Courtenay, North Dakota 58426
Few of today’s elderly citizens who happened to live in any
of the small towns located on the mainline railroads in the
Northwest before or after the turn of the century, will have
difficulty recalling the hoards of transient laborers who swarmed
into their towns or villages each autumn. They came in groups and
droves, both large and small these homeless wanderers who made
their annual exodus to the Northwest for the fall harvest. Their
means of transportation was the westbound freight trains. They rode
the ’empties’, the ‘tops’, the ‘rods’ and a
few bold ones among them rode the engine’s tender. But mostly
they rode the ’empties’, which were frequently grain or
coal cars being returned to the Northwest for reloading. They were
generally ignored by the train crew, and for a good reason. These
‘passengers’ often far outnumbered the train crew
itself.
Like their predecessors the buffalo and the passenger pigeon,
they made their annual appearance without fail, and like the same
predecessors they were simply taken for granted. In our thoughtless
innocence we assumed that was the way it had to be, and would
always be. Time and the forces of change have long since proven how
wrong one can be.
Although nearly all of the towns and villages along the main
line railroads of the Northwest were affected by their coming, yet
it was the towns that made up the many division points that felt
the real brunt of their coming. It was here that the through
freights take on or leave off cars of freight. It was these small
towns that had their population swollen noticeably each fall by the
coming of these transients. Let us pause here to give credit where
credit is due. Although they arrived in large numbers and could
easily have overpowered the local police (which often consisted of
only one man) and taken over the town with little effort, yet they
did not. For the most part and with few exceptions, they were
relatively peaceful men. In some of the larger towns the railroad
company employed their own police to police the railroad yards.
However, his authority was limited to the railroad property and did
not include the town. Needless to say, there was little brotherly
love between the hobos and the railroad ‘bull’ as he was
called.
As might be expected, these men were often short of cash, and
until they found employment (generally on a steam threshing rig
where board was furnished) it was necessary that they feed
themselves, and as cheaply as possible. This brought into existence
the ‘bums camp’ or ‘jungles’ as they were often
called, generally located at the edge of town. Here men camped in
the open and cooked food bought at the local store, and sometimes
supplemented by a few vegetables ‘borrowed’ from a nearby
garden. Generally they slept in the empty boxcars left standing on
the sidings, or in the hay of the stockyards which the railroads
furnished for the shipping of livestock before the advent of the
truck. Each town, however small was not without its stockyards.
Seldom, if ever, could one of these men afford to patronize even
the cheapest hotel. They slept in the clothes they wore and seldom
did one carry a blanket. However, considering the extremely rugged
conditions in which they lived, they were surprisingly well
groomed. Dressed in working clothes, with faces shaved and hair
trimmed, they presented, for the most part, a rather neat
appearance, and in sharp contrast to some of the styles seen upon
our streets today.
As might be expected, they were of no one type or pattern-in
fact, they were as diverse and different as any segment of our
population could be. They had but one thing in common they were all
homeless wanderers. There was the young hobo, scarcely more than a
boy, who felt that with much profanity and loud talk he could earn
the title of hobo. There was the grizzly old veteran hobo who had
bummed for more years, and had been to more places than he could
remember. For him, it was not necessary to lift the voice or put on
an act. A glance would tell that he was the genuine tramp. There
were men possessing a high degree of intelligence and some
education, neither of which would be put to good use. And there was
the poor unfortunate possessing neither, who was doomed to struggle
all of his life for a bare subsistence.
These transients seldom saw the interior of a house. In the era
of the large threshing crews the men were fed in a
‘cook-car’, a portable commissary on wheels, seating 15 or
20 men, and hauled from farm to farm by two or more horses. The
haymow over the horse barn served as sleeping quarters and a
meeting place during wet weather. Here these rough men gathered,
swore, chewed their tobacco, and talked of work, women and far away
places. Here many experiences were aired (perhaps some true and
some fictional) as old veterans of the endless trail told of places
they had been and things they had seen. Here too, the cunning took
advantage of the innocent, and the shrewd lived off the sweat of
the unfortunate. It was the scene of the nightly poker game where,
by the feeble light of a smoky kerosene lantern men gambled away by
night, the wages they earned in the heat and dust of the day.
In an era long before the coming of the combine, when the
threshing was done by the huge threshing rigs, in order to get and
hold a job on such a machine, a man not only had to be able to
handle a pitchfork, but he needed also to be able to handle horses.
This separated the men from the boys the experienced from the
inexperienced. Many of these men had been raised in the cities,
(although not always in the slums) and had no experience with
either fork nor horse. Many amusing and sometimes hair-raising
experience took place when a man attempted to handle a team for the
first time. Generally speaking, most of them did an honest
day’s work while on the job, although as in all groups, there
were a few ‘gold bricks’ who lowered the average of the
crew. While there was at times, some friction and dissatisfaction
between the thresher and the crew, in all fairness to both, all of
the blame could not, and should not, be placed upon the hoboes.
Often the thresher or the farmer were fully as much to blame as
were the men. However, they often proved irresponsible and
unpredictable. Although they might work faithfully for a few days
in order to earn a grub stake, they might suddenly answer the call
of the wander lust, and without warning or reason, quit their jobs,
leaving their employer shorthanded or completely without help.
Occasionally, a few of them would remain the entire fall and
would often prove quite congenial and likeable as they mixed with
the local men and boys who made up the large threshing crews of
those days. During the long fall’s run there was ample time for
all members of the crew to become well acquainted, resulting in
much banter and kidding. It was after the fall’s work was
completed, and time for the drifters to again answer the call of
the open road, that we came to realize how some of these strangers
had found their way into our lives and our hearts. Therefore, it
was often with a profound feeling of sadness and nostalgia that we
bid them goodbye, knowing full well that we would never see them
again. All this for homeless wanderers who by sheer accident,
drifted into our lives, paused briefly among us, then drifted
on!
Whatever became of those men who once rode the freight trains of
our nation, or walked its roads? Those sometimes likeable, often
irresponsible people who never put down roots, nor had a home,
family or property, and whose lives they wasted. These men to whom
physical neglect was a way of life. What became of them in their
old age when they were no longer able to earn a grub stake, or
journey toward that elusive destination just beyond the horizon? In
the era both before and after the turn of the century when
present-day forms of relief or aid to the needy was unheard of, how
indeed did their lives end? Did they subside on the one bowl of
thin soup served daily in a bread line or soup kitchen run by some
charitable organization, until they were no longer able to beg for
foodand no longer cared to? Were they often found dead in a cheap
flop house, box car or alley? Did they receive a decent burial?
What, what indeed became of them! These are questions that we of
today can only ask, but can not answer. All that we know is that
they, like the passenger pigeon before them, come no more and that
they are extinct.
What brought into existence this segment of our population which
we chose to call the hobo? What circumstance or group of
circumstances produced him, and by the same token, what negative
circumstances caused his extinction? These are thought provoking
questions.
Granted, they had their short-comings and imperfections as have
we all, but before we class them all as worthless vagrants, let us
consider the vast amount of service they rendered. Let us remember
that at a crucial time each year the hobo was much needed in the
Great Northwest. What finer thing can we say for him than that when
he was needed he was there! The American hobo, how could we have
managed without him!
