The Excursion Train

 

After the Civil War, there were continuous boom and bust cycles in America, but a huge increase in people having discretionary income. With this income and the growth of railroad routes, there were increasing opportunities to get away. How about an excursion with your church group to that newly-opened lake resort? What about an out-of-county gathering of fellow Civil War veterans, or Masons or Oddfellows? Or how about attending the horse race or baseball game in the county next door?

     Excursion trains opened possibilities to people. Before the arrival of rail travel, a ten-mile trip could be an all-day journey. It was unfeasible to attend a baseball game or picnic in another community. Prior to the railroad few Americans had traveled a hundred miles away from home in their life. Long distance trips and overnight travel were still out-of-reach to many, but a day trip on a chartered train at half-price fare was a delightful splurge.

     An 1884 essay originally published in Cincinnati spoke of the pleasures - and perils -  of this novel mobility. 

     The man who invented the excursion train introduced a new danger in our modern life, already fraught with so many perils. His intentions were laudable, no doubt. He believed he had filled a long felt want …he saw people languishing at home in the torrid months for the want of cheap excursions from the city to the country and vice versa. Political conventions and other menagerie and circus combinations were not to be patronized as they might be with rates reduced, and he conceived that half-fare tickets would add immeasurably to the county fairs, horse races, baseball matches and camp meetings. 

     “Everyone who availed himself of it felt, somehow, that the railroad company had arranged this for his own gratification. Each passenger was a prince or princess, and this, their royal train.” 

     True, the author said, this illusion was somewhat dampened when he had to choose between sitting on the roof or standing in the hog car due to the multitudes on the train. There were drawbacks to every pleasure. Arrive a little late at the depot and you may stand the whole way. 

     “The doors and windows of the car are generally open and you are nearly smothered in dust and heat. Drinking water gives out early in the flight and is not renewed. You’re liable to be sidetracked for hours to yield the road to regular trains. You’re often landed two or three miles distant from the point you’re aiming at.”

     Then there were mechanical and operating issues. Engineers didn’t like excursion trains, the writer said, because if anything is going to go wrong on a train, it’s on an excursion. He detailed a long list of issues. The brakes wouldn’t work right and the brakeman knew nothing about it; drawbridges would be mysteriously open; the switches wouldn’t set right when an excursion train came along. 

     Finally there was the fear of losing the return ticket. Or, your watch stops and you’re late returning and need to start walking the miles home. 

     This pessimistic view probably made readers chuckle a bit with rueful recognition. But it certainly didn’t diminish the excursion train’s popularity. It also was a money maker. It put an extra 150, or 300 or 600 extra passengers on the road who would not have been otherwise. Groups who organized an excursion often got a cut of the take. There were benefits for good causes such as the Orphan Asylum and many excursions were organized to raise money for  a church library or refurbishing a room at the fraternal organization’s lodge. 

    The editor of a Fort Wayne newspaper urged citizens in August 1879 to support the good cause of the Fort Wayne City Hospital by purchasing tickets. Grace Reformed Church netted $155 from a Rome City excursion. Another time, city residents were asked to help a Methodist Church in a nearby town rebuild after the original burned down.

      Because of the money involved, Sept. 6, 1879 the Fort Wayne Daily Gazette, Daily News and Daily Sentinel jointly announced that they would begin charging the regular advertising rate of six cents a line to all benevolent, fraternal and church groups announcing excursions, concerts and festivals that were money-making endeavors. 

     The popularity of excursions also created new issues. Should people spend the Sabbath on an excursion? What if it included a Sunday service? Should anyone be picnicking and frolicking on a Sunday? The German Reform Church, at their 1883 synod, settled the issue. Leaders banned church members from participating in Sunday excursions. But after another church-sponsored excursion took place on a Sunday, an article in August said, “Sunday pic-nics were recently denounced by Pastors Kreite and Shaaf from the pulpits of the Reformed churches of this city.” 

     What about the impact on business when hundreds of city residents left on Saturdays in summer? In June 1879 the editor of the Fort Wayne Daily Gazette grumbled that “in a few hundred thousand years the citizens of Fort Wayne will come to the conclusion,” that they should make Fort Wayne so attractive that its residents wouldn’t be tempted by excursions. “Without a doubt $100,000 will be squandered outside of town by residents of this city this season…” It was true that people didn’t come to Fort Wayne for scenery or picnic groves, nor were there attractions like museums or a zoo then. But there were excursions to the city, such as a July 1879 temperance gathering held at the Academy of Music. Hundreds of people came in from the Lafayette area on the Wabash. 

     None of the issues raised stopped the flood of excursions each summer, with an occasional one in fall. The hamlets of places like Rome City and Pleasant Lake, Warsaw’s Eagle Lake and Lake Maxinkuckee, all less than 40 miles away, boomed into resorts. Victorians loved picnicking and promenading with friends. The nearby resorts also offered fishing, boat rental, rides on steamboats and dancing with live bands or orchestras. Speaking of bands – typically, the band accompanied the group on the train. It was literally BYOB – Bring Your Own Band. The atmosphere must have been somewhat like a party bus today. 

     Of course there were excursions to more far-away places, Niagara Falls being especially popular, and wealthier Fort Wayne folks took advantage. The August 23, 1879 Sentinel had a review of one such trip which was attended by the mayor. In 1889 “Teachers’ Excursions” were advertised over the Nickel Plate Railroad, typically to Niagara Falls and Toronto, with a stopover at Lake Chautauqua. In January 1887, my third great-grandfather, Myron Barbour, took an excursion train to California. It was offered by the  Illinois Central Railroad departing from Chicago and went south to New Orleans first. Participants were from several midwestern states and he was the only one from Fort Wayne. They were transferred to the Southern Pacific on the route west. 

     In the 1880s the Chicago and Northwestern Railway offered “Harvest Excursions” in late summer and fall. These were “opportunities for an inspection of the cheap lands and business centers of Iowa, Minnesota, Nebraska, Wyoming, North and South Dakota, Colorado and the far west and Northwest.” 

     Post Civil War my ancestors lived in Fort Wayne, Indiana and Coffeyville Kansas. What were some popular excursions that might tempt them? 

Excursions Types

     The types of excursions fell into some basic categories: 

Fraternal Organizations - Fraternal organizations, also known as secret societies, and mutual aid societies were so widespread that an estimated 40 percent of adult men belonged to at least one. There were also women’s auxiliaries. For many their life centered around belonging to the Masons, Knights of Pythias, Modern Woodmen, Odd Fellows, Elks, Good Templars, Knights of Labor and so on. They had conventions and sponsored picnics. 

     But in June 1875, there was also a very special gathering. Invitations were sent to all Masonic lodges and commanderies within a 100-mile radius of Fort Wayne when Solomon D. Bayless died. Bayless was a former postmaster in the city, but more central to his identity was his leadership in Masonry. He was head of four grand bodies of Indiana Freemasonry. He had the ideal Victorian funeral of a noted figure.

     “Special trains were arranged for,” the newspaper said. In fact, there were eight special trains, each with eight to twenty cars bringing delegations from Toledo, Muncie, Richmond, Lafayette, Crestline, Ohio, etc., arriving at both the north and south depots. As each commandery arrived they were met by other Masons and escorted “headed by their bands” to places set aside for them. The newspaper obtained the counts of the number of passengers in each and with a crowd who had also come in on wagons, estimated the crowd at at least 8,000. 

     Sol’s body had been preserved for a week but looked “remarkably life-like,” the reporter said. He was dressed in his Sir Knight suit, placed in a casket with a large silver plate announcing his name. 

     The funeral was declared, “the grandest Masonic pageant ever witnessed in the state, and probably ever seen in the west.” The procession formed on Berry Street where Myron and Jane Barbour, my third great-grandparents, lived. It was a mile and a half long, had ten full bands  and took an hour to pass down Berry Street. The sidewalks and rooftops were lined with “eager spectators” and people hung out of every window on the route. 

     “The long array of Knights Templar uniforms with the white plumes waving in the breeze, the banners emblazoned with the cross and the the motto of the order, “In hoc Signo Vinces,” carried high above them, the various colored uniforms of the musicians, and the almost endless line of master Masons, the entire body marching with almost military precision to the plaintive notes of the funeral dirges accompanied by the tapping of muffled drums produced a spectacle that was most impressive.” 

     Lindenwood Cemetery was packed. Masonic rituals were performed, two ministers presided and there was impressive elocution. Then the entire parade marched back to town, the “commanderies” performing drill executions, “with fine effect.” After a dinner, they returned to the depots and took the trains home. 

     Any description of a fraternal excursion pales after that one, but far more typical was an       June 1885 Masonic excursion to the popular lakeside resort Rome City, about 36 miles away. Accompanying them was the City Band and Reineke’s Orchestra. “Take your best girl and go dancing!” The proceeds of the excursion were being divided between the city’s four lodges. The previous year’s proceeds were being used to “fit up” rooms in the Masonic Temple. 

     July 1887 the Oddfellows went to Warsaw. “Everybody go and see the two thousand uniformed Patriarch Militants  in ranks and competitive drills at Lakeside Park.” The train was leaving at 6:30 a.m.; cost was $1 roundtrip. 

     Still another example was the July 1883 Knights of Pythias excursion. Those who sold the most tickets would get part of the Knights’ uniform for free. First place would get the suit; second place received a silver-plated sword and third place got a nickel-plated helmet. 

     The G.A.R. – Grand Army of the Republic, a Civil War veterans’ group, was a fraternal organization with secret rituals and rites, as the other groups had, but it is almost in a category of its own. There were regional, state and national “camps,” as the meetings were called, and those were major excursions on their own. But then there was the usual gathering of a local post, like the large and active Sion S. Bass Post in Fort Wayne, with 350 members strong.

      June 13, 1883 when they advertised a family day on a Wednesday at Rome City, the school superintendent announced that students would be excused from school with a note saying that they attended. Members of the post promised oration by General Benjamin Harrison and “pithy addresses by other soldiers and civilians.” Grand campfires in the evening, with Army anecdotes and songs; a brass band for martial music and a string band for dancing were on tap. The steamboat would depart every hour for a trip around the lake and there were swings, croquet and the usual fishing and boat rental. 

     “By your presence show your appreciation for the Boys in Blue and your sympathy in their efforts to care for their disabled colleagues.” The trip raised money for a fund to assist veterans’ widows and orphans, and to help the disabled and infirm so they need never resort to the dreaded shame of the poorhouse. This was before the G.A.R. successfully pushed legislation to get disability pensions for veterans.

     The post arranged for a committee to check picnic baskets and to pass them out at “dinner time.” This was a great boon to the mother of the family who didn’t have to worry about lugging and watching over a picnic basket.  

Church - Just as church congregations “fellowship” with each other in recreational activities, so did churches in this era. The church picnic was a staple. But people could now join in large gatherings of their particular denomination. 

     The dedication of the new St. Mary’s Catholic Church in Decatur, 22 miles away was an event out of towners could now enjoy. A train with 500 Fort Wayne faithful, in nine coach cars, left the Pittsburgh depot at 9:15 a.m., arriving in Decatur at 10:30. St. Cecelia’s Band accompanied them and provided “fine music.” The church, 136 feet long with a steeple of the same height, with frescoed walls and seating for 800, was dedicated by the bishop. A high mass was conducted with confirmation for 45 children. 

     People sat down to a dinner in the old church building, to which they did “ample justice,” a term used by reporters for decades every time they described group meals at events. (The dinners were always described as “bountiful repasts,” and picnic baskets were always  described as “well-filled.”) The return train departed at 5:30; the trip netted $800 to $1,000. 

     Another major Roman Catholic trip happened with the consecration of Father Joseph Rademacher in Nashville, Tennessee. A Benedictine ordained in Fort Wayne in 1863, he served at St. Mary’s in the city and elsewhere in Indiana until his 1883 elevation to bishop. The Nashville excursion cost $13.20, about $400 in today’s value. Fort Waynians had to leave at 1:40 a.m. to arrive in Nashville about 7 p.m. Returning, the party had two days of sightseeing at Mammoth Cave and three to four hours in Louisville. About fifty Fort Wayne residents made the trip. 

     Another church trip was in 1878 when the Universalist Association of Northern Indiana hosted a three-day meeting in August at Rome City. Participants could choose to leave at 3:05 Friday to get to opening ceremonies at 5:00 p.m., or they could leave Saturday at 7:00 a.m. or 3:05. The Mansion House, the hotel there, offered a dollar per night rate. People were also coming in via Logansport and Kalamazoo. 

     

Political - County conventions were widely attended. Now, too, people could attend an out-of-town campaign rally for a candidate for Congress or the governorship or presidency.

     In September 1884 the Jeffersonian Club planned a Democratic celebration at Pleasant Lake. Thomas A. Hendricks, candidate for vice president under Grover Cleveland, and a former Indiana governor, would address the crowd. The local branch of the Jeffersonian Club had 200 members; 2,000 members from other posts were expected. Several bands would be there. Cost was $1 round-trip, departing at 8:30 a.m. 

     Cleveland and Hendricks won the election that fall. Thomas A. Hendricks (1819-1885) served for the last eight months of his life as vice president. There was another excursion involving Hendricks in 1890 –  an unveiling ceremony for his statue on the Indiana Statehouse lawn. Cost was $2.40. Not as many as expected took advantage. The day was so hot the crowd was mostly silent as the parade passed by, with a few half-hearted cheers for the current Indiana governor. The crowd was described as sizzling, sizzling, sizzling. The windows of the buildings lining the streets were full of observers. “It was a little too near the Fourth of July and circus day for rural Democratic Hoosiers to turn out to a monument unveiling in overwhelming numbers.” 

Temperance - Since this was one of the huge issues of the age, it’s not surprising that temperance groups would gather for meetings and picnics.

     The Gospel Temperance excursion June 18, 1878 at Rome City promised to be huge. “Large delegations of Murphites from all over northern Indiana, southern Michigan and western Ohio towns will be present.” Francis Murphy was a nationally known temperance speaker from Pittsburgh. The Madrigal Club was furnishing vocal music and there would be several bands and speakers. “The Murphy Girls (true blue girls of our land) will be there in abundance.” (“Murphites” wore blue ribbons in the same symbolic way that people use pink ribbons in support of breast cancer research or the yellow ribbon for prisoners of war.)

     “You can take your family in peace as there will be no drunken or disorderly persons on this train.” There were grand predictions of ten thousand attendants. Fifteen coaches were chartered. Let your picnic basket be well-filled!

  Employee - There were company picnics and retreats yesteryear just as there are today. July 22, 1879 the railroad employees of various rail lines were invited to a day at Rome City. 

     June 19, 1886 the butchers in the city announced that all butcher shops would be closed on Sunday for the Butchers’ Union Excursion to Warsaw. A brass band would accompany them, and tickets were $1. A large headline ran the following Monday: “Butchers’ Blowout. Their Immense Excursion to the “City of the Lakes” – A Hard Kick Against Sunday Picnics.” A reporter accompanied the group. It started with the Princess Band parading down Calhoun Street at 7:30 a.m. to the south depot. Six hundred tickets were sold and seven coaches filled, leaving promptly at 8:30. It was said that the superintendent of the Pittsburg, Fort Wayne and Chicago Railroad was “severely criticized” for allowing a Sunday excursion.  

Leisure events -  Now one could go to a baseball game or horse race in a neighboring town, or go all the way to Chicago. The Pittsburg, Fort Wayne and Chicago Railroad ran an excursion train to Chicago in 1879 for a horse race at Dexter Park that cost $3 roundtrip and left at 8 a.m.

     There was an excursion train to the Indiana State Fair also. 

Sightseeing - There were excursions to far-flung places for no other reason than sightseeing. They were advertised in the Fort Wayne newspapers, but closer to home were chartered trips to  Cincinnati and Dayton with the Soldiers’ Home. 

     I couldn’t figure out why there were excursions to the National Soldiers’ Home in Dayton until I saw an 1878 ad. National soldiers’ homes to serve the large number of disabled and sick veterans were a new phenomenon. Eventually eleven national soldiers’ homes were established. The Soldiers’ Home in Dayton, “situated on the beautiful hills overlooking the city and the great Miami and Mad rivers, is one of the most attractive spots in the country. The grounds of 601 acres contain eighty beautiful buildings, the finest church in the land, gardens, greenhouses, fountains, lakes, and a zoological garden in which there is a large collection of animals, among which are 70 deer.” It was one of the first three Homes built and was the largest. There were also 3,000 veterans at the Home. 

     An Ohio guidebook said, “It is a spot of great beauty from its location, its fine buildings, the greenhouses, flower beds, and for the display of the triumphs of landscape gardening. These features render it a great place of attraction in summer for visitors, who come by the thousands in excursion trains from all parts of Ohio, and the adjacent states of Indiana, Michigan, etc.” There were “pleasant walks and drives,” making it a resort for visitors. In the late 1880s, some 100,000 people visited each year.(1) Tickets on the Fort Wayne train in August 1878 were limited to 400 people and the new Parlor Car was available for an extra 25 cents.

     In 1879 the trip was advertised at $2 round trip. For an extra 50 cents one could stay over up to two nights and return on any regular train. The Fort Wayne City Band was accompanying the group. 

     Another sightseeing trip that seems a little odd today was one to the Northern Indiana State Prison in Michigan City. Henry Monning, director of the prison but a Fort Wayne man, was accompanying the group. The warden “has kindly consented to donate the use of the park grove, a few rods from the prison,” so excursionists could picnic after their tour of the prison. Included in the $3 fare was a tour of Lake Michigan on the new steamer the “A.R. Colburn.” Then Michigan City had its own attractions. The most intrepid visitor would want to climb up the “great sand mountain,” which may have referred to the Indiana dunes. 

     Cincinnati was another popular spot, and no wonder. The Queen City was also known as the “Paris of America” with its hilltop views, inclines and hilltop hotels, beer gardens and concerts. A July 1878 ad in the Fort Wayne Sentinel offered the following:

     A choice of unlimited attractions in the great “Paris of America.”

• Every night - free concert at Lookout House, German military band

• Bellevue House - Sunday afternoon and evening - free concerts, Cincinnati orchestra - full reed band

• Highland House - free concerts - Seidensticker’s Full Orchestra

• Zoological garden, Miss Mollie Tuck, Chimpanzee, and King Pongo, Orang Utan. Last Sunday of their appearance.

     Leaves the north depot at midnight. $2 round trip.

     

Decline of the Excursion Train

     But times change. During World War I the rail companies ceased excursion offerings.  In 1920, the Fort Wayne Sentinel announced, “Few Excursions Will Be Run This Summer.” The article lamented the change. The Pennsylvania Railroad and the Nickel Plate Railroad had alternated Sundays hosting reduced rate Sunday excursions to Chicago. City residents had an “ideal means” to spend a day in one of Chicago’s parks or Lake Michigan beaches, the reporter wrote. Thousands took advantage in 1919. But heavy freight hauling and a nationwide shortage of equipment meant the railroads canceled the Fort Wayne to Chicago Sunday excursion trains. 

     The automobile also began to encroach on passenger rail service. By 1921, there were headlines like one in the Seymour (Indiana) Daily  Tribune: “Excursions Draw Little Interest. Few People In This City Take Advantage of Low Rates For Special One-Day Trips.” The two excursions out of Seymour attempted that summer attracted few. A low-priced trip to Indianapolis on the Pennsylvania Railroad sold only eight tickets, and a Pennsylvania & Ohio trip to Cincinnati had only seven takers. 

     The Seymour reporter remembered a time, only a few years ago, when “excursion trains to Indianapolis and Cincinnati were frequently run in sections because the crowds were so great that one train could not accommodate all who desired to make the trip.” Now a family car could make the trip in about the same time and not have the annoyance of stopping at every flag station. (Flag stations were points on the line where people could simply flag the train down.)

     Headlines across the country echoed this theme. In York, Pennsylvania in October 1921, for example, the newspaper reported that there would be few excursion trains to the fair, “due in a great measure to an increasing attendance by automobiles.” Railroads didn’t give up entirely without a fight, though. In May 1924 the Wichita Eagle reported, “Old-fashioned excursion trains have been revived by railroads as the most effective means of combating the automobile as a popular method of recreational travel.” The railroads hoped that Sunday baseball would drive business.

     The excursion train era lasted nearly fifty years and opened horizons to many. 

Notes:

1. Howe, Henry. Historical Collections In Two Volumes, Cincinnati, Ohio: C.J. Krehbiel & Co., 1888.

Sources:

     “Ashes To Ashes. Imposing Ceremonies Attending the Burial of Solomon D. Bayless of Fort Wayne,” Chicago Tribune, 7 July 1875, p. 7. 

     “Pleasant Lake,” Fort Wayne Daily Gazette, 28 June 1879, p. 4.

     Knights of Labor, Coffeyville Weekly Journal, 27 June 1885, p. 1. 

     “The Sunday School Excursion and Pic-nic,” Coffeyville Weekly Journal, 26 July 1886, p. 3. 

     “Few Excursions Will Be Run This Summer,” The Fort Wayne Sentinel, 7 May 1920, p. 22.

Copyright by Andrea Auclair  © 2024