A Treasury of Southern Folklore by B.A. Botkin

Fred Cottrell, railroading is perhaps the prototype of modern industrialism. As a widespread, accurately timed, intimately subdivided, highly co-ordinated activity, in the words of W. The impact of the railroad on the American imagination has been greater than that of any other industry, and for good reason. To mirror the one through the other and to give a picture of railroading as a way of life and of railroad folklore as a way of looking at life is the purpose of this book. The folklore of the railroader, like his personality, is inevitably shaped by his occupation. Irish Immigrants and Western EmigrantsĪ Century of American Locomotives and Their Builders Part Five: Blues, Ballads, and Work Songs Wild Hoggers on the Hook and Eye Division’s Loop How the Underground Railroad Got Its Name Pranking and Hazing Railway Mail Service Substitutes The Rawhide Railroad: Short Line to Tall Tale The Buried Treasure of the Overland Expressĭecline and Fall of the West River Railroad What Brought About the Pennsylvania Turnpike Strobridge Beats Casement in a Track-Laying Contest General Dodge Discovers a Pass through the Black HillsĪn Indian’s Account of the Plum Creek Wreck Rail: Lincoln and the Rock Island Bridge Case The DeWitt Clinton Launches the Mohawk & Hudson Railroad

Brother, have you seen starlight on the rails? Have you heard the thunder of the fast express? You will roar with laughter at hilarious pranks and tricks, feuds and hoaxes, and gain new insight into the heart and spirit of the railroads and the men who made, run and rode them.

You will be thrilled wiith dramatic accounts of runaway trains and epic robberies. You will meet all the most memorable characters in the history of the iron rail, including Peter Cooper, Theodore Vanderbilt, Andrew Carnegie, Wells Fargo and Casey Jones. This collection tells the truth behind the railroad saints and sinners, brave engineers, robbers and gamblers, hoboes, empire builders and tricksters, whose exploits and achievements all mark milestones in the history of railroading.

Here are spell-binding tales of iron horses and iron men – the boomers, brass buttons and brass collars, the hoggers, tallow pots and gandy dancers. The biggest cargo of high iron lore and legend ever hauled in one load, A TREASURY OF RAILROAD FOLKLORE contains over a century of the greatest stories, traditions and songs of the American railroad.

A Treasury of Southern Folklore by B.A. Botkin