‘The Little Ranger’ The Memories Live On

Story ID:	3674
Written by:	Gail Lee Martin
Organization:	Kansas Authors Club
Story type:	Local History
Location:	El Dorado Kansas USA
Year:	1995
Person:	The Little Ranger and friends

‘The Little Ranger’
Memories Live On
Many Kansans had their memories jogged back 50 years in time when the article, “Emporia to Winfield on The little Ranger appeared in the March issue of Kanhistique magazine. The article told of the 50th anniversary of the first run of a doodlebug called The Little Ranger. This self-contained on-car train began making 13 years of Kansas history on June 3, 1945 on a new rail line that stretched catty-corner across central Kansas from Emporia to Winfield.

Fifty long years couldn’t erased the wonderful memories from those Butler county residents who came in contact with this unique little train and it’s crew so many years ago. Their various experiences makes The Little Ranger seem to live again in 1995.

Jeanette Locke recalled she was in the crowd watching the arrival of The Little Ranger that Sunday. Jeanette was with her small daughter, Sandra, and friends Vivian Kerns, Katherine and Dorothy Atkisson, Beulah Golden and June (Locke) Togue. When Jeanette saw the picture of The Little Ranger’s first arrival in El Dorado, she was still able to identify everyone in her group.

Shirley (Ross) Hughey lived on South Gordy ’along the railroad tracks’ in her carefree grade school years. Shirley smiled as she recalled, “I watched the little train every day. My best memories are about Mr. Crandall, the engineer. Everyone in the neighborhood called him ’The Railroad Santa.’ He would throw handfuls of candy and gum out the window as the doodlebug slowly moved along the railroad spur. Kids from blocks around gathered to wait for the train and their treats.”

On a sadder note she added, “one time my little fox terrier, Chi Chi, ran out with us and was run over and killed by the train right before my eyes. For a long time I hated the train.”

The new train service enhanced the business of the Charm Beauty Salon. Former owner, Mrs. Edna Cloud of El Dorado, recalls when she and her two sisters, Mary and Dorothy Tatum, went from their home in rural Leon to the Venus Beauty School in Wichita. Edna graduated in 1939 and bought the Waver Beauty Shop at 117 West Pine just east of the Santa Fe Bus terminal in El Dorado, and changed the name to the Charm Beauty Salon.

Business was just so-so for a few years, but it got a big boost when the little passenger train began making round-trip into El Dorado every day. Out-of-town customers from Chelsea, Aikman and Cassoday communities, even as far away as Matfield Green began coming in on the southbound train. The country women would flag the train down and would ride on into town around noon to have their hair done.

They would shop at Montgomery Ward’s or McCelland, the five and dime store, and even pick up hardware for their husbands at Thomas’ Hardware store nearby. With the Butler County Courthouse catty-corner across from the train station it was easy to take care of their taxes and other legal business. They even had time visit over sandwiches and home-made pie at the Busy Lunch next door while waiting for returning train. After a short ride they were home in time to fix supper around 7 P.M.

The Tatum sisters didn’t get rich by today’s standards as they only charged 35 cents for shampoo and set; a quarter for a haircut, and up to five dollars for permanents. The Charm Beauty Salon prospered for about ten years, then one by one the sisters married and in 1949 Mrs. Cloud sold the business but kept the shop’s hair dryer to use at home.

Don and Patty Jo Groves of El Dorado had fond memories of The Little Ranger. Both remembered in their grade school years of trips on the train to visit relatives. Before her marriage Patty Jo Parry lived at 1006 South Emporia in El Dorado and she attended the Washington Elementary school only three blocks away. Many weekends in the early fifties were spent with her Van Horn grandparents, who lived south of Augusta on a City Service oilfield lease.

Patty related “I was the oldest granddaughter, and I had a small suitcase for my clothes. After an early lunch, Mother would take me downtown to the Santa Fe station because the train left at 12:35 and I rode all by myself to Augusta where Grandmother Mamie picked me up about 20 minutes later.” The kindly conductor, Fritz Peters, made sure she was treated as an honored guest, even if she was just a little girl and only going a short distance.

In 1946 Patty’s husband, Don went on a trip of a lifetime when he rode the Little Ranger all the way to Arkansas City and made a transfer to Silver Chief. A long trip for a small boy but with great rewards at the end with two weeks of fun with his cousins in Oklahoma City. His first trip was in the company of his older sister, Pat but his next one was all by his lonesome.

Boy Scouts of America in El Dorado became involved with The Little Ranger in the early fifties when Hazel Bankey of El Dorado was a Den Mother for a cub scout group of young boys, many of them attending the Washington Elementary School. In the summer time for a few years in the early fifties, Hazel and her assistant, Irene Gruver, would take the trip with eight excited cub scouts around the age of six and seven year olds to the neighboring city of Augusta. These trips always ended with a treat of ice cream cones a downtown drugstore.

The boys would look spiffy in their bright blue scout shirts, blue jeans and flashy yellow kerchief around their necks. The Den Mothers wore navy blue skirts with pale yellow shirts and perky blue hats, making a memorable sight for the other travelers on the funny little train. The leader’s husbands, Roy Bankey and Jack Gruver would drive their cars to Augusta and pick up the happy, fired-up youngsters for the trip back home. After such outings, many of the boys would dream of being railroad engineers when they grew up.

Susan Patterson was a member of a Brownie scout group in the fifty’s in El Dorado and took similar trips on the doodlebug with their scout leader. She said the train ride was the highlight of their scouting year.

Aline Thompson fondly recalls riding downtown with her father, George Lambillotte in the summer just to watch the doodlebug come in. George was a train enthusiast and would drive the family downtown, in the evenings. He liked to take pictures of The Little Ranger as it arrived at the station on the afternoon run back to Emporia. The family would stop at young’s ice cream store in the first block of north Gordy for Aline’s favorite chocolate ice cream cone. Interestingly this simple form of recreation ended when they bought their first TV in 1952, according to Aline.

Mrs. Erman White enjoyed the Little Ranger’s services during the war years of 1945/1951 when she lived in Emporia. Helen and her husband, Erman, were operating a flying school in Emporia at that time. A couple of times a month Helen and her preschool boys, Bill and Tommy, would ride the doodlebug to El Dorado to visit Helen’s parents.

Anna Louise Borger, the librarian at the Butler County Historical Society Museum, remembers riding the Little Ranger on yearly trips to visit her sister in Topeka. In the late forties and early fifties Anna would take a week-long vacation from her job as librarian at the Bradford Memorial Library in El Dorado.

Miss Borger would catch the doodlebug around 5:30 p.m. and arrive in Emporia at 7:45, then change to another train and arrive in Topeka around 9:30 p.m. She recalled, “The Little Ranger swayed a lot but that didn’t distract me from admiring the magnificent Flint Hills spread out along the way.”

The Little Ranger’s engineer, Roy Crandall, made two nine year old El Dorado girls very happy in 1946. Dorene Church, who lived along side the railroad track and her friend, Phyllis McMillian, shared November birthdays and they each had a special birthday wish that year. They wanted to ride on the Little ranger. Their parents made arrangements with Roy Crandall, ‘The Railroad Santa Claus,’ to take the girls with him on the train to his home town of Winfield. On their arrival they were met by Mrs. Crandall and her sister, a correspondent of the Winfield Daily Courier. Their trip was more exciting than they had dreamed. An extra thrill came when they saw their picture and story published in the Winfield newspaper.

Roy Crandall began buying treats for the El Dorado children along his route in 1945 when the motor car was inaugurated. Dorene said Santa Fe made Mr. Crandall quit throwing the treats along the railroad because of safety reasons. (Maybe after Chi Chi, the fox terrier was killed)?

Not wanting to disappoint his many friends, Mr. Crandall continued sharing treats with the children but only when the doodlebug was stopped at the station. This practice continued until he was transferred to the Emporia & Concordia route in April, 1948. Roy spoke of The Little Ranger as ’the little monster of the rails.”

The Little Ranger also brought sadness to Dorene. During World War II, her brother, Thomas Vernon Church was killed in battle in 1945. Four years later The Little Ranger brought him home for burial at Sunset Lawn Cemetery. She still prefers to remember the good times with “The Railroad Santa Claus” and has kept all the precious clipping in a scrapbook.

The Little Ranger historian, Hoyt Smith of El Dorado, recalls his first job after he returned from service during World War II was with the Hartford Insurance Company in Kansas City, MO. For several years he made round trips by train to visit his parents in El Dorado. He rode The Ranger from Kansas City to Emporia where he switched to the Little Ranger.

Hoyt has collected Little Ranger memorabilia and is a member of the Travel Town organization of California, who is currently restoring the doodlebug. Hoyt also is proud owner of a large poster-size picture of the Little Ranger that was discovered in a storage area above the Lasater’s El Dorado clothing store in the fall of 1989. The original owner of that store, Robert Lasater, was president of the El Dorado Chamber of Commerce in 1945 when they hosted the banquet for the train’s first run.

Dillon Courser spent 39 years working for Santa Fe as a switch engineer in the El Dorado area. He recalls when he started work in 1937 he hauled oil cars from the Skelly refinery straight through the town on the Gordy street tracks using the same spur track as the Little Ranger, Courser knew the Gordy street tracks like the back of his hand. He told about the railroad siding into town had one set of tracks that switched to the grain elevator, another to the Santa Fe freight depot with a loading dock where large machinery was unloaded.

Carolyn Dwire had a horror story to relate about the Little Ranger. She was only two years old at the time but the tale never failed to instill it’s terror of trains, as it was told time and time again by family members.

Her Uncle Ernest McMillan and his family had an automobile crash with the Little Ranger on September 29th, 1946 at the intersection of south Gordy and west Kansas about 5:30 PM. Carolyn’s Aunt Lenora was killed and her cousins six year old Delores Marie and two year old Leroy Glenn suffered cuts and bruises as did their father. The family was rushed to the Susan B. Allen hospital in the Byrd ambulance only it was too late for twenty-seven year old Lenora, who died enroute to the hospital.

The wonder is that they weren’t all killed. Their car was hurled over the end of a four-foot culvert about twenty foot to the north of the intersection, coming to rest in a ditch about six feet east of the track. It was still on it’s wheels but facing south instead of west. The McMillan family was headed west and it was believed that Ernest was blinded by the setting sun. According to J.E. Lawrence, who witnessed the mishap from the front door of his home at 704 south Gordy. Mr. Lawrence stated '"The Little Ranger did sound it’s whistle as it approached the curve in the track just south of the scene of the collision.

The Wichita family had spent the day visiting Ernest’s sister, Alice Dwire and family, who lived south of town on what is known as the Airport Road. They had enjoyed Sunday dinner and were on their way home to Wichita when the crash occurred.

1954 was another dramatic year for The Little Ranger, on June 12 it was involved in another accident that resulted in a second fatality. The doodlebug struck a car at a grade crossing in Cassoday, killing the lone occupant, 72-year-old Josephus Milbourn Reed. Reed was a local, retired hardware merchant, banker and farmer, had lived in Cassoday for more that 40 years. The family recalls this tragedy every time they see the picture on the wrecked vehicle that appeared in the El Dorado Times along with the story of the collision.

The Little Ranger brought so much to the people of Butler county: the mail, increased business, handier transportation, easier freighting, friendships, excitement, happiness, sadness and tragedy. No wonder the doodlebug is remembered many long years after its disappearance from the Kansas scene, it was a vital part of everyday life for so many people.


This was a cover story in the September,1995 issue of Kanhistique.