Information Sheet

 

 

R         Southwest Missouri Railroad Company.

52                    Records, 1892-1941.

                                    5 volumes, 1 folder.

 

MICROFILM

 

 

 

Interurban transportation in the Tri-State Mining District began in 1889, when A. H. Rogers organized the Twin City Railway Company, a horse-car line between Webb City and Carterville.  It was absorbed in 1892 by the Southwest Missouri Electric Railway Company, a firm organized by E. Z. Wallower and a group of investors from Harrisburg, Pennsylvania.  A. H. Rogers, one of the few investors from Jasper County, was elected president of the new company.  The railroad was in operation by 1893, linking the mining camps at Webb City and Joplin.  The company ex­panded to Carterville and Prosperity, and in 1896 it purchased the Joplin & Galena Electric Rail­way and the Jasper County Electric Railway companies.  The line was extended to Galena, Kansas, in 1906, and other trackage was relocated.  The im­provements required a new state char­ter and the company was reorganized as the Southwest Missouri Railroad Company.  A. H. Rogers remained as president.

 

At its greatest extent the company operated almost one hundred miles of tracks.  The line ran from Carthage through Webb City and Joplin, north to Neck City and Alba, and then turned south to Duenweg.  As the center of mining activity in the Tri-State District shifted westward to­ward Oklahoma, the railroad put in a branch to Picher.  By allowing miners to commute from residences to mining claims, the interurban did much to promote the stability of Joplin and Car­thage.  The railroad was a profitable enterprise for a decade, but it declined as the mineral areas in the Tri-State District began to play out.  By 1927 the company was bankrupt and in receiver­ship.

 

The Southwest Missouri Railroad collection was loaned for microfilming by Lang Rogers, grandson of A. H. Rogers.  The collection consists of corporate minute books of the Southwest Missouri Railroad Company and its predecessors, the Joplin & Galena Electric Railway Com­pany, and the Southwest Missouri Electric Railway Company.  There is also one folder of miscel­laneous correspondence between A. H. Rogers and E. Z. Wallower regarding financing of the road.

 

 

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