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Rock Island Line in Focus The Railroad Photographs 1898-1925 of Jules A Bourquin
Rock Island Line in Focus The Railroad Photographs 1898-1925 of Jules A Bourquin by IE Quastler
Soft Cover
160 pages
Copyright 2007
CONTENTS
Acknowledgements7
Foreword9
I. Introductory Essay 11
II. Railroad Facilities 25
III. Locomotives and Trains 49
IV. Unusual Locomotive Visitors75
V. Special Trains and Cars 83
VI. Accidents 103
VII. Men at Work 125
VIII. Railroad People 137
IX. Out of Town Trips 149
X. Retrospective Essay 157
About the Author 160
FOREWORD
It is a pleasure for us at the DeGolyer Library to support the publication of Rock Island Line in Focus: The Railroad Photographs (1898-1925) of Jules A. Bourquin. We are always interested in ways we can draw attention to our many collections that bear on the history of railroads and especially so at this time as we observe our 50th anniversary as an institutional collection.
Although our roots go back to 1914, when E.L. DeGolyer (18861956) bought his first rare book at a bookshop in London, we didn't become a formal, corporate body until 1957, when the DeGolyer Foundation was established to preserve and enlarge Mr. DeGolyer's private library. The secretary of that foundation was E.L. DeGolyer, Jr. (1923-1977), who inherited the book-collecting gene from his father and oversaw the development of the DeGolyer Library from 1957 until his death 20 years later. Everett DeGolyer, Jr., or "Ev" as he was affectionately known by his friends, continued to purchase rare books in the field of Western Americana, one of the collection's longstanding strong suits, but his greatest contribution was in the field of railroad history. Here he made truly significant additions, many of which are only now becoming better known. He acquired the lion's share of the Baldwin Locomotive Works archives, for example, as well as the professional papers of Samuel M. Vauclain, the president of Baldwin. He also acquired timetables, annual reports, tourist guides and other railroad ephemera at a prodigious rate. And he was perhaps at his best in the pursuit of railroad photography, including thousands of images which he himself made as a talented amateur photographer, and in purchasing single images and large collections of photographs by others. The result is that today we have one of the largest collections of railroad photographs in the country.
The Jules Bourquin Collection at the DeGolyer is one of Ev's great acquisitions. In it we find not only the record of a railroad at a particular time and place (the Rock Island in Horton, Kansas, at the turn of the last century) but a larger story of an entire community. Rock Island Line in Focus casts new light on its subject and we think that I.E. Quastler's narrative will be useful not only for railroad historians but also for general readers. Like Jules Bourquin himself, whose photographs are works of art as well as historical documents, I.E. Quastler is not only a painstaking documentary researcher but also a fine prose stylist. As a tribute to Jules Bourquin -- and Ev DeGolyer -- we couldn't ask for a better union of subject and author. Readers are in for a delightful trip into the past.
Finally, we hope this book will stimulate others to approach railroad history in the same spirit and style, and we encourage all those interested in railroads to pay us a visit at the DeGolyer Library. Chances are that we'll have something of use for virtually any historical project. Our tracks are in good repair, even after 50 years of heavy use!
Russell L. Martin III Director & Librarian
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