Railroad Baggage Wagons Photo Info

 

1925 Melbourne Avenue, Logansport, Indiana 

The camera was on the south side of the tracks looking to the north, between 4^th and 5^th streets, on Melbourne Avenue. Circa 1925.

 

This scene was common about midday, any day, and midnight when through trains reached Logansport. While the baggage trucks had lined up for this photo, there was nothing unusual about their number or the amount of express items ready for shipping. In fact, there were days when a larger amount could be found, being transferred from one train to another at the 4^th street (Pennsylvania) depot, just out of camera range to the left.

 

The three buildings facing the camera were all undoubtedly there before the railroad tracks were which was prior to 1860. Canal Street, as Melbourne was called then, was covered with nice homes – on both sides of the street – all the way from the confluence of the rivers to 14^th  or 15^th Street. The coming of the railroad spoiled it as a residential street.

 

In this photo: the two houses at the left no doubt were built as residences.

   The weather boarded frame at the extreme left had been the home of Earl Stewart, who owned a livery stable just around the corner on 4^th…out of the picture. (There were several stables around town at that time and Stewarts was considered one of high class. Nicest cabs for rent, fastest horses and most stylist drivers to take the customer wherever they wanted to go.) In later years the railroad used rooms in the house for ticketing, and the U.S. Railway Mail used some space for sorting mail. The railroad company equipped the place with showers and reading rooms and put a secretary in charge and made it available to its trainmen. Three of those secretaries were: a man named Davidson, a man named Nelson W. Benning, and a man named Pendleton.

 

   The building at the right in 1888 was used by a man named Otto Meinshausen whose business was metal roofing. His main store was around 4^th and Market; this was more of a shop and storehouse. The porch wasn’t on it at that time but was added later. After that this property had several uses – interestingly it had at one time been the site of Logansport’s Colored School of which Thomas J. Legg was the principal. (It seems that a colored school had been in operation as early as 1871 on the SE corner of Heath and W. Market. The date of this one would’ve been about 1881.)

 

   The building in the middle after 1888 was by the railroad company for the use of its passenger trainmen who might have difficulty finding rooms with bathing facilities. (Considered to be the first form of a YMCA.)