All aboard! Join the Retracing Our Roots team as we journey along the White River to uncover the fascinating story of how the St. Louis, Iron Mountain Railroad was built through the White River Valley in the early 1900s. This monumental project was one of the most expensive construction feats in the Ozarks.
We’ll delve into an engineering mishap at the Norfork railroad bridge, which caused a year-long delay in construction. From there, we’ll follow the railroad line to Buffalo City and examine the various routes the railroad could have taken into Missouri.
At Buffalo City, we’ll uncover a dramatic episode: the mutiny of the railroad workers led by the camp cook, who went on strike, knowing that a hungry crew couldn’t work. Amid the chaos, Tom Shiras—future editor and owner of The Baxter Bulletin—stepped in to restore order. He served as the camp cook for six weeks, an experience that inspired him to venture into publishing and eventually purchase the Bulletin.
Despite efforts to save costs by mapping routes through the Buffalo River Valley and Crooked Creek, the terrain proved too expensive to navigate. Instead, the railroad pressed on to Cotter, Arkansas.
Upon arriving in Cotter, we’ll explore the remarkable construction of its 120-year-old railroad bridge and the tunnels carved through the Ozark Mountains. We’ll glimpse into Cotter's transformation as a booming railroad town, seemingly overnight. New businesses and factories began flourishing in this new-founded town like the pencil and button factories. Ozark riches were short-lived in the freshwater mussels in the warm White River. Also, pearls were all the rage and the shells were being cut into White River buttons.
These adventures and more await as we look back on our history with Heather, Sammy, and Vincent on Retracing Our Roots!
