single calendar sheet from the pad he purchased from the online auction, to each of nine calendar backs produced by Iva’s Printing.
“That made me nine calendars. I gave several away to my collector buddies, and sold a few.
I told everybody I sold them to, that the back had been reproduced, but the date pad was original, 1895.”
Ticket window
To add to the authentic scene of the staged railroad depot, Archie created a ticket window, reminiscent of what was used in depots of this period.
“There is a shelf in which to transact business, a little pigeon hole in which to slide money and tickets back and forth.
He had a brass cage that came from the Elsberry depot, he said.
Using wood salvaged from a fireplace surround in a house under demolition in Zeigler Street valley - near the railroad tunnel, circa 1998 - he framed the brass cage.
“I built the three boards, two going up and one going across the top; it is a window frame. I made them the same dimensions so the brass grill fit right in it.”
Corn festival
Archie borrowed a late 1800’s broadside advertising piece, about 10 or 12 inches wide and close to 3 feet tall. He hung it on the wall of his makeshift depot. It advertises a corn festival. “It must have been harvest time,” he said. The artwork includes Burlington verbiage.
Map of Missouri
On the wall behind the children, in the Library of Congress photo, was a large map of the state of Ohio. “Why was an Ohio map in the Burlington ad?” Archie wondered. “The Burlington never ran into Ohio.”
In his vignette, he replaced the Ohio map with one from Missouri. “It was an old railroad map of the state of Missouri from 1914. It was a gift from Nora Creason, because I did some work for her when they were trying to clean out the Laura Frazier house, to get it fixed up.”
He framed the map, and added it to the railroad station exhibit.
Luggage
“The two kids in the photo each have an antique satchel; her’s was a little dainty camel-back trunk, it was fancy.
“That was the only thing I didn’t have,” Archie said. As he was setting up the current exhibit at the Arts Council, he thought, “Maybe I could find a satchel or trunk that would look OK.
“I went to Bluebird antique shop, and in Mike Moore’s booth there was a satchel. It was leather and antique. Mike happened to come in about a minute later.
“Can I borrow it,” for the Arts Council exhibit? Archie asked.
Mike said, “Take it down there knock yourself out.”
“Even if I don’t find the trunk that the girl is sitting on, we have a piece of luggage,” Archie surmised.
Parasol
“The girl in the photo, she had in her hands a parasol, tied up. I remembered my daughter had a parasol when she was Becky Thatcher.”
He asked her, and she subsequently loaned it to her father for the Arts Council exhibit.
Cane
In the photo from the Library of Congress, the boy was holding a cane.
Archie found a cane that would fit the bill in the vignette he created.
“The cane in that display was a toy of my late father-in-law, Ed Alms. He came to Hannibal around 1970 and managed the Great River Gas Company.
“Hannibal had a new manager of the gas company, and I had found my future bride, Trudy,” Archie said.
“It wasn’t a true cane, it was a black stick that had a white handle on the knob,” Archie said, but it serves as a representation of the cane in the original photo.
Folklife weekend
Archie will be on hand at the Arts Council, 105 S. Main, during the hours of the Folklife Festival, Oct. 17-18, to explain the vignette.
“I’ll be there to point things out to people,” he said.
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