Cotton Belt Engineer

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Contents

INTRODUCTION...........................................................viiACKNOWLEDGEMENTS AND WRITING THIS BOOK.................................ixCHAPTER 1: EARLY LIFE IN HAMILTON, TEXAS 1898-1917.....................1CHAPTER 2: BOOMING AROUND TEXAS 1917-1920..............................13CHAPTER 3: COMMERCE, TEXAS 1920-1929...................................26CHAPTER 4: TIMES OF TROUBLE 1930-1939..................................47CHAPTER 5: WORLD AT WAR 1940-1945......................................59CHAPTER 6: RECOVERY 1945-1949..........................................74CHAPTER 7: THE END OF STEAM 1950-1953..................................83CHAPTER 8: PA CHOO-CHOO 1954-1967......................................94CHAPTER 9: GONE FISHIN' 1968-1981......................................108CHAPTER 10: ON BECOMING #1 1917-1967...................................118BIBLIOGRAPHY...........................................................123DISCOGRAPHY............................................................131FILMOGRAPHY............................................................131WEBLIOGRAPHY...........................................................131END NOTES..............................................................133INDEX..................................................................155

Chapter One

Cecil Willard Standefer walked with his grandfather William Rufus Standefer through the woods and across the fields that Sunday. Little red-headed Cecil was 8 years old that summer 1907 day. He was going to see the tracks of the new railroad being built by the Stephenville North & South Texas Railway. Cecil lived in Hamilton, Texas. He watched the construction train coming to deliver the materials needed to build the line on toward Hamilton. An SN&ST Ten wheeler would have been on the point of this train, either the #50 or the #51. This was the first railroad, first steam locomotive, and first train that Cecil ever saw.

Usually Sunday was a day of rest and relaxation, but the SN&ST crews were working on this Sunday. Sunday socials and community events centered on the church were a more commonplace thing in those days. But the coming of the railroad had the whole town in a whirl. What Cecil Standefer saw that summer day in 1907 was the broad sweep of construction needed to create a new railroad. He saw Fresno scrapers moving a yard of fill, each drawn by two mule teams. Each Fresno had an operator and each team of mules had a driver. Thus, two men were required to move that yard of earth for the fills for the embankment. Other mules worked the large field plow to loosen the fill material for the Fresnos. Other horse teams were used to pull the pile driver to the top of its reach. This lead was then released to let the pile driver fall upon the piles being driven for the new bridges that would carry the rails over the small streams and the bigger one that was the Leon River. the horses were then led around for another pull at the lead and the rail building work went on.

This building of the first 43-mile installment of the SN&ST was a very labor-intensive activity. The hustle and bustle of men and animals striving to create a pathway for the new railroad was a sight to behold. This was no machine driven event. The people of Hamilton turned out to watch the progress of the line. Two of the townsmen were busy documenting the progress of the railroad with their cameras. The only real mechanization on this first railroad to Hamilton was the steam locomotive and its construction train. The construction train was composed of flat cars with ties, rails, spikes, timbers, and the other materials necessary to build a rail line in the early part of the 20th And driving that construction train engine that summer day was Engineer Ernest L. Hickey. Hickey had recently become an SN&ST Engineer on August 15th. Over time, this Ernest Hickey would guide young Standefer on his chosen path.

This rail-building event and the steam train would shape his future life for at that very time Cecil Standefer decided to become a railroader, and not just any railroader, he decided to become an engineer. He wanted to be the man who was in control of the engine. It is said that Cecil Standefer wanted to become an engineer as it was the best job of his day, this would be comparable to a boy seeing a spacecraft today and deciding there and then to become an astronaut. In less than ten years, Cecil's decision became reality. He did not start as an engineer, but began an apprenticeship that would lead to the very thing he desired to do on that Sunday summer day in 1907. Such is the power of a heavy piece of steel propelled by expanding water vapor to pull the imagination of young boys toward their destiny. And Such was the focus of Cecil Standefer to work to achieve his dream. It was his life's ambition as he later described it in an interview to become an engineer, and he did it. Was Cecil Standefer prescient of his future? Many clues in his life lead one to believe that is so.

The Hamilton, Texas that Cecil Standefer was born into in 1898 was distancing itself from its frontier days. As recently as 1867 hostile Comanche had raided into Hamilton County. The last of the Indian raids on this Texas frontier had occurred by 1875. These raids had slowed growth in the area and it was only after the raids ceased that real growth began. Before that growth spurt started, Hamilton was on the frontier. It was a stark land contrasted by its flat-topped mesa highlands and slow moving tree lined streams.

Cecil Standefer's paternal great grandfather Henry Cyrus Standefer built the first house and then started the first store in 1855 in what would become Hamilton, Texas. Henry Standefer's partner in the store was James Monroe Rice. Their store was near the present location of Hamilton City hall at the intersection of south Bell and East main streets. The Standefers and the Rices also homesteaded out at what was called the Evergreen Community about eight miles to the south and East of what became the town of Hamilton. Evergreen was located just above a sharp bend on the westerly bank of the Leon river.

Not satisfied with their current conditions the local citizenry around Hamilton petitioned the State of Texas in 1856 to start a new county. Following this early settlement of Hamilton there was perceived to be a need for organization. This would be in the form of a county government starting in January 1858. Texas governor Sam Houston appointed the position of County Commissioner to Henry Standefer and that of County Clerk to his father, Isaac Standefer. An election on August 2nd the same year kept both Standefer men in office.

Early Hamilton County in 1860 had 489 residents according to the current census. These early pioneers had settled along the wooded streams in the county and were raising wheat, corn, a few horses, sheep, milk cows and beef cattle. In fact the cows outnumbered the residents of that time. The coming of the Civil war caused the founding of a local militia to defend against hostile Indian attacks.

The following 1870 census found a population of 733 in the county. A total of 75 ranches and farms were working the land. Wheat and corn were the grains harvested. The ranchers were managing 10,000 head of cattle at...