Passenger and freight trains
Many passengers came from the countryside into Charlotte to do their shopping. Strickland explains that the railroad company hired a woman who stayed with passengers' children so that the adults were free to run their errands.
Citing this Excerpt
Oral History Interview with Ralph Waldo Strickland, April 18, 1980. Interview H-0180. Southern Oral History Program Collection (#4007) in the Southern Oral History Program Collection, Southern Historical Collection, Wilson Library, University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill.
Full Text of the Excerpt
- LU ANN JONES:
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What kind of freight would be going out?
- RALPH W. STRICKLAND:
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They had local freights back them days. They had that LCL stuff,
that's "less cargo lot." Had these check
locals. Course, they had solid car too where there'd be a
private load of freight going to a place. They'd always set
that off. They had what they called a check local. The conductor had his
way built, and he go along up here at Mount Holly and Lincolnton and
Cherryville and all them places. If you had a piece of freight, they had
one boxcar, a pile of gear, a keg of nails, a bale of cotton or whatever
it was, he just set it off there. Go over there on the platform and set
that stuff, just deliver it. Back in them days, they didn't
have no trucks and these super highways. The railroad companies, they
done practically all that freight business. That's before
they had these automobiles and these super highways. Now the trucks,
they've got it now. Back them days, same way with passenger
trains. When I first come here, they had a traveller's aid.
They had a colored woman that helped the women with the babies. All
these people around, they come from Monroe and Hamlet and all these
little towns, they come to Charlotte and shop, come up here and spend
the day. Twenty-one get here about 11:00 in the morning, then
there'd be 5:30 or 6:00 in the evening, he come going on back
yonder. They'd come go to Charlotte. Back in them days, Duke
Power had the streetcars on here. There was only 43,000 people here in
Charlotte when I come through Charlotte. It was just a little old town.
You could get ten blocks from the square up town. Either way, from the
and side streets, you done run out of stores. You done run out of
business, you'd be out yonder, residential section, virtually
in the country. There wasn't only 43,000 people here. This
was a small town.
- LU ANN JONES:
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What did this traveler's aid lady do, the lady
who…
- RALPH W. STRICKLAND:
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Martha Worley was her name. These ladies come in, they
inquire from her which way to go and where to go. The
stores up town, Belk's, Ivey's and all those
places up town. She'd tell them where they was and kind of
direct them and keep them safe. Tell them what time the
train's going to leave and all that stuff. This colored
woman, she shelped the ladies. Some of the ladies had small children.
Everybody rode the train. That streetcar come down College Street and
come in that area. Come off College Street down around that area, down
right by the Seaboard passenger station. He'd stop right
there. When the passenger train rolled up, all those people get on that
streetcar and come on around that area, back up Tryon Street, right on
up through the south side all the way through town. Duke Power, they had
streetcars back them days before they had any buses or anything.
- LU ANN JONES:
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Were you friendly with the streetcar conductor…
- RALPH W. STRICKLAND:
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Yeah, I used to know some of them boys that worked on that. I knew Oscar
Miller. I knew several of those boys, conductors on the streetcars.
Trolley cars, they had the wire and everything.