Image of Grain Elevator at Liberal, Missouri

Grain Elevators at Liberal, Missouri, photoshopped

Original

An image of a grain elevator at Liberal, Missouri that I photoshopped to try to make it a bit more vivid. One can make out barely the railroad running in front.

The original image above was once on Barbara Irwin’s Liberal page (no longer maintained), and gave C. W. Goodlander as owner of the elevators and lumber yards on the Memphis Route Railroad, the business being managed by L. C. Whitesittin 1895. The image and history is given as coming from a four page supplement, concerned with Liberal’s history, its businesses and citizenry, published in December 1895 in “The Liberal Enterprise” newspaper.

The “Annual Report of the Board of Railroad Commissioners for the Year Ending December 31, 1883” reads:

“On the 3rd day of June 1879, the Short Creek & Joplin Railroad Company was chartered under the laws of Kansas for the purpose of building a railroad from Baxter Springs, Kansas, to Carthage, Missouri, running through the mineral districts of Short Creek, Joplin, and Webb City. The road was opened for business between Baxter Springs and Joplin on the 17th day of October 1879. During 1882 it was extended from Joplin to Webb City and Southeastern & Memphis Railroad, at or near Arcadia, in Crawford county, Kansas, thence southeasterly to Carthage, Missouri; also from a point in Barton County, Missouri, about fourteen miles southeasterly from Arcadia, on the above-described line, north-easterly to a point on the line of the Fort Scott & Southeastern & Memphis Railroad about four miles south of Liberal, Barton county, Missouri, and southwesterly to a point on the line of the Memphis, Kansas & Colorado Railway at or near Cherokee, Kansas, for the purpose of opening up the coal fields in Barton County, Missouri, and Crawford county, Kansas, and of making a short connection between the lines of the Memphis, Kansas & Colorado Railway and the Fort Scott, Southeastern & Memphis Railroad.”

C. W. Goodlander was a big businessman with multiple interests who wrote a book of memoirs on the early days of Fort Scott, 1857-1870.