Iowa TV Schooltime - Landmarks in Iowa History - Moingona, 1959

It's TV Schooltime WOI-TV in association with Iowa State Teachers College presents another program in the Iowa TV Schooltime series "Landmarks in Iowa History" now you mean we're on the air hello boys and girls gee whiz I was depending on my new watch I got a brand new watch last week the kind that's advertised as the one you can dump in the water and it'll still run and keep perfect time maybe that's the mistake I made I didn't dump it into water anyhow I'm late and I'm very sorry to be late this morning particularly because the lady who was the station agent in this building back here was always on time and out of respect for her memory I should have been on time too you know who was the station agent here at one time many years ago Kate Shelley Kate Shelley who always made it a practice to be on time even as a girl of 15 because when she was 15 years old she crossed the Des Moines River Bridge on a night of storm and rain and wind and lightning in order to warn The Midnight Express that there was a bridge out over Honey Creek and years later out of thanks for this brave deed the Chicago and North Western Railroad Company made her station agent here at Moingona and this is the station in which Kate Shelley was the agent now the railroad isn't here anymore at one time this was a thriving coal town but the coal vein has been used up there's no more coal around here and so a long time ago the railroad was taken out and moved four miles further north so there isn't any bridge here anymore there aren't any tracks here anymore and when the tracks were taken up the station was no longer needed and a farmer named Mr. Boone Nygren bought the old depot the old station and moved it over to his farm and that's where it is [today?] this is a farm building now but you notice that it still has the sign on it Moingona that's because this is an important landmark and even though the building is now used as a farm building it reminds everyone who sees it of the days when Moingona was a thriving village and when the railroad came through here and many many freight trains carrying coal and passenger trains too came through this little village but more important than that this station reminds us of Kate Shelley who was the outstanding heroine in Iowa history and the important thing to remember about Kate Shelley was or is that she was always on time unlike your teacher in this TV series I would rather have been late on any other program than this one the lesson to be learned from that is don't buy a new watch especially this brand let me show you where Moingona is it's off the main highway and perhaps you've driven through this part of the state many times and haven't realized how close you were to the scene of Kate Shelley's brave deed on July the 6th 1881 here is Boone on the Des Moines River I'm sure you've driven through Boone Boone is on highway 30 well here is Moingona Moingona is also on the Des Moines River but it's southwest of Boone and you can't get to it on any paved highway there's a gravel road that leads there but it's kind of a deserted village today there isn't even a post office in Moingona anymore but it's worth a trip to Moingona just to see this old station and to see the place where the bridge was and the place where the tracks used to be there is a grade there that is still to be seen but the tracks of course are gone Ogden is over about here and you can to Ogden by taking Highway 30 West and then you turn south on Highway 169 and then you will see a sign here about two or three miles south of Ogden pointing to Moingona and you follow a gravel road until you get to Moingona Moingona is the place that still observes the memory of Kate Shelley although Kate Shelley really lived on the east side of the Des Moines River and this heroic deed of Kate Shelley took place on the night of July the 6th 1881 on the day of July the 6th the weather was hot and sultry and Kate's mother said to her "Kate this kind of weather means that there is going to be a storm" because when it's hot and sultry like this it always means that we're going to have rain Kate Shelley's father had been a section Foreman he had worked on the Chicago and North Western railroad and he had died several years before this and Kate Shelley was the oldest of five children and so of course she had to help take care of the farm there was a little farm there and [to?] take care of the children because Mrs. Shelley Kate's mother was not very strong and so on this day Kate's mother said "Kate I think you'd better go out and take down the clothes that we hung up because it's going to rain and we don't want to get all these clothes wet" and sure enough along toward evening it began to rain and it rained very very hard and this farmhouse was on a little creek that flowed into the Des Moines River and it wasn't very long before this creek Honey Creek began to rise and the water kept coming up steadily and steadily and it began to approach a little outbuilding where the horses and cows were kept and even though it was raining very hard Kate said "mother I think I'd better go down there and open that shed so the horses and cows can get out and find a place on higher ground to get away from this flood if the water from Honey Creek rises much more it'll float that shed away" so her mother who was afraid that something might happen to Kate said "well I don't think you'd better risk that Kate" but Kate decided that she had better do it anyhow because she was the oldest child she had to take the responsibility for things because her mother was not strong and so she put on an old coat and went out and opened the door and let the cows and the horses out and she still kept watching this storm and kept worrying about it and late that night she heard a train she heard an engine since she lived near the railroad she was familiar with the sound of these trains and and the kind of the noise they made when they were traveling and she said to her mother "that's a pusher engine" now pusher engines were kept at least one pusher engine was kept at the depot at Moingona to help push freight trains up along grade from Moingona to Ogden this is a long hill and sometimes the locomotives on the freight trains weren't strong enough to pull these heavy freight trains and they put a pusher engine behind the freight to help push it up the grade and this pusher engine was kept at Moingona for the purpose of helping the freight trains and also to take care of odd jobs and on this night of storm orders came from the dispatcher's office at Boone to the station agent at Moingona saying "send [out/that?] pusher engine to explore the track between Moingona and Boone to see that everything is in good shape because the passenger trains will be coming over here later at night and we want to be sure that the track is all right" and that's the engine that Kate and her mother heard and Kate kept peering through the window and finally she could see the dim headlight of this pusher engine and she said to her mother "it's getting near Honey Creek" the Honey Creek Bridge and all of a sudden there was a hissing roar and the light disappeared and Kate said "the pusher engine has gone through the bridge" and she said to her mother "I've got to go out there and see what help I can give" and her mother was afraid that the storm would sweep Kate into the flood and she said "no Kate I've lost your father and one of your brothers already and I depend on you don't you go out there you can't do anything" but Kate said "I'm going" and so she took an old lantern that had belonged to her father there was no wick in it so she tore a strip off of a flannel petticoat and put the wick in this lantern filled it with kerosene and lighted it and then started out she had to take a high ridge behind her house and circle around to this bridge on Honey Creek and when she got there she could see by the flashes of lightning that two men were hanging to trees out there in the flooded Creek and she couldn't hear what they were saying but she saw that the pusher engine had gone through this bridge and then she thought about the fact that there was a Midnight Express coming from the West and she knew that the agent at Moingona didn't know about this bridge being gone over Honey Creek so she decided she would have to warn the agent so she started back toward Moingona remember now she was on the east side of the river and with this feeble light from her lantern she struggled along the track until she got to the bridge and the water had come up so high that it was right under the bridge and the bridge was trembling with the roaring of the water and the force of the flood but she didn't hesitate she started out across this bridge which was 671 feet long and you remember it was storming now tremendous wind a downpour of rain thunder and lightning but she started across and this was no simple matter because that old bridge had the ties 18 inches apart now that's quite a distance 18 inches it's at least that long a little longer perhaps and she realized that if she made a misstep she would go between the ties and fall into the river herself moreover this bridge at one time had planks between the rails so that people could walk across but there had been so much trouble about people using this bridge to cross that the railroad had taken the planks off and so now there were no planks just these wide ties and the rails and there were a lot of spikes and nails that had been left from this old planking that were sticking up and very soon Kate discovered that she was tearing her feet on these spikes and it wasn't long before the force of the wind put out her lantern somehow or other it struck the side of the bridge and the glass broke and she was left in darkness so she decided the best thing to do would be to go on her hands and knees and feel one of the rails so that she wouldn't lose her way but if she got between the rails no telling what would happen this would help support her too in case she made a misstep and slipped between the ties so very very slowly she began to crawl across the bridge and of course she tore her clothes her knees were lacerated and torn but after what seemed hours she finally got to the other side felt the cinders under her hands and then ran another quarter of a mile to the station and said "stop the Midnight Express the bridge on Honey Creek is out" and the people there thought she was crazy until somebody said "well that's Mike Shelley's girl she lives on the other side of the river you better set up the signals [and/to?] stop that express" and there was a freight engine standing there in the yards and that began to blow its whistle and they gathered a group of people together from Moingona to go out and see if they could rescue these people in Honey Creek and Kate Shelley went along and they were able to save two of the men who had caught on to the branches of a tree in Honey Creek and the other two men who had been on the pusher engine were swept away by the flood and were drowned but the important thing is that if it hadn't been for Kate Shelley warning the station agent at Moingona who set up his signals and flagged his Midnight Express 200 people who were on this train would have roared across the bridge over the Des Moines River and would have plunged into Honey Creek and would have been killed a fifteen-year-old girl who had the courage in the middle of the night in the middle of a raging storm to cross the bridge and save hundreds of lives here is a drawing that was made by Mr. Karl Rickman an artist in Rhode Island for a calendar that was used by the Order of Railway Conductors and Brakemen in 1956 75 years after Kate Shelley's heroic deed and it shows Kate with the rope and lantern still in her hand groping her way along reaching for the rails and going from knee to knee across this bridge notice where the water is at one moment when she was crossing the bridge she saw by a flash of lightning that there was a huge tree which had been uprooted further upstream which was bearing down on her and she thought sure if this big tree hit the piers of the bridge that the bridge would go down and she would be drowned and then she wouldn't be able to warn anybody but by a stroke of Providence the tree missed the bridge pier and she got across well the day after this the telegraph wires carried the news of Kate Shelley's heroism all over the United States and thousands of people began to converge upon this little house but Kate Shelley herself suffered such a nervous shock that she had a breakdown and was obliged to stay in bed for three months recovering from this awful experience and she never again did regain her strength but the Chicago Tribune raised a fund of $500 that helped to pay off the mortgage on the house and the Chicago and North Western Railroad gave her a check for $100 and a load of coal and other things that would help to keep this poor family from starving and other people raised some money for Kate to go to school go to college and in later years she taught school for a while near Boone and for one year she was the Bill Clerk in the Iowa Legislature then in 1903 the Chicago and North Western offered her the job of station agent at Moingona and she was agent there for the years from 1903 until 1912 when she died of Bright's Disease (Nephritis) she never married and she was always very modest about this she would never tell the story unless people would ask her about it but Kate Shelley is one of the great heroines of American history not just of Iowa history a girl who had this courage to sacrifice her own life if necessary in order that this train might be warned in order that these lives might be saved because of the disaster to the pusher engine on Honey Creek now I want to show you a few pictures that I took in the Moingona area last summer here are the piers of an old bridge across the Des Moines River now you wouldn't think that a river that looks as quiet as a mill pond there would ever be a threat to anybody would you the time I took this picture there wasn't even any evidence of current in this river but there are hundreds of smaller creeks like Honey Creek that flow into the Des Moines River and in a time of heavy rains this river can really be a monster I was there one time when the river was so high that these piers were underwater there was water way up to here and you couldn't get anywhere near this at the time I took this it just happened that the river was lowered it was a dry season and the river was very quiet these piers are not the piers of the original bridge not the bridge that Kate Shelley crossed this is all that is left of a bridge that was put up later there is no bridge at Moingona now this is all that's left of the last one there is a Kate Shelley bridge however and I want to be sure that you don't get this mixed up with the one that Kate Shelley crossed this is 4 miles north of Moingona at the point where the Chicago and North Western now crosses the Des Moines river this is near Boone it's a bridge a steel bridge 184 feet high and a half mile long this is only half of it it's only half of it but this was named in honor of Kate Shelley it had nothing to do with the bridge that Kate Shelley crossed here is a watch that was given to Kate Shelley by the Order of Railway Conductors a hunting-case watch with a legend engraved inside the case reviewing the heroism of Kate Shelley and saving the lives of the people on the Midnight Express and this watch is now owned by Kate Shelley's nephew Jack Shelley a popular newscaster who was the son of John Shelley the younger brother of Kate Shelley this is the size of the watch you see Jack Shelley of course is very proud of the watch and proud of the fact as he has reason to be of his aunt here is the lantern which Kate Shelley carried and you can still see this this is now in the State Historical Museum in Des Moines that building across from the Iowa State Capitol and if you go up to the second floor you will find a case that has this original lantern in it notice how the chimney has been broken that happened when Kate was carrying this lantern across the bridge see how it's bent it was battered like that because when Kate was carrying the lantern while she was on her hands and knees this banged against the rails and was bent like this and here in Sacred Hearts Cemetery near Boone on the east side of the river is Kate Shelley's grave the Order of Railway Conductors are decorating it here you see in 1956 there was a ceremony here at the grave honoring Kate Shelley on the 75th anniversary of her brave deed now I have some other pictures which are on slides and which I obtained from Mr. Edward H. Meyers of Boone Iowa who is a writer and historian about the railroads and he has collected many old pictures about railroading and he has some very rare pictures of Kate Shelley and I'd like to have you see those the slides are in the studio in [Ames?] so I'll have to ask Mr. Bork our director to put those on will you do that Mr. Bork here is the first slide this is the original Kate Shelley home here is Kate Shelley right here this was taken in later years and this is the window through which she saw the pusher engine disappear into the flood of Honey Creek she was sitting here at this window during the storm the next slide please here is a very old old picture of the pusher engine this was taken in 1876 about five years before the accident before the disaster old type engine you see the funnel stack this is Pusher Engine Number 11 this is the one that went down through the bridge next and this is the bridge which Kate Shelley crossed now here notice this shadow here on the piers that shows far apart those ties were and this is where Kate Shelley started way over here on this side and crawled on her hands and knees across this whole length with the water way up here right up under the ties and the bridge was trembling from the force of the flood and she had to stagger across here fighting the nails and the spikes that were still left where the planking had been removed next and this was journey's end for Kate Shelley when she got across the bridge this was the original station the water tower over here you see this is where she went and informed the agents that the bridge over Honey Creek was out here is a picture of Kate Shelley that was taken several years after she made the crossing and this is interesting because it shows the place where she carried the watch it was in a little pocket here at her waist and this watch given to her by the Order of Railway Conductors was engraved by a jeweler who was so impressed by Kate Shelley that he threw in a 6-foot chain free this is the chain here see six feet long next this is Kate Shelley as she looked when she was made station agent in 1903 also a very rare picture this is the house that was built by Kate Shelley after she earned enough money to move out of this old house here's the old house way over here and this house is still standing it stands near the Sportsman's Club southwest of Boone and there's a family living in it today this is the house in which Kate Shelley spent her later years next here is Kate Shelley after she became station agent and this was the building when it was still used as a depot the same building that you see in the background here today the roof has been changed a little bit but it's still the same building here is Kate Shelley this is the bridge that was built after the old one was taken down this was put up in 1894 and it's a much better bridge and of course the ties are much closer together If Kate had had to cross this one it wouldn't have been such a job although it's never much of a pleasure to cross a railroad trestle when you can't see where you're going accepted by the flashes of lightning well this is a later bridge next this shows the dismantling of the second bridge in 1933 in 1928 the last passenger train went over the bridge at Moingona and the new right-of-way had been completed through Boone and less and less traffic went over this bridge so in 1933 even that bridge was taken down there is no bridge at Moingona today and there are just those old piers that remain now if you would like to read more about the story of Kate Shelley I suggest that you try to get a copy of this magazine called The Conductor and Brakeman this is the issue for June 1955 this has a very fine story about Kate Shelley written by Fred Henson and you can get a copy of this for 25 cents if there are still any copies left by writing to The Order of Railway Conductors and Brakemen in Cedar Rapids Iowa this is The Conductor and Brakeman magazine for June 1955 there is another one also The Conductor and Brakeman magazine for June 1956 which shows the Kate Shelley lantern on the cover and this has the story of the adventure the heroic deed as it was written by Kate Shelley herself you can read her own story written in her own word it's in this particular magazine and of course I have called your attention many times to this book Stories of Iowa by Mr. Irving H. Hart this has a story about Kate Shelley also if you have a copy of this I urge you to read the story called Heroine of the Bridge if you don't have a copy you can get one by writing to the radio office at the Iowa State Teachers College in Cedar Falls and the price of this book which has 30 stories about Iowa in it is only 50 cents now let's see what we ought to remember about this story the story of Kate Shelley is one which has been preserved for us very largely through the efforts of The Order of Railway Conductors and Brakemen here is a conductor pleasant-looking conductor isn't he well The Order of Railway Conductors and Brakemen is made up not only of conductors but also of brakemen who wear caps like this and they also are very pleasant in appearance look almost like brothers don't they well The Order of Railway Conductors and Brakemen between them maintain our remembrance of the story of Kate Shelley and we can see in their combined efforts this lantern which is the thing to remember in the connection with the story of Kate Shelley and there it is next week we are going to Festina until then goodbye today your teacher has been Herb Hake of Iowa State Teachers College Landmarks in Iowa History is produced for Iowa TV Schooltime by WOI-TV in association with Iowa State Teachers College