Cowcatcher Division History

UNDER CONSTRUCTION

This page is a collection of quotes, summaries, articles and comments.
This page is not yet a prose written history - its a collection of stuff to write a history.
The info on this page is somewhat in chronological order

A Few Words of Introduction:
Having joined the NMRA in June of 2021 and being the Cowcatcher Division webmaster does not provide me the background to write the Cowcatcher Division history. However, I thought I would attempt to start collecting information with the hope that some member(s) will step forward and take on the task of writing.

After the 2023 Texas Express Convention was over, I looked into improving our division's website. I began looking at division websites throughout the regions of the NMRA. I looked for what those web sites had verses what the Cowcatcher Division website had. This resulted in a few new pages being added to our division website that focused on member accomplishments such as the modeling and the Achievement Program. In a few rare cases, I found some other divisions had a web page telling their history. That made me wonder what was the Cowcatcher Division's History and where would I find it?

I thought about these available resources.

• Our division's digital "Whistle" monthly newsletter archive begins in 2017.
• The LSR's digital "Marker Lamp" newsletter archive begins in June 2004.
• The LSR has a Historian.
• The NMRA has an Archive link on its website.
• We have great division members, so their memories may help OR they knew people of the past.

There is a big gap between the NMRA founding in September 1935 and the above resources. I don't expect to finish this history but I hope I can set the stage for a division member to complete it. I think this page will just be a collection of findings, comments by me, and hopefully things members tell me. I will try to put all my commentary in ITALICS followed by my initials, SDG.. . . . . . . . . . . . Steve Gratke, November 18, 2023

I realized after a few weeks that learning the Cowcatcher Division history went hand in hand with learning the Lone Star Region's history. So, in going through the LSR history, I was able to sort out most of the Cowcatcher Division story. It is not easy getting to the Cowcatcher's history through its own membership - it is near impossible. I'll write about this later. I realize that I was repeating some items, often several times, as I collected information from different sources. That is confusing but it is confirming. It may take a long time before the written prose history comes along and cleans these repeat things up, assuming someone gifted in our English language comes along to do that writing. SDG

1935 - FOUNDING OF THE NMRA

The following is edited text from a Model Railroader magazine article published April 25, 2022 about a speech made by A. C. Kalmbach, founder of Model Railroader magazine and today's Kalmbach Media, in 1955 in which he recalled the start of the hobby’s largest organization. (A.C. Kalmbach was present at the founding.) SDG

The National Model Railroad Association was founded at a meeting of several dozen hobbyist, mostly from Milwaukee and Chicago areas, held in Milwaukee, Wisconsin on Labor Day weekend, 1935. The NMRA grew more or less spontaneously out of two basic needs of the fledgling hobby.

1. The need for standards to assure interchangeable equipment.

2. The social need for getting together with other followers of a hobby which was then thought by outsiders to be slightly odd.

The NMRA was actually formed at the beginning of a short business meeting. A resolution was passed that those present band together under the name of “The National Model Railroad Association” to promote the model railroading and to set standards for the hobby. The resolution was written on a large sheet of paper and everybody signed it. The NMRA was on the track with a clear signal. Discussion, committee appointments, and election of officers finished the meeting. The rest is history.

1950-51 - NMRA PETITIONED AND LONE STAR REGION CHARTERED & ESTABLISHED

REFERENCE: LSR Marker Lamp, Winter 2019,"We Return to Our Roots," by Bob Barnett; MMR ,LSR Historian. Bob Barnett related the following as a direct quote from his article. SDG

"According to an excellent LSR history written in 1984 by then LSR President John Lowrance and contemporary 1950's hobby press, signatures for a petition to the NMRA to organize a region in Texas were gathered by Bobbie and Buddy Hall at Halls Hobby House in Dallas. Bill McClanahan of Dallas then carried the petition to the 1950 NMRA Convention.

The motion passed and the Dallas area model railroaders wasted no time in setting up an organizational meeting held in April 1951 at the Baker Hotel in Dallas. To those not familiar with Dallas in the fifties the Baker and Adolophus Hotels were THE luxury hotels in Downtown Dallas, so this was a pretty upscale affair. The organization appointed temporary officers and a committee to draft a constitution to set up the frame work for the organization we now know as the NMRA Lone Star Region.

The first official convention of the Lone Star Region was held September 29th and 30th in Fort Worth at the Hotel Texas."

REFERENCE: Marker Lamp, Summer 2004, the article "Cow-Catcher" by Tim Blackwell gives a vision of the beginning. (The word Cowcatcher crops up a lot in LSR and division history but has different meanings or uses.) SDG

• LSR was Chartered in 1951 (Chartered by NMRA)

• Organizational Meeting held in Dallas, April 1951, 116 NMRA members & 51 guests present (Bobbye Hall of Hallmark Models and Hall's Hobby House was involved in the setup of this organizational meeting.)

• The "Cow-Catcher, It Scatters the Bull Over Texas" (yes, that was really the title), Vol. 1 Number 1, 4 pages black & white appeared in May 1951 as the first LSR Newsletter (it had the co-editors Terry Walsh, F.C. Peterson, Bill McClanahan and Cliff Robinson).

• The Cow-Catcher had grown to 10 pages at the January 1952 publication - it was monthly

• In 1953 the Cow-Catcher name gave way to a new name, the Marker Lamp

WE HAVE THE BEGINNING OF THE LSR HISTORY WHICH FOLLOWS!

REFERENCE: On 04/02/24 Tim Blackwell provided the following directly quoted from a chapter in Bobbye Hall’s book, “Tracks from Texas to Tokyo” by Bobbye Hall with Tim Blackwell (used by permission from Tim Blackwell) - SDG

"In the early 1950s, organized model railroading became a large part of Hall’s Hobby House, and I jumped in full steam ahead. It was also a time that hobbies came into vogue. Buddy’s Princeton Central was an organization in itself, with officers, a budget, and scheduled run times each week. At the group’s meetings, there was always talk about modeling efforts around the state and in the National Model Railroad Association (NMRA), the mother of all model railroad organizations. The NMRA, founded in 1935 in Milwaukee, Wisconsin, provided a service to the hobby of model railroading, which was then largely prevalent in the Midwest and Northeast. Its mission was to bring modelers and manufacturers together through uniformity of product standards.

Like most national organizations, the NMRA was sub-divided into regions to perpetuate the local effort of promoting the association and the hobby. Texas had no region, but interest was growing in Dallas, Abilene, and Houston. With help from the Princeton Central gang, Roy Thomas of Abilene, and regulars at Hall’s, I began a petition to bring the NMRA to Texas. All we needed was fifty-one signatures.

It didn’t take long to get the names, and Bill McClanahan had them in hand when he traveled to Milwaukee in 1950 to present the petition to the board at the NMRA convention. With little fanfare, the NMRA issued a charter for the Lone Star Region (LSR), which covered all of Texas.

After Bill returned home, we began building the regional organization and making plans for its first convention, which was slated for April at the Baker Hotel in Dallas. Bill headed the convention committee, which included Dallas modelers F.C. Peterson, Harry Firstbrook, John Galey, Cliff Robinson, Malcolm Vordenbaum, Ed and Paula Landru, Bob Dickerson, Ed McQuistion, J.B. Sams, Jim Harrell, T.D. Harden, Earl Routsong, Donald Peek, Terry Walsh, and Buddy and me.

More than 100 modelers showed that morning at the hotel to join the organization, meet each other, eat breakfast, and talk about the hobby. Established at the convention was the LSR’s first executive committee, headed by Dr. D.C. Yarbrough, Jr. of Dallas. Among committee members were J.E. “Pop” Loeffler of Houston, and Cliff and Bill Caldwell of Waco, a trio of modelers who would further the hobby for years with their efforts.

The following year, the LSR’s annual meeting began taking the shape of a true convention. The fourteenth floor of the Hotel Texas in Fort Worth was rented for a two-day meeting in late September. The convention featured an agenda of clinics, operating layouts, and a banquet presented by R.W. Armstrong, vice president of the Fort Worth and Denver Railway. Lin Westcott, vice president of Kalmbach Publishing Company and editorial director of Model Railroader Magazine, headlined the convention with the presentation of two clinics on planning and wiring a layout, plus designing control panels with cab and signals. Model railroading had gone high-tech!"

I remember Hall's Hobby House from long ago. My first visit to Hall's Hobby House was in the late 1940s with my older brother. I grew up in Irving, TX, two houses south of the Rock Island tracks. My first trip by myself to Hall's was in the early 1950s. There was a Continental Trailways bus stop near our home. I rode the bus to Continental's Dallas bus station. I would then walk a few blocks and board a street car out to Hall's. The location was the Bryan at Fitzhugh intersection. I started this when I was in my early teens in the days when it was safer with my parents, sister, and brother showing me how to make the trips. One time I had a Lionel switch that I had received for Christmas that did not work - electrical solenoid problem. So, I took it on one of those trips and Mr. Buddy Hall fixed it while I waited. Some years later the Halls divorced but I recall that each had their own hobby shop. Hall's Hobby House was originally at the northwest corner of the intersection but Bobbye Hall built a new building across the street at the southwest corner. Many years later in 1967, I drove to Halls needing some CalScale castings for my first HO steam loco kit build. Bobbye Hall waited on me and took me to a nook in the back and got the castings I needed out of a small drawer file. From the Summer 2006 Marker Lamp I learned that Ms. Hall wrote a book, "Tracks from Texas to Tokyo," about her 55-year career in the hobby industry with Hall’s Hobby House and Hallmark Models, Inc. Her autobiography tracks her life from her early years as a child in Texas through her successful operation of her hobby shop and brass import business. Great memories! Bobbye Hall passed away January 27, 2007 at age 97. - I wonder if other members have "Hall's Memories." However, at this point I know next to nothing about the Cowcatcher Division beginning. SDG

I have got to say something about Bill McClanahan here. I remember him from my days in high school and college. During those years I lived at home. My folks read the "Dallas Morning News" (DMN) and often showed me the editorial cartoons drawn by Bill McClanahan. My parents loved those cartoons and always talked about them wondering if McClanahan would ever get into political trouble. My mother met McClanahan at a Dallas charity event in the late 1950s. I did not know he was a model railroader until years later after I got interested in HO in my college years and subsequently even more years later bought a model railroad scenery book written by him. I did not know he was an early leader in the DFW area and the state of Texas NMRA until I started collecting stuff for this history page. SDG

The following comes from McClanahan's Obituary:

ROBERT G. JONES, MMR #8

• Robert Gordon Jones, 87, born July 30, 1912, passed away Thursday, June 15, 2000.

• He received his Doctor of Law degree at Ohio State University.

• He served with the the U.S. Air Force as a legal advisor on air defense during World War II.

• He retired as owner of Tri-Foto Studios of Fort Worth for 30 years - he was the official photographer for 27 Miss Texas finalists and 3 Miss America winners.

• He was actively engaged in model railroading, having served two terms as southern vice president of NMRA. (I am not sure what "Southern VP" means.) SDG
  
  [Jones served as President of the LSR 1971-72 (History of the Lone Star Region by John Lowrance - Published in the "NMRA Bulletin," August 1985.)]

• He held the honor of being the first person to receive the Master Model Railroader Award.(Does this "First Person" mean first in Cowcatcher Division or in LSR.) SDG

Also in the Cowcatcher Division's website's home page list of our MMR members is Harold D.Connor, MMR #17. Connor served as President of the LSR 1967-68 (History of the Lone Star Region by John Lowrance - Published in the "NMRA Bulletin," August 1985.)

Robert G. Jones, MMR, and his a photography studio in Fort Worth may have know about a photography studio in Arlington that also had a model railroad layout in it - surely they knew each other. When I started this page in 2023, I could not remember the name of that Arlington photographer or studio but I could remember that small HO layout with a Mantua 0-4-0 Shifter pulling a boxcar or two running on it. A friend at work had told me about that shop so one Saturday, my wife and I visited the shop. We had recently been in Seattle on assignment with my company and I dragged her to every model train shop in the Seattle area so she was a bit use to train shop visits. The owner had a small inventory of HO kits, materials and such for sale. Later my wife bought a Christmas 1966 gift there for me, a Mantua Shifter 0-4-0 Kit. That began my interest in HO steam models. I got a clue on the STUDIO and OWNER'S NAME on March 4, 2024 when a post in Facebook about Arlington Memories included a photo of a row of stores taken in the mid 1960s in downtown Arlington on Abram Street. There was that Arlington studio and it's sign, "Johnston's Studio and Camera Shop." It was located at 318 East Abram in Arlington. Further searching and I found the owner's name, Mr. Charles Johnston. I remember my wife telling me that when she bought that Shifter kit that the owner said she should also get the Shifter's valve gear kit to complete the model and she did. I have no idea if Mr. Johnston was a NMRA member but I do know he was a model railroader that had an influence on me in the 1960s. I also got several Cal Scake brass detail castings for that loco at Hall's Hobby House in Dallas. SDG