Wednesday Study Club Travels to Temple Railroad and Heritage Museum
Members of the Rosebud Wednesday Study Club travelled to Temple on Wednesday March 11 and visited the Temple Railroad and Heritage Museum. They were greeted by Courtney Carter, Educational Coordinator, who explained that in the 1880’s there was a need for a major junction point to provide services for railroad equipment, passengers, and employees and Temple was the perfect spot. The railroad laid out a town plan and auctioned off both residential and commercial lots on June 29, 1881, and by the end of the day, a total of 157 commercial and 28 residential lots were sold. The GC&SF christened the new town of Temple in honor of Bernard M. Temple, chief civil engineer of the railroad who built the tracks through Bell County.
As members walked through the exhibits, they saw memorabilia from the Fred Harvey Company that provided food and hospitality for the Santa Fe railroad. On display was memorabilia from the Santa Fe Hospital that was built for railroad workers and soon thereafter Scott and White Hospital was built as Temple began to grow. The blacksmith exhibit showed tools used to repair the various railroad cars. As more people wanted to travel on trains, Pullman Cars were created that offered amenities such as soft chairs and food and members saw the variety of dishes used to serve meals to passengers.
Since the Museum also serves as an educational venue for the city, children frequent the exhibits and welcome the interactive area. WSC members saw manual typewriters, telegraphs, dial phones, and colored train lanterns that they could relate to, but for children, they find these items unusual and fascinating. The Temple Room is a rotating exhibit space that gives the Museum a place to showcase areas of both local and state history. Currently on display was an exhibit of quilts, including the Ohio Star Quilt of 1900, several Crazy Quilts from 1890 1910, a Diamond Quilt of 1839, and a Feed Sack Patchwork Quilt from the 1930’s. A very old treadle sewing machine was also on display.
The last room to visit was the model train display that also showed a city area similar to Temple and Bell County. There is a model train organization that has its display in a separate building on the Santa Fe grounds and that organization maintains this exhibit also.
The group then visited the outside static displays of cabooses, Pullman cars and engines. Trains no longer use cabooses at the end of its trains, but members recalled with fond memories how they would wave to the man in the last car and he would always wave back. Members saw the tight sleeping quarters on the Pullman cars and even saw the Men’s Smoking Room and Lavatory that requested the men not to smoke until all passengers had first used the facilities.
As members finished their tour a modern Amtrak train picked up passengers and headed down the tracks. Members had lunch at Blessings, a small sandwich shop in downtown Temple. The next meeting of the WSC will be April 8, 2025, when members will prepare the Memorial Room for the Golden Years Reunion to be held on April 11 at St. Ann’s Center. The Memorial Room will be open from 10 to 12 that Saturday to welcome former Rosebud High School students. Preservation Rosebud will be open from 9 to 11 that day also.