Tales from the Negatives: WandL.E. Tower What…

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archive, Canton, communication points, freight train, history galleries, keys, main line, Massillon, MN Tower, Museum, negatives, ohio, photograph, railroad, scanning, Stark County, Street of Shops, switch tower, switchman, track, tracks, trains, Wandle, Wandle Tower, Wheeling and Lake Erie Railroad Company

While scanning an archive of some 1400 negatives I found an interesting image of a switch tower. 

John Taylor at MN Tower

A switch tower is a building where railroad personnel monitor track switches.  Towers were placed near switch locations into order for the railroad personnel to manually “throw” the switch to direct trains to a different track.  A switchman possessed keys to unlock/lock a switch so that someone just walking along could not “throw” the switch and cause an accident.  These towers also served as a communication points along the rails passing along information to trains as to the status of the tracks ahead.

The MN switch tower in this collection was near a passing siding.  Passing sidings utilized switches in order to allow two trains on the same track to pass one another.  As these opposing trains approach one another, one train is switched from the main line onto a passing siding to wait for the other train to pass. Once the train with the right of way has passed, the train waiting can move back onto the main line and go on its way.  The average freight train can be one to one and a quarter miles in length or 90 to 120 rail cars and therefore this passing siding must be long enough to accommodate these large trains. 

The photographs in this large archive were shot by amateur photographer William Ward Lowery in the early twentieth century. Mr. Lowery worked for the Canton City Water Department where he retired in 1955 having served the City of Canton for forty-two years.

William Ward Lowery

While cleaning the history galleries in our museum last Friday I noticed a tower in the model train set up we have in our Street of Shops. This tower looked like the switch tower in Mr. Lowey’s photographs.  As I walked around the set up I noticed more towers in more cities in Stark County. 

The two towers we feature today are the MN Tower, and the Wandle Tower.  We have found evidence that the MN Tower was East of Massillon, Ohio. The Wandle Tower in the model represents a tower that once stood in Canton, Ohio. The word Wandle is an amalgamation of the initials of the Wheeling and Lake Erie Railroad Company W. and L.E. Wandle.

Stay tuned to our museum’s Facebook, YouTube Channel, and our blog Archivist’s Attic for more Tales from the Negatives…

McKinley Presidential Library & Museum

Tales from the Negatives: Majorette Found in Middlebranch…

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1956, archive, box, business, Canton, donor, father, fifties, graduated, January, Kodak, Library, Majorette, McKinley National Memorial, Middlebranch, Middlebranch High School, Monument, negatives, october, photographer, Plain Township, senior year, Stark County, Victory Chapman, volunteers, wedding photographer

 

On January 2nd of this year a donor brought into our Library a large box of negatives from a photographer that operated in Canton, Ohio in the nineteen fifties.  The donor told me his father was the photographer and the photography business was finished before he was born.  Victory Chapman was a wedding photographer and we now have hundreds of negatives of weddings that happened in Stark County during the 1950’s. This week I decided to unpack the box and see what I really had in this archive.  

One of the Kodak boxes was marked Middlebranch High School Majorettes taken October 13, 1956.  Wanting to know more about these photographs from Plain Township I asked one of our volunteers in the library if he knew anything about them and he suggested I talk to another one of our volunteers who knows some history of Middlebranch High School.  This volunteer suggested I speak to Connie Blinn and went on to say because of the time these photographs were taken Connie may even be one of the majorettes. Taking a closer look at the carefully packaged negatives of each group of photographs of majorettes I discovered Connie Pavey whose married name is Blinn.

Where do you go in Stark County to pose for pictures?  The “Monument!” Connie graduated in 1957 making this photography session the fall of her senior year.

Connie Pavey October 13, 1956

Judy Pocock who volunteers in our library and is a longtime friend and was a year behind Connie at Middlebranch called her to let her know.  Connie subsequently visited our library and viewed four photographs that Victory Chapman had taken of her at the McKinley National Memorial.   She brought with her a framed photograph in color of one of the poses. Connie was thrilled with what we found in our archives and she told us how fun it was to come and see a bit of her history.  Thank you Connie for making our work fun too.

Volunteer, Judy Cloud Pocock & Connie Pavey Blinn

 

Connie Pavey Blinn