The Katy Railroad in Boone-Duden Country

by Bob Brail

Imagine for a moment that you are standing in the middle of the main street, what is now Highway 94, of Defiance in 1905. As you walk toward the Public Road, what is now Defiance Road, you observe other pedestrians and a few horse-drawn wagons at the intersection ahead of you. You pass the Schiermeier general store on the left, and when you reach the Public Road you turn left. Ahead of you, just to the left, is a grain elevator. After taking a few more steps, you see your destination on your right, the railroad depot. In a few minutes, you will hear the approach of the Missouri, Kansas, and Texas train which will take you into St. Charles for the day. Yes, it is hard to imagine but it is true: there was a time when MKT, or Katy, passenger trains and freight trains daily roared through the small towns along the Missouri River in the southern part of St. Charles County.

The story of the birth of the branch of the MKT Railroad that at one time extended through the Boone-Duden area is complicated. Construction of the initial phase of the MKT Railroad system began after the Civil War in the late 1860's. The MKT was to be the first railroad to enter Texas from the north, with the eventual goal of connecting Chicago and New Orleans, In 1870 the company received government land grants to build railroad connections between Fort Riley, Fort Gibson, Fort Scott, and Fort Worth. The company originally hoped to connect Fort Riley with New Orleans. In the 1970's the MKT Railroad began purchasing several new, small railroad companies.

The MKT Railroad was actually not the first railroad venture in St. Charles County. The Central Missouri Railroad Company conducted a survey of land in the county in 1884. In March, 1887, the St. Louis Post-Dispatch reported that this railroad company's work in St. Charles County would within weeks dramatically intensify with the addition of nearly 500 workers on the tracks. However, the Central Missouri Railroad soon had severe financial problems and was bought by the Cleveland, St. Louis, and Kansas City Railroad Company on April 2, 1888. This company continued extending the track to the southwest from St.Charles. By February of 1890, twenty miles of track had been completed to Hamburg. A further thirty miles of grading had been done to Warren County. At this point in time, there was no way for the daily train to turn around at Hamburg, the end of the line, so trains returning to St. Charles had to back down the track all the way to St. Charles. Hamburg would remain the end of the line for nearly four years.

Soon the Cleveland, St. Louis, and Kansas City Railroad also encountered financial problems and work was stopped. By 1892 the Missouri, Kansas, and Eastern Railroad Company had incorporated and taken over the tracks and equipment. Shortly after that, the Missouri, Kansas, and Texas Railroad Company took over the operation with the intent of gaining entry to the lucrative St. Louis market by adding tracks along the north bank of the Missouri River to connect Machens, Missouri, to the main MKT line at New Franklin, Missouri, a distance of about 160 miles From Machens, the line would connect to the Chicago, Burlington, and Quincy Railroad to St.Louis.

The work was done by the Southwestern Construction Company and completed on April 1, 1894, taking about two years to finish. The tracks were hurriedly constructed in the flood plain of the Missour River, which would prove to be problematic due to the frequent floods. For example, in March, 1897, the Marthasville newspaper reported that the track north of town and “large quantities of Darst Bottom” track were in danger of washing away. The first passenger train to stop at Defiance was July 6, 1892. The Augusta depot opened to passenger service one month later. The track from New Franklin to St. Charles with its thirty-two stations was completed in July, 1893. At the time, this branch of the MKT system had one daily train in each direction. The connection between St. Charles and St. Louis was finally completed in the spring of 1894, and the first passenger train travelled from St. Louis to New Franklin on April 1. Mail delivery by train would commence in 1895.

It is difficult to determine exactly which towns along the MKT tracks in Boone-Duden country had depots and when. The MKT 1896 system map shows stations at Peers, Dutzow, Augusta, and Hamburg. The 1900 system map adds Marthasville, but deletes Peers and Dutzow, even though the 1901 Warren County plat book shows a depot at Peers. The 1932 system map restores Peers and Dutzow, and adds Nona, Matson, and Defiance. Only four stations are shown on the 1935 system map, including Klondike. From all these maps and other information about individual stations found in the 1905 St. Charles County plat book, it appears the system maps typically did not provide names of every town at which the trains stopped. However, as MKT passenger service died away in the early 1950's, it does seem the system maps more realalistically indicated the situation, with only August and Weldon Spring on its 1951 map and just August on its 1952 map. It was possible even at this date for a passenger to “flag” the train at one of the small towns and climb on board.

For many years the MKT ran six daily passenger trains, three eastbound and three westbound. By the 1930's passenger service had been cut back to two trains daily, one in each direction. Although World War II temporarily increased the number of trains to as many as thirty each day, the MKT's decline in passsenger service continued after the war ended.

Boone-Duden area stations included the following:

Augusta: Augusta historian Anita Mallinckrodt wrote that “the railroad was joyously welcomed. Augustans had, after all, lobbied for a railroad for nearly a half-century, and the town had been without adequate transportation connections since the course of the Misssouri River changed in the 1870s.”

Dutzow: Dutzow's regularly scheduled service started in 1893. In 1920 there were two passenger trains through town each day, one in each direction, at 7:00 AM and 7:00 PM.

Klondike: This station was exactly 25 miles west of St. Charles. It had a small frame depot at the east end of the station's single siding track. In 1896, the Tavern Rock and Sand Company purchased land there and began operations. As late as 1958, a person could flag a train at Klondike.

Matson: Richard Matson deeded twenty acres to the MKT Railroad for the depot and its yard. Soon the town of Matson added a grain elevator and two general stores. Then the railroad designated Matson as a secondary fueling station with a coal dock. The Matson station had three MKT employees.

A steam train could travel about sixty miles before taking on more coal. The last coal/water stop before St. Louis on the MKT line was Matson. There was a large coal chute and watering tank at the Matson depot until 1904. At that time, the MKT Railroad built a lake, the Katy Reservoir, with draft horses and slip scrapers, near the depot. The lake currently covers nine acres, is spring fed, and forty feet deep.

Defiance: Richard Matson and James P. Craig, who lived only about two miles north of Matson, each became an outspoken advocate for his community as the MKT was deciding which villages to select for train depots. Apparently the two men felt that only one of the villages would be chosen. It is difficult now, 130 years later, to know exactly the nature of the relationship these two men had, but Craig implied it was not necessarily cordial when he wrote a poem in 1894 entitled “Defiance.” In the last stanza Craig wrote, “Our name is Defiance remember foe, It's your mean acts that made it so, An Object lesson it may teach, In the future do not over reach.”

As it turned out, both men were successful in their lobbying, although Defiance had a more difficult time. The MKT was not inclined to have a station at Defiance, since there were no county roads leading to the railroad tracks there. However, Craig led several volunteers in building a road to the tracks, and then named it Public Road (it later was named Defiance Road). It was at this time that William Parsons, Sr., laid out a town of 28 blocks with one street down the center. Craig named the town Defiance, and the MKT Railroad finally consented to build depot and a 1000 foot sidetrack is the village paid $225. Several local men donated money, including Mr. Sherneyman, Henry Lotte, August Ruebeling, R. E. Lindke, T. L. Livergood, A. Kamphoefner, Martin Wissmann, George Fuhr, Henry Lotte, and Edwin Martin., but there was difficulty in raising the entire amount.. On Jan. 15, 1894, August Ruebeling received letter from MKT Railroad that unless the money was paid within ten days, the side track would be removed.. Apparently the financial problem was solved. A stockyard was added by 1899.

It is very difficult to know exactly which people from this area worked for the MKT Railroad since employee records no longer exist. Very occasionally a researcher might see a name in documents, but they are few and far between. This researcher found the following names in newspaper articles and The Katy Flyer, the employee magazine published in the first part of the twentieth century:

Marthasville – W. C. Groos, O. C. Koch, E. E. Pelot, C. H. Gevedon, E. H. Brown, O. C. Mittler

Augusta – R. E. Patterson, O. A. Vogelsang, O. C. Koch

Hamburg – Robert L. Fulkerson, R.H. Russom, L. W. Wackher, Bill Mades

Defiance – L. A. Watts

Matson – Charles Koelling

Marthasville – W. Wackher

The end of passenger service on the MKT Railroad in this area began in the early 1950's. In 1951 there was only one daily train in each direction. The Matson depot was closed in 1952, although “trains could be flagged for passenger service.” Finally, on May 1, 1958, passenger service ended completely. The MKT Railroad said it was losing $120,000 annually on these two daily trains. One newspaper reported that the “trains are often late, but few people ride them even when they are on time.”

Just as the first railroad passengers looked back on the “horse and buggy days of old,” today we look back on those the “train days of old.” It is likely that in the not-too-distant future, a generation will look back on the “gas-powered cars of old.” Methods of transportation change as people create new and better ways of moving from place to place. The railroad days are gone from the Boon-Duden area, although the footprint of the railroads lives on in the Katy Trail State Park.

Perhaps the next time you walk or bike that trail, you might try to imagine what it was like during the train days of old.

Sources: 1901 Plat Book of Warren County, Missouri; 1905 Plat Book of St. Charles County, Missouri; Augusta (MO) History Museum; Augusta's “Harmony” by Anita Mallickrodt; Cracker Barrel Country, Vols. 1 and 3 by Bill Schiermeier; Crossroads: A History of St. Charles Co. MO by Steve Ehlmann; Darst Bottom by Yvonne Castens Prough; “Depot Slated for Restoration” by Charlie Denn, The Katy Flyer (September 2006); Dutzow: a Place of Dreams by Urban Ruether; A History of Augusta, Missouri, and Its Area As Reported in “The St. Charles Demokrat” by Anita Mallinckrodt; The KATY Railroad and the Last Frontier by V. V. Masterson; “Klondike Station” by Ray George, The Katy Flyer (September 1999); Library of Congress Photographs; “List of Missouri Railroads” (En.wikipedia.org); Katy Power by Joe Collins and Raymond B. George, Jr.; “MKT” by Paul Ovaitt; St. Louis Post-Dispatch, 1874 to Present (Proquest.com); The Marthasville News (Access-newspapers.com); “Missouri-Kansas-Texas Railroad” (En.wikipedia.org); “MKT Railroad” (Katydepotsedalia.com); M. K. & T. Employees Magazine Vols. 1-6, 8 (Babel.hathitrust.org); “Route Maps” (Katyrailroad.org); Small Glories by Dr. Dan Brown; “Tell It Like It Was – Slightly Derailed” by Paul Ovaitt.