"Boomers" were an elite, if not always welcomed, fraternity among railroad men. Skilled at one or more aspects of railroading, they were also driving by a defining elemnet of the American character, a desire to wander. As a result, boomers, unlike their counterparts in the "home guard" (railroad men who continued to work for a single railroad and who sometimes resented the boomers), traveled the length and breadth of the land and worked for a living wherever they found themselves. Their presence in and contribution to the railroad scene is well known to railroad and social historians and to railroad fans. An American archetype, boomers are one of the unique characters railroading gave to American culture, which includes locomotive engineers, Pullman porter, and telegraph operators.

The term boomer had its origin in the 1820's and 1830's when it referred to men who followed boomtown camps. "Their common practice," wrote Railroad Magazine editor Freeman HUBBARD, "was to follow the 'rushes' - that is, to apply for seasonal jobs when and where they were most needed" by the railroads. It was not entirely in jest that a fine distinction was made by these men between themselves as "boomers," who traveled and worked, and "hoboes," who traveled but did not wor,, and "bums," who neither traveled nor worked.

Harry Chester BEDWELL was a boomer. He was born on a farm [five miles southwest of] the remote village of Kellerton in southern Iowa, on January 8, 1888. Kellerton was a stop on the Chariton-St. Joseph Branch of the Chicago, Burlington & Quincy Railroad. As a boy growing up on the prairie, he was drawn as so many were to the activity surrounding the arrival and departure of trains at the station. He was also enraptured by the fact that the railroad station telegraph operator (op) could communicate with anyone anywhere in the world as thus learned the news from near and far before anyone else in town. Thus smitten, he could hardly belive his good fotune when, at the age of fourteen, the Kellerton op offered to share the mystery of the telegraph keys with him if he would but sweep out the station, carry coal in for the stove and keep its fire burning, take the U.S. mail that arrived on the trains to the post office, and keep the station's books. BEDWELL considered this cheap tuition because what he learned enabled him to travel and work - to boom - throughout the West.

At the age of seventeen, he was given his own station to manage in Andover, Missouri, and from there he went on to forty-one different stations on five railroads: the Chicago, Burlington & Quincy, the Denver & Rio Grande Western, the Atchison, Topeka & Santa Fe, the Union Pacific, and the Southern Pacific.

His career took him from Iowa to Missouri to Utah, Oregon, and California.

The experiences BEDWELL had in these diverse settings - come common to railroading everywhere, others unique to specific settings - fired his imagination as a writer. He began writing for publication in 1908, when the Los Angeles Times Illustrated Weekly Magazine published his "Lure of the Desert," and he continued to write until just before his death on October 4, 1955. BEDWELL translated his experiences into over 70 stories like "The Screaming Wheels," in which the crew of a train closely following another train hauling explosives suddenly finds they are being chased down the mountain by four runaway cars loaded with sheep, and "Smart Boomer," in which a momentary - if understandable - laspe in a passenger engineer's attention to the rules and orders that control every movement of his train places him on a single track already occupied by an oncoming passenger train. His last story, "Avalanche Warning," was published posthumously in the Saturday Evening Post on May 11, 1957. A vast majority of his work was published in Railroad Magazine, where thirty-four BEDWELL stories, features, and "True Tales" appeared between 1909 and 1955.

The May 1958 issue of The Palimpset, published by the Iowa Historical Society, was entirely devoted to Harry BEDWELL.

Harry Chester BEDWELL, born January 8, 1888 on a farm southwest of Kellerton, Iowa, was the youngest son of Chester and Flora (CROW) BEDWELL. His love of animals never left him. At the end of his days there was always a dog or twon in his household.

The BEDWELL family later moved into Kellerton, a thriving cattle-shipping point at the time. When his parents separated, Harry helped his mother meet the family's expenses by performing odd-jobs about town. On Sundays, the family attended the Methodist Church where Harry was a member of the Young Men's Bible Class.

Accepting a position as a relief operator suited Harry's roving disposition, for he was required to "fill in" at many points on the St. Joseph Division. Often this meant closing a station at the end of the day and riding all night on a freight train to his next assignment.

Before leaving the Burlington late in 1906, BEDWELL had issued train orders at such other Iowa locals as Shambaugh, on the Nodaway Valley Branch, and Bartlett, on the main line along the Missouri River. He also worked as relief operator in western Missouri at Langdon, East Leavenworth and other points on the busy Omaha-Kansas City line.

Then BEDWELL first went to Springville, Utah, on the west side of the Wasatch Range, as a telegraph operator. Later he moved to nearby Provo and Lefai, also in the Mormon country. Then it was Green River in the scenic Beckwith Plateau. He also worked at Helper, where, as the name indicates, an extra engine or "helper" was added to a train in crossing the lofty ridge of Soldier Summit. Here was mountain railroading in all its glory; short, struggling trains blasting their way up the 4 per cent grade (in that day) on the side of the Summit, or brake shoes becoming red-hot and smoking in checking their progress on the way down. At other points fruit blocks and silk specials made a race track out of the high desert course.

From the Rio Grande, BEDWELL went to Riverside, California, on the Santa Fe. But the Santa Fe did not look with favor upon union telegraphers at that time. When it became known that the new operator carried an Order of Railroad Telegraphers' card he knew he would be obliged to leave.

Thus, BEDWELL began a long association with the Southern Pacific and its subsidiary, the Pacific Electric Railway.

After two years as assistant agent in San Pedro, BEDWELL went in the same capacity to the Quaker community of Whittier, located fifteen miles from Los Angeles by trolley. He brought his mother to California and she lived in Whittier or its vicinity until her death in 1921. During this period he married Ellen Hart "Ellie" TALBOT, the daughter of a prosperous southern family.

BEWELL's eighteen-year stay in Whittier with Pacific Electric was a happy period in his life. He worked closely with the Southern Pacific ticket seller, Charles Sterling WALLACE, in that friendly community. The two became fast friends. Both had a deep interest in books and litera- ture, and Wallace likewise had marketed short stories.

About 1920 Harry BEDWELL and Ellie moved to their "ranch" at McCampbell station, just west of Rivera. His mother, however, continued to live alone on West Philadelphia Street in Whittier. BEDWELL was very solicitous about her, calling by phone daily and making frequent visits.

The TALBOTS, BEDWELL'S in-laws, had been wanting him to go into business. With his knowledge of bookkeeping and managerial ability they felt he would make a competent executive. Although he disliked the idea of working with relatives and really enjoyed railroading, their offer was tempting. In the end he capitulated. He gave up his PE agency in 1927 and was subsequently made general manager of a fair-sized bottling works in Los Angeles, called Dorado Club Beverages. The firm had been losing money, but under BEDWELL'S management it was soon in the black.

Then came the Great Depression. Richfield Oil, which one of the TALBOTS headed, went into receivership. This jeopardized the other interests of the family, including Dorado Club. BEDWELL was out of a job. He also lost heavily in mortgaging real estate to help his relatives stave off disaster. Ellie died in 1934, leaving Harry alone since the couple did not have children.

Harry found a sanctuary in a small cottage near Alpine in San Dieago County, located twenty-five miles northeast of San Diego. The cottage overlooked mountain peaks and ridges and had a nice study from which he could concentrate on his writing.

BEDWELL married Lorraine RICHARDSON on May 13, 1940. Lorraine came from a railroad family, her brothers a locomotive engineer and a conductor on the Pennsylvania. Harry and Lorraine were fond of pets. Many a lost dog found a permanent home with the BEDWELLS.

Early in 1942 the Southern Pacific called BEDWELL back to work, and he answered the call, working at Norwalk near Los Angeles. BEDWELL'S first and only book, The Boomer was also published in 1942. The novel was reprinted (106,000 copies) in a pocket- sized edition for the armed forces. BEDWELL was proud of his Iowa background, and the volume has many flashbacks to his early years in Iowa and Missouri.

After leaving the SP BEDWELL and his wife bought a mountain home in Nevada City, California. In working about his new home he slipped on a rock and was injured. Complications later developed and he took a turn for the worse. Harry Chester BEDWELL died on October 4, 1955, and was interred at Rose Hills Cemetery, Whittier, California.

SOURCES:
BEDWELL, Harry & PORTERFIELD, James D. The Boomer: A Story of the Rails Pp. vii-x. Farrar & Rinehart. New York. 1942.

DONOVAN, Frank P., Jr. Harry Bedwell: Last of the Great Railroad Storytellers Ross & Haines, Inc. Minneapolis. 1959.

Transcription by Sharon R. Becker, June of 2009