I'm looking for a bit of information, concerning a former location on their line between Newkirk, Oklahoma and Shawnee, Oklahoma. I have a 1968 dated train order copied at "Kaw". I cannot find it on the above mentioned line, except in a 1916 Official Guide reprint. It was supposedly 16.5 miles south of Newkirk. Trying to trace that via Google, but not finding it, perhaps somehow missing it. There is a "Kaw City", on what appears to have been a possibly abandoned line, but it is NOT between Newkirk and Shawnee. Anyone able to pinpoint this site? Was it possibly re-named? Could it have once been a junction point, for a line to Kaw City? Hints? Ideas?
The 1925 company map shows it as sprouting a short branch east to something called "Naptha". Whatever it was, there doesn't appear to be enough left of it to fill a Zippo. If it was down in a valley, it might now be under the north end of Kaw Lake (Kaw City was built in the mid-70s, because the original town is now under the south end of Kaw Lake). Kay County did have several natural gas strikes, though. Not that looking for logic in Oklahoma place names is necessarily a good idea... Iron Horses of the Santa Fe Trail reprinted that map. Most of the historical branches were still active in 1925, but you won't find many ex-Orient stations on it. It also includes a couple of proposed routes. One would have connected that line through Newkirk with Pawhuska, farther east and already on a branch off the Tulsa line. That could have connected Kaw City along the way, if it had been built. It would have tied in farther south at Kendrick, though. It wasn't planned to curve north through Naptha.
Well, after a bunch of time, I stumbled upon this page, in an employee timetable on-line. It doesn't completely resolve my curiosity, but does prove something existed, which there was a decent length siding there.
Not unusual. Every water stop set up for 19th century teakettles with tiny tenders got a name, but they didn't all attract settlers and become towns. They did, however, tend to grow passing tracks. And if even a minor branch spouted from there, they'd usually get a small yard.
True. Up north the three transcons had plentiful sidings. Early on most even had at very least a telegraph office, for train order operations. The Milwaukee had sidings every five miles at the start. Then as operations settled in, they closed offices, (creating what were known as "blind" sidings), or slowly removed many until there were ten mile separations. Anyhow, having that timetable in hand, I was able to slowly search out the original path for that line. Your mention of the town relocation appears to be the reason "Kaw" disappeared, as it traces right across that lake. So apparently the tracks I followed previously were built to bypass the flooding, which explains my confusion about "Kaw City". It appears that my question has been answered!
I read somewhere that flooding caused a line relocation in that area. The date I saw on the dam being built was 1975.
Wow, so many times I just give up after going in circles. Either that or I make something up to fit the narrative.
