WHEN
SMALL WAS BETTER
by
Teresa Conway
Delivered to
The
Monday, February 19, 1996
Copyright 1996 by Teresa Conway
Come with me to a small place on this planet which is between 33 degrees and 37 degrees North Latitude and 94 degrees and 98 degrees West Longitude, and to a time more than a century ago.
At
this spot there were then --
"lofty trees, with straight, smooth trunks, like stately columns; and as
the glancing rays of the sun shone through the transparent leaves, tinted with
the many-colored hues of autumn, [you were] reminded of the effect of sunshine
among the stained windows and clustering columns of a Gothic cathedral."
In the forest, appeared "a lonely pool, covered with the most magnificent water-lilies
I had ever beheld; among which swam several wood-ducks, one of the most
beautiful of waterfowl remarkable for the gracefulness and brilliancy of its
plumage." There were "alluvial bottoms matted with redundant
vegetation, where the gigantic trees were entangled with grapevines, hanging
like cordage from their branches; sometimes we coasted along sluggish brooks,
where feebly trickling current just served to link together a succession of
glassy pools, imbedded like mirrors in the quiet bosom of the forest,
reflecting its autumnal foliage and patches of the clear blue sky."
"[F]rom the summits of [broken and rocky hills] we had wide views
stretching on one side over distant prairies diversified by groves and hills
beyond the walls of the [river]." In another area "a luxuriant bottom
of meadow [was] bordered by thickets, where the tall grass was pressed down
into numerous deer-beds,' where those animals had crouched the preceding night.
Some oak-trees also bore signs of having been clambered by bears, in quest of
acorns, the marks of their claws being visible in the bark." The
In
the century and more since Washington Irving wrote these descriptions of this
small place on the planet, there have been no Gothic cathedrals, no picturesque
ruined fortresses, no romantic turreted castles crowning the hills overlooking
the Arkansas River in what was then called
In 1832 when
The Five Tribes had lived in the southeastern
In the new treaties, the Five Tribes were to hold their new homeland as tribal
lands for "as long as the grass shall grow and the rivers run." As
time passed, the politicians in
The subject of my paper is the relationship between two men, of totally
different personality and background, who were alike in their determination
that one of those railroads, the
Charles Ingersoll was one of the seventh generation of a family that had a long
tradition of public service, although in some situations that public service
was not appreciated by their constituents.
Benjamin Franklin had advised one Ingersoll ancestor, Jared, Sr., to accept
appointment from the British to act as stamp-agent for
Whether because of his father's experiences with the irate citizens of
Almost prophetically in view of Charles Edward Ingersoll's later interest in
railroads, his grandfather, Charles Jared Ingersoll, attended a canal and
public works meeting in Harrisburg, Pennsylvania in 1825 and advocated the
development of steam railroads. The proponents of canals, who were not as
far-sighted as he was, outvoted him and the Ingersolls had to wait for seventy
years to develop a railroad of their own.
During the nineteenth century the Ingersolls were prominent members of
As had many others in his family, Charles Edward Ingersoll launched a political
career, serving as
That railroad was not Charles Ingersoll's first venture into railroading. In
the 1890s, he and other
After that line was sold to the Jay Gould interests, Charles Ingersoll decided
to start a new line--the Midland Valley Railroad. The road was to travel
northwest from Arkansas through Indian Territory via Muskogee, Tulsa, and a
portion of the Osage Nation. Ingersoll's original strategy was to use the new
railroad to carry coal from deposits in Sebastian County, Arkansas, and eastern
Oklahoma to Colorado and other states where cold weather created a large demand
for fuel. The original tracks followed a serpent-like path along the edges of
the coal fields. Ingersoll acquired a substantial interest in coal mines and,
eventually, when the Midland Valley was extended to Wichita "to link with
the great railroads of the west, [he] owned a goodly portion of the desirable
coal properties."
On February 1, 1903, construction began on the Midland Valley railroad. The
original line was completed in 1906.
One of the men who participated in the construction was Worley Lefeber. The son
of a blacksmith in Winchester, Tennessee, Lefeber had minimal formal education.
In his Remembrances, he said:
"I had practically no education, having reached the Barnes Fourth Reader in Free School. When I was twelve years of age I acted as janitor of the Free School, sweeping out at the close of school, making fire in the coal stoves, and pumping water from the cistern and placing [it] in several rooms. The water from these cisterns contained all of the known impurities. As [I] recalled, I was paid $1.50 a month."
In need of full-time employment, he answered a newspaper advertisement and was hired by a short line railroad. The office force at his first railroad job
"consisted of the General Manager ($250.00 a month), a General Freight Agent, a Clerk, an Auditor (over eighty years of age, who had lost the use of his right hand, and [of] a fortune), with a part time Clerk and [a] Dispatcher who worked all the time, and myself."
Even
with that inauspicious beginning, Lefeber persevered in his railroading career.
When Charles Ingersoll was organizing the Midland Valley, Lefeber was working
for the CO&G as Chief Clerk. He "worked from early morning until late
at night, except on Saturdays and Sundays. This was not unusual, as the
railroad Auditor issued a bulletin every Monday that the force would work until
10:00 o'clock at night until canceled. No overtime was paid." When the
Chief Engineer of the new railroad offered Lefeber a job, he accepted and
immediately began working on the surveys and other construction matters.
He was sent to St. Louis to purchase engineering equipment and supplies for
five leasing parties. After he told the Manager of the supply store what he
wanted, the Manager disappeared for about thirty minutes and then said Lefeber
should return after 1 o'clock. When he did, the Manager was at the door to
greet him. Later, Lefeber said the Manager told him that
"the first salesman that I talked to thought there was something phony about such a large order; that they had never sold an order of this size. I had given him the Girard Trust Company, Philadelphia, as reference. When he excused himself he had gone to the telegraph office and wired their New York office and had received a reply to sell [the railroad] anything."
In
1906 when the main line of the Midland Valley was completed, the inhabitants of
Indian Territory and Oklahoma Territory were in the midst of debates about
statehood. Representatives of the Five Tribes met in the small town of
Muskogee, the capital of those Tribes, to create a constitution for Indian
Territory. They voted to establish a state called Sequoyah. The proposed
government for that state would have protected tribal traditions from further
erosion due to the pressure of white settlement. Unfortunately for the tribes,
the politicians in Oklahoma Territory maneuvered to combine Indian and Oklahoma
Territories into one state, and in 1907 Oklahoma became the forty-sixth state
of the Union.
Although it did not become the capital of the State of Sequoyah, the town of
Muskogee continued to play an important part in the history of the railroad.
The town donated $25,000 to build the railroad's shops, so the Midland Valley
General Office was moved to Muskogee. The shops were located considerably out
of town. The town extended the streetcar line to them and also opened the
Midland Valley Addition where some employees purchased small frame homes.
In 1913 Charles Ingersoll made a decision which would ensure the success of the
Midland Valley. Lefeber tells the story:
"In
the Spring of 1913 Mr. Ingersoll asked me to come to Philadelphia; I had no
reason to know why. I arrived at Forest Hill. After preliminary words he said:
Lefeber, I want you to go back to Muskogee and take charge of the railroad'. I
told him that I had not the experience to take on such a responsibility. He
urged me and Mrs. Ingersoll got into the act and backed him up. I finally said,
Yes' but added: if you have made a mistake it is yours, not mine.'
"I returned to Muskogee. The elderly Mr. Harris, who had somewhat brought
me up in the railroad business, was the general manager reporting only to Mr.
Ingersoll. I was aware of his total inefficiency. I went to his office and
said: Mr. Harris you are fired, clean out your desk and leave the office by
four o'clock.' All hell broke loose. He called Mr. Ingersoll. Mr. Ingersoll
called me and urged that I should go easy on an old friend of us both. I said:
Mr. Ingersoll, you told me to take charge of the railroad,--did you mean it? If
not, I'll resign.' Mr. Ingersoll got my point and Mr. Harris left".
As
Sturgis Ingersoll, one of Charles' sons, later wrote: "That incident
expresses Worley. He had hosts of friends, but when the issue was between his
feelings for a friend and his loyalty to his job, the friend lost."
Illicit liquor was a constant problem for railroad management. For many years
liquor was banned in Indian Territory, yet there seems to have been an
overabundant supply. The recollections of railroad personnel and company
records contain many references to employees being fired because of drunkenness
and of other employees being fired because they provided the illegal liquor to
their colleagues.
Excessive drinking also affected the railroad's customers. Once, as part of its
entertainment program for the cattle men,
"the
company's business car made a trip to El Paso, where the [cattle men's]
convention was held. Due to some kind of track disturbance, the train was
delayed for several hours at Sierra Blanca, near El Paso. The station and water
facilities were new and neat. The depot contained a bedroom for the Agent.
There were a number of burros grazing around. Some of the cattle men got one of
the burros, gave it a quantity of whiskey and the burro was not able to get up.
The Agent was down at the water pumping station, a short distance from the
depot. Someone got the window open into the Agent's bedroom and the burro was
carried and placed in the Agent's bed and neatly covered up.
"By this time we had returned to the car some distance back. Later on
someone opened and slammed the car door and here was a person with a revolver,
wanting to know which one of us put the burro in his bed, as he wanted to kill
him. We had much difficulty in convincing this Agent that we had nothing to do
with it."
Sometimes excessive consumption of liquor also upset ceremonial occasions. In the following tale, Lefeber performed a civic duty by staying sober under difficult circumstances. A celebration changing the name of the town of Bigheart to Barnsdall was being held one Spring.
"A
special train had been arranged. There were perhaps a hundred people going from
Tulsa. The company's business car was on this train. No intoxicating liquors of
any kind were carried on the car. Someone had a large amount of illicit liquor.
It was brought into the dining room of the car and resulted in quite a few
getting very intoxicated.
"The address [at the celebration] was to be made by the head of the Legal
Department. The banquet took place in a large building just being completed. It
was cold and muddy. The person above referred to as the executive head had not
indulged in any drinking, and being on the railroad, I had not. The speaker was
not in condition to get off of the train. I stated I would remain with him and
my business was to get him to the speaker's table several hours later. With the
assistance of another officer of the company we got off the car an hour before
the banquet time, and had little success in being able to have the speaker
walk, so we got him up to the banquet hall ahead of anyone [else]. The speaker
said, Pull the table back so I can lean against the wall when I stand up.' This
was done.
"The place was full of people and they had a dinner.... While [the
executive] was introducing the intoxicated speaker, [he] says to me, Get under
the table and find my teeth.' I got down on my knees and finally found his
false teeth. When [the speaker] was introduced the officer of the company who
had come up with us was able to assist the speaker and lean him against the
wall.
"His speech was received with great applause and appreciation, and other
than those closely associated with him [the audience] did not know he was under
the influence of liquor."
One unique aspect of railroading in Indian Territory was negotiating with the Indians for permission to use their land for railroad facilities. When the federal government had required the tribal lands to be divided and given to individual tribe members, many did not understand the legal technicalities of ownership. They often fell prey to unscrupulous promoters who would pay them far less than fair market value for their rights. As a result, many were very suspicious of strangers and their promises. Lefeber wrote of a situation where the railroad needed railroad track facilities at Stone Bluff.
"The
only feasible location was on Fullblood Indian land. While the Indian Service
people were most friendly to us, they could make no suggestion other than that
the railroad secure authority from the Fullblood owner and he would approve it
and we could take a chance of immediate possession.
"I happened to know this owner, and the only person I could get any
reference to as one who might be able to deal with this Indian was the banker
in Haskell. The matter was very pressing. Arrangements were made with the
Indian Agent to take an interpreter, the Field Representative, and a total of
eight in all and pick up the banker at Haskell and leave Muskogee early Sunday
morning on a Special to get the Fullblood Indian's authority.
"When we got to the Indian's home he and his wife and child and several
dogs were squatted around a fireplace. There were big holes in the hut. It was
very cold. I had never seen the wife. The first thing she said was, Old Joe
(her husband) won't sign nothin' until I get the money,' and stated she was
surprised that the bank would keep company with these railroad and Indian Agent
people. She referred to the railroad having stolen the right of way from old
Joe'. She referred to the Indian Agent and all employees as thieves. She
included the railroad in everything bad. We were there several hours, and
finally resulted in getting a document signed that permitted the building of
the track."
When
Lefeber investigated the allegation about the theft of the right of way, he
discovered that there was a culprit but the Indian wife had chosen the wrong
one. Instead of a railroad representative, a townsite promoter had persuaded
Old Joe to sign away his ownership of the right of way.
The combination of Charles Ingersoll as the strategist and Worley Lefeber as
the operating manager proved to be a winning one. Physically Ingersoll was tall
and distinguished-looking; Lefeber was just above five feet tall and wiry, with
a cocky swagger to his walk.
Temperamentally, Ingersoll had (as his son would say) "always been
somewhat intuitive in forming judgments. He felt' rather than thought' that the
situation would be profitable." In a letter to his son Harry, Charles
Ingersoll described his approach toward work:
"I
wish to give you a little advice as to handling your work. It will be quite a
responsibility and it will wear on you if you permit it. You, as several of us,
are of a somewhat nervous temperament. It is a great advantage, provided you
don't permit it to wear out your machinery. It is all in the point of view. You
will do your best; then you must not worry that you cannot do any more. Have in
mind somewhat to save yourself. I do not mean at the expense of your work but
for the benefit of your physical and nervous machinery. You can accomplish a
great deal more work in this way than if you let everything that comes up, that
is not exactly as you want it, become a burden to you. A sense of humor in this
particular is an enormous help but unfortunately we are rather deficient in
this quality."
"Our machines wear very much every time we get angry or annoyed. It takes
a great deal more out of you than you can imagine. Calmness under irritating
circumstances is one of the most valuable characteristics.
A good example of the contrast between the two men is shown by the decision of Charles Ingersoll to spend $150,000 of his own money and to guarantee loans of $250,000 to extend the Midland Valley fifty miles from Arkansas City to Wichita, Kansas. As Charles' son, Sturgis, tells the story:
"[Lefeber] always said that Papa, with no study of traffic movements or division possibilities had been taken over the jumps by loud-talking Wichita Chamber of Commerce enthusiasts who, at the expense of Papa, wanted to boast that there was another railroad located in their fair city. For years Lefeber was eloquent about Papa's ignorance with respect to traffic movements. He was right. Profitable traffic never developed on the extension and it proved to be a burden rather than an advantage."
As
may be seen by this story, another of Lefeber's attributes was his willingness
to state his opinions.
Lefeber's firm belief was that "you can't stay in business by doing things
that lose money." A newspaper reporter once said that Lefeber "has
spent a lifetime in the railroad business. He knows its twists and turns and
almost every corner that can be cut without actually forcing the discontinuance
of operations."
Lefeber constantly looked for ways to save money. In one instance, he wondered
"if the railroad could not use compressed natural gas in cylinders for our coach lighting, instead of oil lamps. Finally, with the help of a local gas man, we were able to successfully test out this use, and thereafter, at the minimum cost, equipped all of the company's passenger cars with natural gas."
Another time, the Roundhouse caught fire during the night. The two locomotives in the building were not badly damaged nor were the tools stored there. An architect who specialized in railroad shop work prepared an approximate floor plan and layout for $250 (a large amount in those days).
"After spending hours and hours with mechanical foremen--our mechanical operating records--our locomotive histories--and all, the local German mechanic who had done some work for us on motor cars was called in. He thought for a very few dollars he could put most of the tools back into service. He did. One of the questions was, could these old and slow, obsolete tools, such as shears, drill presses, etc., be used in comparison with modern fast electric tools. Could one or more tools be combined? The final answer seemed to make sense in that the calculations were based on the small amount of time in an average month that one of these tools would be used."
Again Lefeber had found a way to save money and maintain service. At the time of the fire, there was speculation that the shops might be moved from Muskogee to Tulsa, thirty miles away. The Mayor of Muskogee and the President of the Bank became quite nervous at the prospect of losing the shops to their rival city. They promptly advised Lefeber that Muskogee would provide funds to rebuild the shops and would furnish water to the railroad for $100 a month. As a result of further negotiations with the competing cities, the Midland Valley obtained the funds to build two passenger depots in Muskogee and Tulsa for practically the same amount received from the shop fire in Muskogee.
"When [Lefeber] took charge Oklahoma was bursting with oil....[F]or a few years Tulsa served by the Midland and major trunk lines was acclaimed as the oil capital of the world'. There, the future giants of the industry--Texas Company, Phillips, Cosden and others built their refineries. It was before the days of pipelines and the Missouri Pacific, Rock Island, Katy, Frisco, Santa Fe and the Kansas City Southern directly or through connections competed frantically for the lucrative tank car business. Almost over night Lefeber built a belt line serving all the refineries in Tulsa and suddenly the trunk lines lost their business to the little upstart. Lefeber's baby, as we called the belt line, made the Midland immensely prosperous until the pipelines changed the nature of transporting petroleum and its by-products."
The
discovery of oil fields during the early 1900s upset Ingersoll's strategy of
using the railroad to haul coal, but the Ingersoll fortunes did not suffer from
the decline in coal traffic and the increase in oil traffic. The company's
line, quite accidentally, ran across the lands where the fabulous Glenn Pool
and Osage oil fields were to be discovered. A branch line was constructed to
serve the Glenn Pool oil field, and an independent road, the Osage Railway, was
built during the early 1920s to accommodate traffic from the oil fields located
in the Osage Nation. Another branch line was built at a cost of $400,000 to serve
the Burbank oil field. "For each of a number of years it made net
[revenue] in excess of its cost."
Ingersoll also acquired the Kansas, Oklahoma & Gulf Railroad, which had
been in receivership, over the protests of his sons and Lefeber. He, then in his
mid-sixties, "foresaw and [the others] did not, that rehabilitated this
road would prove a profitable shortcut to the Missouri Pacific from Kansas to
Texas. Within a year after [the Midland] obtained control it proved a goldmine
handling trains of 125 cars loaded with wheat and merchandise from Kansas to
Texas."
Charles Ingersoll was not an absentee owner and made his whole family very much
a part of the Midland Valley Railroad. Mrs. Ingersoll frequently accompanied
her husband on his visits to the West and had more than a superficial
understanding of conditions on the railroad. During one financial crisis she
assured Lefeber that she knew he "would be able to pull it out." The
Ingersoll sons participated in inspection trips and received frequent reports about
the line's activities from their father. Son Sturgis claimed that the only
advantage to the family from the unprofitable Wichita extension was his own
experience in the construction gang. There he met old time railroad
construction workers and heard their tall tales about laying track on the
frontier. Son Jared served an apprenticeship preparing complicated oil leases
and eventually became Chairman of the company.
During World War I when his sons were in military service, Charles Ingersoll
lamented "that with 3 good boys I have, not one of them is working on the
Midland Valley, for surely we do need them down there." It was his opinion
that "if it were not for the oil and gasoline originating on the Midland
Valley, the Allies' cause would be in trouble. We are surely shipping oceans of
it for export."
What was the secret of the success of this small railroad which had fewer than
500 miles of track and which was so profitable during the first part of the
twentieth century that many Oklahomans believed it could relay its tracks with
gold?
The title of this paper was chosen because I remembered a statement of my
father, who was Assistant General Attorney of the Midland Valley in the 1930s.
He had said that although it was much smaller than most railroads, the Midland
Valley was one of the few First Class Railroads which had always paid dividends
and had never been in receivership during the Depression. To me that seemed to
point toward "smallness" as a possible answer to the reason for its
success--hence the title "When Small Was Better." When I mentioned
the title to my brother, a former Missouri-Pacific Railroad Superintendent at
Muskogee, he said the Pennsylvania Railroad, a major trunk line, also fell into
the category of a profitable Depression-era railroad. Since Charles Ingersoll
had also been a Director of the Pennsylvania, I decided to examine his business
approach to try to find the reasons for the Midland Valley's success.
After reading the Ingersoll and Lefeber recollections and some records of the
Midland Valley Railroad, I would suggest the following as reasons for success:
1. The owners invested their own money and expected a good return from the
investment. Unlike financiers like Jay Gould who would assemble struggling
railroads into one company and then quickly sell it for a profit, Charles
Ingersoll invested his own money in his ventures and expected to remain a major
shareholder for a long time.
2. Charles Ingersoll kept searching until he found the best man to assume the
responsibility for operating the railroad. Then he encouraged open discussion
and supported the decisions made regarding operations. There was obvious mutual
respect between Charles Ingersoll and Worley Lefeber. After one dispute,
Ingersoll said to Lefeber, "Worley, next to my sons and daughters I think
most of you. I ask you to forget this and to tell me that you do." In his Remembrances,
Lefeber noted that many years before, Ingersoll had sent him a personal letter
with exactly the same comment. Lefeber kept that letter for the rest of his
life. Sturgis Ingersoll also wrote that Lefeber "played an immensely
important part in the life of the Ingersoll family."
3. Money was not spent lavishly but wisely. Lefeber treated every penny spent
as if it were coming out of his own pocket and expected everyone else on the
railroad to have the same attitude.
4. Ingersoll was enthusiastic about his ventures. When he died in 1932, his son
Sturgis said that his father died "in happy certainty that the
adventure--all business to Papa was an adventure -- embarked upon thirty years
before was a marked success."
5. Finally, it, of course, was an advantage that during the heyday of the oil
boom, the railroad was located through a territory that contained some of the
most spectacular gushers seen in this or any other century.
BIBLIOGRAPHY
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Oklahoma City, Oklahoma, 1932.
Howell, Joseph E., Midland Valley Railroad Celebrates Thirty-Fourth Anniversary,
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