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Iowa Railroads The essays of Frank P Donovan Jr Edited H Roger Grant
Iowa Railroads The essays of Frank P Donovan JR Edited by H Roger Grant
Hard Cover
Copyright 2000
330 pages indexed includes 79 photos 3 maps
CONTENTS
Acknowledgments, ix
Introduction, i
The Minneapolis & St. Louis Railway, 32
The Chicago Great Western Railway, 52
Interurbans in Iowa, 75
The Illinois Central in Iowa, 102
The North Western in Iowa, 126
The Rock Island in Iowa, 168
The Milwaukee in Iowa, 203
The Wabash in Iowa, 235
Great Northern-Union Pacific-Santa Fe, 253
The Burlington in Iowa, 271
Selected Bibliography, 307
Index, 309
A talented, hardworking, and self-trained historian of American railroads was Frank Pierce Donovan, Jr. (1909-1970). During his more than thirty years of research and writing, beginning in December 1937 with publication of "A Thousand Miles by Trolley" in Railroad Magazine, he penned scores of transportation articles. Moreover, he was the author, coauthor, editor, or coeditor of nearly a dozen books and booklets, mostly dealing with railroading.'
This railroad focus, even passion, for Frank Donovan was understandable. "As a youngster he spent more time down by the freight yards than at his studies," observed an associate in 195o, "and it was said that he'd pass up a textbook any day to thumb through the Official Guide to the Railways." Later Donovan himself made these candid remarks about his favorite reference work: "I bought my first Guide in 1927. Penny for penny, it gave me deeper pleasure than any other publication I have owned. Adventure? It was more exciting than Sherlock Holmes, more romantic than Stevenson's Treasure Island or the classic novels by Dumas. I used to spend hours thumbing through its l000-odd pages, dreaming of places I would see and the trains I would ride." 2
Whenever possible, Donovan took to the rails, enjoying trips with organized groups, friends, family, or by himself. In June 1949 he described to a fellow enthusiast a recent all-day outing in Wisconsin. "Wish you could have been with Bob Adams and [me] ... last Monday. We took the c&Nw's [North Western] mixed [from Milwaukee] to Clyman Jct, then the gas-electric car to Jefferson Jct, then the Milwaukee's local to South Wye (about a mile from the Jct.). And finally the train from Mineral Point which we boarded at the Switch. Some fun!"
Although a student of midwestern railroads and a longtime resident of Minneapolis, Frank Donovan moved about the country. He was born on October 4, 1909, in Wayne, Pennsylvania, a suburb of Philadelphia, and at the age of seven his middle-class family relocated closer to the city in Wyncote. It was in the City of Brotherly Love that Donovan received a largely private education, graduating from a high school sponsored by the Society of Friends (Quakers). During the Great Depression he spent much of his time in college, attending Maryville College in Maryville, Tennessee, the State University of Iowa in Iowa City, Iowa, and the American University in Washington, D.C. In 1938 the latter institution awarded him the A.B. degree in English and Speech.'
Between undergraduate studies and World War II, the peripatetic Donovan lived on both coasts. In the first venue, California, his main endeavor was graduate work, probably in English, at the University of Southern California in Los Angeles. But his activities involved more than academic studies. In order to pay tuition and living expenses he performed manual labor for the Railway Express Agency and worked as a clerk for the Pacific Electric Railway, a giant interurban. By May 1939, however, Donovan, sans graduate degree, had returned to the nation's capital to accept a research position with the Public Relations Department of the Association of American Railroads, the industry's principal trade group.5
With the outbreak of World War II, Donovan, a devout Quaker and strong pacifist, registered as a conscientious objector. His decision took courage because nearly every American considered the conflict to be a "good war," a life-or-death struggle between democracy and totalitarianism. Although Donovan spent most of the war years working in a mental health institution in Philadelphia, he apparently participated in an army medical experiment. "[H] e was put in one of those test programs," recalls a friend, "and was (I believe) starved to determine how a person would react." In his spare time Donovan expressed his intense interest in transportation and his commitment to Quakerism by handling domestic travel arrangements for the American Friends Service Committee.6
After peace returned, Donovan joined the staff of Trains, a Milwaukee-based monthly magazine oriented toward railroad enthusiasts. At the time of his hiring, the six-year-old publication announced that its new research editor shared readers' interests in things associated with flanged wheels: "It has been said that a man with a hobby is a happy man and the adage certainly applies to Frank. His hobby is building up a railroad library and traveling on the railroads." During his stint at Trains Donovan originated the magazine's "Of Books & Trains" department, and later he edited for the parent Kalmbach Publishing Company Railroads of America, which included his chapter on the Minneapolis & St. Louis Railway (M&StL) .
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