Merci Boxcar Cheyenne,WY

Thursday May 8th
Important caveat: Although I took many photos today my camera did not have a card in it, so pics are more limited today. Grrr!
We had sort of figured that although Cheyenne is the State Capital of Wyoming it would probably be about the same size as Laramie and about as interesting. Well as State Capitals go it is pretty small, but Laramie is even smaller, however we were completely wrong about how interesting it is.
Cheyenne is a fascinating place. It started life as a railhead in 1867 when Union Pacific were building the railroad. It was a tent city, mostly the three B's, beds, bars and brothels. It started about thirty miles to the East, but being a tent city as the railroad grew they picked up their tents and erected them again at the end of the railway. The town stopped moving when it reached a valley, with a small river running through. Whether they couldn't summon the strength to go up the other side, or couldn't get across the river I don't know, but that's where it stopped.
We took a trolley ride round the town, this was driven by and tour guided by a rip roarer of a lady call Val, who gave a very high speed, action packed, yet informative guided tour round the town, telling us about such myths, with a real life, such as Calamity Jane and Wild Bill Hickock. It was quite fascinating and we loved it. She told us of the many tunnels that are under the sidewalks, most of which led to one or another of the brothels (we remembered the same in Pendleton, OR), she showed us the Capitol building, the rodeo fairground and the railroad as well as the buildings in the old part of town.
We ate lunch in the Albany, which looked like a typical railway hotel/tavern and was, i.e. not sparkling, but OK.
After lunch we drove out to the Botanical Gardens, which were nice, but really we wen to see the old loco, the oldest in Wyoming, which is on display in the grounds. Sally got some rally nice pics of goslings and there were some nice garden benches with local scenes built into them.
Next stop was Holliday Park, with a lake with the unlikely name of Minnehaha Lake. Sounds Indian, but was of course the fictional name of the girl in Longfellow's poem of Hiawatha. Anyway we didn't come to see the lake, we came to see the Biggest Steam Train in the world! Big Boy 4004 was built for the Union Pacific Railroad in 1941 to haul the big trains up the long incline to the highest part of the railroad just beyond Laramie. It is a very big engine. We were impressed, but it started to rain, so we jumped back into the chevy and moved on.
Our last stop was at the Cheyenne American Legion Post 6. Why? because the Wyoming Merci Train Boxcar is on display there (See our blog for the last one we saw in Ogden, Utah). Unfortunately it was now pouring with rain. However, I got out of the Chevy and posed for a pic. There was a gentleman working by the boxcar and he came to say 'Hi'. It turns out that he introduced himself as Ken and he is the 'Chef Du Gare' for the local Forty and Eight Society, whose history I have outlined before, they have a special relationship with the Merci Boxcars. we had a great conversation, it seems that he is preparing the boxcar for public display and asked if we would like to see inside, so of course we said yes. He opened the sliding door and we (Ken and I) climbed in (it is quite high up) and had a really good look round. He told us of his plans and we told him what we do, meanwhile Sally was outside the boxcar, in the rain. It really did not seem big enough to take 40 men with their kit, rifle and ammunition, but there it was, a little bit of history. He told us that the gifts from the French were in the State Museum, so as we bid farewell we determined to visit the State Museum tomorrow to see if we could find them.
/> So all in all, apart from the weather, which has been awful anyway ever since we left Phoenix, we really enjoyed Cheyenne and are looking forward to exploring more tomorrow.

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Merci Boxcar Phoenix

This blog was from when we first realised what the Merci Boxcars were all about when e visited the Arizona Capitol Building and saw some of the gifts displayed, and I got some basic information about them:

Merci Train Boxcar also known as the Gratitude Train

 We discovered that in 1948 US charities sent 700 boxcars (rail freight cars) to France, full of of donated materials. By way of thanks the French sent 49 box cars back full of gifts for the Americans, one for each state (Hawaii and Washington D.C. had to share one). Many of these box cars are preserved in museums across the country.
The box cars were called 'Forty and Eight Boxcars' as they are all stamped with '40/8', meaning that they could carry either forty men or eight horses. They were used extensively in the first world war to transport troops. they became an icon of that war. After the war a 'select' group of American Legion activists set up a fraternal group (like the Masons, or Moose club) for the betterment of their fellow man called the '40&8's'. They are well known for their Forty and Eight Scholarships. When the boxcars arrived from France the Forty and Eights took on the responsibility for distributing the gifts and now are often involved in their preservation. The Arizona Boxcar now resides in McCormick Park. The exhibit in the museum included several interesting items. A lovely wedding dress, which sadly has never been worn. Also a somewhat battered Peugeot racing cycle circa 1948, which, complete with Simplex derailleur gears looks little different from my first bike, or indeed any modern racing cycle (except the real racing, racing cycles).

Although we have not seen any of these famous boxcars we have passed close to some of them. In Tennessee we passed within about 100 yards of one when we were in Bristol. Our closest encounter was in Jackson, Mississippi when we walked from the Old State Capitol through an underpass to Hal and Mal's restaurant. The boxcar was just about 30 yards away, but hidden by an embankment. Well there you go. We shall now have to keep an eye out for other boxcars on our travels. Roll on Fresno!

Easter Sunday in Phoenix, when we saw the Merci Boxcar

We have enjoyed being in Phoenix and so stayed on for a few more days than we had planned. On the Saturday night our neighbours invited us to go eat with them at a Mexican restaurant, it was great fun, I had the Chimychanga, Sally a shrimp salad with rice, very nice. Lots of laughs at how three couples with such different backgrounds can have such similar ways of handling their relationship with each other.

View all

Get your own

So we are staying here for Easter Sunday. I had spotted a very interesting looking church round the corner from our RV Park - The First Christian Church on 7th Ave. It is a very interesting building, Frank Lloyd Wright designed it for a Seminary somewhere else, but it was never used  until this church came along and used the plans (in 1971) for their new church. The building itself is a wonderful piece of architecture, however on checking our their website it also seemed to be a good church community, so we decided to go there for their Easter Sunday Service. It was a really good service, very free, great music, with a good challenging sermon. Sally and I were both quite moved.

View all       First Christian Church Phoenix

Following the service, and lunch in Wildflower Bakery, I took Sally to a 'local' (13 miles away) park, called McCormick Railroad Park. It is a community park which has lots to do with trains, it is run by volunteers. It is also the place to go for Ester Sunday Picnic with the family, there seemed to be thousands of people there. It was great fun. We rode on the miniature train, which goes right round the park, we (being the train load in general, as well as us) waved at everyone, they waved at us. It was great to see so many families out in the sunshine with their picnic stuff BBQ's, coolers, toys, skateboards, kites. There is a small carousel, a whole load of train museum stuff, including the Presidential train from 1921. It is also the resting place for the Arizona Merci Boxcar, talked about in a previous blog, so we saw that. They also have a pavilion for Model Train Layouts. There are 4 layouts set up by local model train clubs. we were entranced by these toy trains, the level of detail and the sheer scale of them. What was to be a quick look turned into a couple of hours. We were even invited to go into the club members area to look in more detail at one train layout. Thank you to a guy named Paul, who showed us round. So once more we had a great day and returned to our trailer tired but happy.

View al           lMcCormick Railroad Park

Tomorrow we move on to Yuma.

Merci Boxcar Baton Rouge, LA

This blog was written after our visit to the Merci Boxcar in Phoenix and we realised that we had seen one before:

I do so enjoy discovering things.
While looking into the Merci Train we both had the feeling that they were familiar, but could not place where, or if we had seen one before, So I returned to the Merci Train website and checked more carefully the locations of the boxcars in all states we have passed through. Using Google maps, satellite views and Street view I could then cross reference the locations with our photos. I looked again at Jackson, we were so close to that one. The boxcar in Bristol, Tennessee was close to us, we may have driven past it, but the map shows that it's location cannot be seen from the road. Lastly I looked at Louisiana. The boxcar was displayed at the Old State Capitol, well we had visited the new State Capitol, but could not recall going to the old one. However as soon as I brought it up on Street View I recognized the building, so then checked on our blog archive - found it on 21st October 2012. We had heard about the Downtown Friday Concerts, a series of concert held in a public square, just by the Old State Capitol Building Friday evenings, this week was to be Zydeco! So we had driven into Baton rouge after lunch and parked the car nearby. As we arrived early we had toured the Old Capitol and then gone for a coffee. I re-read the blog. But while I have recorded our visit to the Old State Capitol, there was no mention of the Merci Boxcar and no photos of our visit. In fact I had been quite dismissive of the exhibits there, with the exception of the fine staircase.
So I then checked the Photo Albums on Picasa and lo and behold, there was and album showing our visit and a careful  search showed that in the background to a couple of the pics and one video is the Louisiana Boxcar!! More than that, I then searched through our photo archive and found it! We had actually had a look at it  and examined it close up, but I had not included the picture in the blog. So here are those pictures.
Oh I am so easily pleased!!! But I had tracked down that little niggle. Yes!

Merci Boxcar Boise, ID

I saw this Merci Boxcar when I took a sidetrip to Boise, while staying with friends at Nampa:

Saturday

 

The Merci Train, which I often go on about, gave a boxcar to Idaho State, that boxcar is kept in the state capital, Boise. It is preserved in the Transport museum, which is within the Old Penitentiary Museum near the State Capitol. So I decided to see where it was and what else was interesting there. I drove into Boise, past the Capitol and arrived at the museum. With the museum is a geology museum and a number of preserved or renovated buildings, which makes it a very pleasant little area. First stop was the Geology museum, which holds some very nice rock and mineral samples, it also enabled me to buy a field guide to the areas we are travelling to, as well as a pan for gold panning, which is on the plan for this trip.
Next the Old Penitentiary Museum and the boxcar. The museum was open, but unfortunately the transport section was closed. The sign said that it was closed due to “security, preservation and renovation issues”, but the man at the ticket office said it was because of funding cuts. Not to be put off I went to have a look. The transport museum was housed in the old shirt factory, which had windows. I could look through the windows and see inside and sure enough there was the Merci Train Boxcar, neatly displayed, but inaccessible. I did however manage to get a few pictures of it through the rather dirty windows, as well as some pics of the building and prison area. If I had taken the time to actually go into the Capitol I could have seen some of the artifacts from the Merci Train, one of which is a copy of a Greek statue of the Goddess Nike, the same statue that Nike used as inspiration to create their ‘swish’ logo (so they say, but I think they just wanted to copyright the tick symbol). All in all it did make for a pleasant trip out in the nice September sunshine.

Merci Boxcar Fresno, CA

We left the very nice fairground in Bakersfield and drove north on 99 to Fresno fairground ($20 p .n., full hook up very quiet).  Fresno is the site of a Harvey House Newstand, but is no longer there. Once installed there I took the opportunity to visit the California Gratitude Train ,Merci Boxcar. Although a little out of the way this boxcar is proudly looked after by the American Legion Fresno Federal Post #509, in Fresno, particularly the 40 & 8's. While I was there taking pics of the boxcar one of the 40 &8's members came out and we had a very interesting chat about the boxcar.

Boxcar and Chevy

The plaque near the boxcar

Up close showing the 40 and 8 sign

Me and the Boxcar

Merci Boxcar in Yakima, WA

We knew that today, Monday would be a long drive, so we attempted to set off really early and actually got away by 9.10. we left Mt Rainer National Park by going through the White Pass to Yakima. This took us through a deep valley with a beautiful waterfall at the head of it. We drove to Yakima and took a short detour to the Sarg Hubbard Park, where another of the Merci Train box cars is on display. we also stopped for a coffee at a small espresso bar and had a nice drink and a (small) goodie.
From Yakima we drove on across the Columbia River at Umatilla. This town is notable as it has a huge storage depot where about 12% of the USA chemical weapons are stored, we took a couple of pictures ans the storage facility is right by the road, this storage facility was started after the First World War.
From Umatilla it is only a short hop to Pendleton, so we arrived about 3.00.
We stayed in the Rodeway Inn, which was quite pleasant. Its major advantages being that it is close to the town centre and also had rooms available! Because this is Round Up Week, one of the biggest Round Ups (rodeo to you and me) in the USA. Pendleton used to be one of the biggest cow towns, though now its main source of income seems to be from this one week of the year festival. The place was buzzing with people in western dress. Sally and I took a walk along the riverside and found an entire Indian village set up for the week, as many Indians come here to take part in the Round Up shows.
Pendleton is also interesting for its social and cultural history. Being a railhead and centre for the cattle industry, it also had a whole load of 'ladies of the night'. Many of the houses are still there, though no longer used for their original purpose. There is also a very interesting Chinese perspective. Up until the 1950's it was actually legal to shoot any Chinese who were seen on the street in daylight hours! This ruling comes from way back and highlights another of America's less pleasant sides. Chinese were brought across from China in the 1800's to work on building the railways, often in conditions worse than black slavery. Once the railroads were built then they were just turned loose, wherever the job finished, and were seen as something close to vermin. In Pendleton, they managed to make a living by servicing the hotels laundry needs, however, because they could not be seen on the streets, they built underground walkways which joined  many of the hotels, so that they could remove and deliver the laundry. These underground passages were also used by people who wanted to get from their business premises to the hotels for their own purposes without being seen. The underground city is still there and you can now get an underground tour to see many of the things that happened underground.
We ate at The Saddle, a family diner, where the daily special was Prime Rib, on seeing what others were eating, we opted to have one meal between us, believe me it was enough for the two of us!