Anna and Jonesboro

Fruit Growers Refrigeration & Power Company

by Stephen M. Scalzo

Headline image: Car 10 is sitting at Market and Main in Jonesboro, having just come in from Anna judging by its direction. The building on the right houses the waiting room for the streetcar line, while the Jonesboro Elevator is in the left background. Just behind the streetcar, over the hill, the tracks take a left before the elevator to ascend the trestle over the M&O Railroad. All photos from the Stephen Scalzo Collection of the Illinois Railway Museum.

Anna, centrally located in Union County, Illinois, was established in 1855, and throughout its early years its business community depended on agriculture. Thanks to the building of the Illinois Central Railroad through the community in 1854, the town quickly became the most populated town in the county. Marketing livestock and milling became an important factor in the economy of the county. By 1858, shipments of fruit (and later vegetables) to Chicago first began to assume importance and continued steadily through the years. In 1869, the state legislature voted to build an insane asylum in Anna, and work was begun in 1870 (and continued over a 20-year period). In 1881 cooling houses were built in Anna to store and cool the fruit preparatory to shipment, and refrigerator cars safely transported those products to distant markets. Early in 1896 the erection of an ice plant partially solved the problem of getting products to market in good shape.

Jonesboro was picked for the location of the courthouse when Union County was created in 1818. Although the town never had any industry to speak of, it was the county seat and a business community.

In March 1892, the Anna-Jonesboro & Asylum Electric Street Railroad was chartered with $7,500 of capital and given a franchise. In June 1895, the Citizens Electric Light & Street Railroad Company was incorporated with $12,000 of capital by Charles V. Christian and John Nording. However nothing concrete was done with these paper companies.

In June 1903, the Union County Traction & Power Company was given a franchise to build a streetcar line between Anna and Jonesboro. Chicago coal magnate Francis Peabody then came onto the scene. After buying the local ice plant, he organized the Fruit Growers Refrigeration & Power Company, which was incorporated on June 8, 1905, and then purchased the unfinished street railway and existing electric lighting plant. The new company developed plans to consolidate electricity, ice, and streetcar service for Anna and Jonesboro. The property, which eventually became a part of the Central Illinois Public Service system and Insull controlled in later years, was promoted by F.S. Peabody for A.A. Fosig. The company was one of the state's smallest electric railways, and it was hard to consider it an interurban, as it was 4.5 miles long. However, it did connect two separate communities. The entire system cost $169,070 to build.

Construction began immediately in July 1905 to enlarge the existing ice house and powerhouse in Anna, which would later incorporate the streetcar carbarn. A 2200-volt three-phase 60-cycle wood-powered generator was installed to supply commercial electric power, with a direct current cross compound engine generator installed to supply 500-volt power for the streetcar system overhead [sic]. Temporary trackage was laid on Freeman Street in Anna to hold the franchise. In July, a single-truck semi-convertible streetcar, previously exhibited at the Louisiana Purchase Exposition at the St. Louis World's Fair, was purchased and shipped to Anna. In Jonesboro, work began on a 200-foot long 45-foot high trestle that would carry the streetcars over the Mobile & Ohio Railroad tracks located in the valley.

Car 10, the semi-convertible built in 1904, is shown in Jonesboro on Market Street with the county courthouse in the background. Of the three photos of this system in the Scalzo collection, all three show car 10. This courthouse was torn down and replaced in 2013.

Gradually, streetcar trackage progressed from Jonesboro to the Illinois Central Railroad tracks in Anna. On November 23, the first streetcar operated from Anna to the east side of the uncompleted M&O viaduct, carrying the mayors and councilmen from both towns. However, the Anna city council demanded that air brakes be installed on the cars; with that new feature and the incomplete viaduct, regular service was unable to start.

On January 19, 1906, another streetcar, a freight car with a passenger compartment and railroad couplers to handle freight cars, was received. On January 26, these two streetcars commenced regular service for passengers and mail, passing each other at a switch located in front of the First National Bank. Service was on a 15-minute schedule for a five-cent fare. Space was rented in the Davis Building at Main and Market Streets in Anna for a waiting and baggage room. On January 27, over 1,700 passengers rode the system.

By the end of January 1906, the company completed trackage from the IC tracks east to the State Mental Hospital on the outskirts of Anna. Over that trackage, both streetcar and carload freight service (principally coal for the hospital) was operated. The crossing with the IC tracks, approved on December 1, 1905, by the Illinois Railroad and Warehouse Commission, was completed on May 4, which permitted through service (previously the system was divided by the IC tracks, which required passengers to walk across the IC tracks between cars). Eventually, the company purchased two additional streetcars, of which two were operated and two held in reserve, to provide service on its trackage from the Courthouse in Jonesboro through downtown Anna and on to the State Hospital.

Freight service, offered from the beginning along with passenger service, soon produced complaints. In some places, coal and merchandise was unloaded right in the street; consequently several sidings were installed to eliminate the practice. In 1908, a contract was entered into for coal and supplies to be moved from the IC interchange to the State Hospital. In addition, the Anna Quarry, dating back to 1855 and then owned by the Union Stone and Lime Company, began hauling stone to the IC interchange. To eliminate street hauling of that freight business through downtown Anna, a new three-block extension down McKinley Street was built to a new IC interchange track in 1909. Property was purchased at McKinley Street and the IC tracks, and in December 1913 a small two-track car house was constructed.

Car 10 is on the trestle on the northeast side of Jonesboro. It appears that the bridge over the M&O is in the right foreground. The location of this photo is only a few hundred feet northeast of where the headline image, with car 10 in front of the waiting room, was taken.

The company was just a small local operation, and it carried on even though it never made much money. However, after the streets were paved, problems began to mount. Service continued unchanged until June 30, 1914, when the Central Illinois Public Service Company purchased the system for $134,399. In July 1919, two new single-truck Birney streetcars were substituted for the original equipment in order to improve service. All of the old streetcars were scrapped in 1919, but the utility car and locomotive lasted until 1925, when they were scrapped.

Under pressures of World War I, fares increased to six cents, but that did little to help the system which was already declining. Automobile travel had already made inroads on streetcar patronage. Even the little economical Birney streetcars could not save the company; they only delayed the inevitable. Between 1907 and 1917, earnings had dropped from $24,417 to $11,239, with ridership declining from 234,887 to 192,615. In 1924, an agreement was reached with the City of Anna to discontinue streetcar service and substitute buses. Permission to discontinued streetcar service came on July 29, 1925, and streetcar service was halted on November 1. Patronage on replacement bus service was insufficient and the service quickly became uneconomical, and on July 28, 1931, it was discontinued.

The portion of the trackage located on private right-of-way in Anna was sold to the Anna-Jonesboro Railroad so that freight service could be continued to the State Hospital and several other shippers, and the remainder of the streetcar trackage was scrapped. A new company was incorporated on May 11, 1925, with capital stock totaling $50,000 (all of which was owned by the Anna Stone Company). With the CIPSCO wanting to get out of the transportation business, the new company quickly purchased the 5,900 feet of unwanted trackage for $134,400. The overhead was dismantled and a steam locomotive was purchased to operate the freight business. When the Depression hit, the company went into receivership in 1932. A new company, the Anna-Jonesboro Railway Company, was incorporated on September 16, 1936, and took over from the old company on December 1, 1936. In March 1947, a new 45-ton diesel-electric locomotive from General Electric was purchased, and service continued until 1973 when the State Hospital converted from coal to natural gas for heating. Service to the quarry was transferred to the Illinois Central Gulf Railroad, which discontinued all service during 1976.

This article was edited and laid out by Frank Hicks. Thanks go to Richard Schauer and Ray and Julie Piesciuk for making available the materials from the Stephen Scalzo Collection used for this article.

Roster

Car #10 - ST semi-convertible (St. Louis 1904) - purchased 1904 following St. Louis World's Fair - ex-St. Louis Car Company #39

Car #11 - DT combine (?) - purchased January 1906 - also used as a locomotive, converted into utility car in 1909

Car #? - DT flat car, purchased secondhand in February 1906 - rebuilt into a cab-on-flat locomotive in 1909

Car #? - ST closed car - purchased c1906-1907

Car #? - ST closed car - purchased 1909 from Chicago City Railway

Car #300 - DT streetcar - purchased secondhand from United Railways of St. Louis

Car #s? - two ST Birney cars (Cincinnati 1919) - part of CIPSCO #125-134 series (a scan of a page from CERA Bulletin 99 showing one of the Birneys can be found here)

All of the pre-1910 single-truck cars were scrapped in 1919. Car #300 was scrapped sometime in the early 1920s or in 1925. The utility car and cab-on-flat were scrapped in 1925 and at that time the two Birneys are thought to have been sent to other CIPSCO properties, possibly Mattoon and/or Paris.

Route Map

Click here for a route map of the Fruit Growers Refrigeration & Power Company.

This 1910 Sanborn fire insurance map shows the FGR&P complex where the Anna freight bypass (coming in from bottom right) joined the IC (top to bottom). The small red (brick) building at center right appears to be the car barn. The blue (concrete) building at center, which contained the refrigeration plant, is still there although derelict.

This Sanborn map from 1910 shows the location of the trestle heading northeast out of Jonesboro over the M&O. It's hard to make out, but the building on the southeast corner of Main and Market is labeled "Street Car Waiting Room." The tan (frame) building right in the middle of Market Street just west of the M&O is the Jonesboro Elevator.

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