Mills County, Iowa

Silver City Community History
1879 - 1979

CONSTRUCTION OF THE WABASH, ST. LOUIS AND PACIFIC RAILROAD

I can “hark” back to a time when there was no Silver City. Because before Silver City, ‘I was'. Harrison Huffaker, and family were the sole occupants of the place. Myself and some nine or ten other men stayed all night with him, in his little modest home, in February 1897. We were members of a surveying party conducted by T. A. Clark, an uncle of mine, employed by the Wabash R. R. Company, who surveyed and constructed the first thirty-six miles out of Council Bluffs.

Where Mineola now stands there were just two families, the Cash and Lanz. D.H. Soloman, a noted attorney, of Council Bluffs. was employed by the R.R. Co., to get the right­of-way through, which required all the diplomacy of a foreign Counsul, but D.H. was equal to the occasion.

A perfect gentleman in demeanor, suave, mild as Moses, and his step was such that he could walk on pavement of fresh laid eggs and never crack a shell. It is hardly necessary to state that he had very few damage suits. Reference: Silver City Times, January 28, 1932 — Milo Phillips

It is a long step backward from 1932 to 1879, 53 years with only the memory as a record. Some events in the "chain” are left out and the describing becomes disconnected and a loss of interest follows. So the writer pleads guilty and asks the leniency of the court.

After the survey of the Wabash was made and the grade stakes set, the contractors came on and took their places with their mules, scrapers, shovels and plows. Some of these contractors had only a mile from that up to six or eight, depending on their financial resources. If I am not mistaken I think J.J. Brown an old R.R. Contracor of Council Bluffs was the “big man” among the riding several miles out of Council Bluffs — starting from the Union Depot.

Cheap bunk houses were built along the right of way and mule stables were put up for the mules. In the bunks were mostly Irishmen. “Sons of Erin” with a number of Swedes. In these bunks Irishmen from Donegal and the Cove of Cork, Dublin, and Tipperary, rested after 12 hours of gruesome toil; ate, drank, slept, swore and fought that the “Wabash” might live, move and have its being.

South of Silver City, some 2˝ miles near the old Landon and Schroder home were located the Shannon and Martin's outfit where they took out a “cut” and made a "fill" across the low ground north and south to the township line of Silver Creek. Whether they came any farther south or not I cannot say as memory fails here.

Just south and a little west of where Patrick’s Mill used to stand was a firm of Morrisy & Jones--famous in the annals of the Wabash--but that is another story. Reference: Silver City Times, 2-25-1932--Milo Phillips

Leaving a point just west of G.W. Patrick’s old mill site, in Center township, the R.R. Line, runs south and east. Crossing Silver Creek about half way through Section 12 in Center township, keeping very close to the creek on the east side for a mile and a half, then coming back into Silver Creek twp. in the N.W. corner of Section 18. Passing through the lands then owned by W.C. Swarts, Arron Lewis and Pat McCormick, all very low ground, with many sloughs and small water holes, where in the heat of summer, bred innumerable swarms of flies, mosquitoes, gnats and all sort s of creeping things. Venting their spite during the day on the men and mules, and when night came mingling their voices with that of the whippoorwill, frogs and screech owls, sending up a demonical deafening nightly chorus, that woke echoes in the hills, causing the worn and weary Irishman to roll over in his bunk, sit up and wonder what it was all about. For it was in the jungle of dense forest growth, wild grape vines, thorn bushes and stumps, so thick one could hardly pass among them, that the “Forces” of Morrisy & Jones were encamped.

Equipped only with old fashioned Drag Scrapers, pick, shovels, and plows, for all this was before the day’s of modern machinery and dynamite. Here was a job that staggered the imagination, a battle with the combined forces of Nature, arranged against them, these Noble Sons of “Erin” labored and built through the blistering heat of summer day and sun, a section of the most discouraging difficult and diabolical link of the Wabash on the whole line between Council Bluffs and Pattonsburg. “There are they who came up through great Tribulation.” Little today, does the average passenger riding over the rails of the Wabash, in his upholstered seat, dream or think of the Martyrs, far from home and country, who suffered almost the returns of the Inquisition, and made it possible for him to travel in such luxury and ease. Reference: Silver City Time, 3-10-1932 — Milo Phillips

WABASH R.R.

The Wabash Railroad started in 1879 from Omaha, Nebraska, to St. Louis, Missouri. At one time it had four passenger trains, two going each way every day. It also carried the mail which was delivered to and from the train to the Post Offices. The freight trains also carried lots of freight stopping at each depot. With the coming of trucks carrying freight, the railroad finally lost a lots of business, including mail and passenger.

At each town, the railroad had section crews, (men who worked on the tracks) and also a depot agent. Later they closed some depots and also took off the section crews. The railroad used trucks that run on rails making the length of their working lines longer and depot agents about every other town. At one time a passenger train and freight train were all in one, stopping to pick up mail and freight. With not too many passengers, the railroad finally stopped the passenger train. The last passenger train going through Silver City was June 1968.

The Norfolk and Western took over the Wabash in October 1964.

~submitted by Roseanna Zehner & Darlene Jacoby