C.O. WAKEFIELD: HOT COFFEE AND A KAYWOODY PIPE

Tell us your stories about the people you know who worked for the T&P.
Post Reply
twebb
Posts: 5
Joined: Mon Oct 26, 2009 8:36 pm

C.O. WAKEFIELD: HOT COFFEE AND A KAYWOODY PIPE

Post by twebb »

[taken from rubric notes by the author in the autobiography of EE Webb]

I was on the old KO&G[1] freight run between Ft. Worth and Denison leaving Ft. Worth about midnight usually—making the 209 miles to Denison and back. I had a head brakeman C.O. Wakefield who lived in Ft. Worth at that time. He was a fine fellow but hard headed as could be.

Those days I smoked a pipe continually and did really enjoy it. C.O. was always watching me. One night he came to work with a brand new pipe. He told me it was a “Keewoodie” (Kaywoody[sic]) and cost him $4.00.

EE Webb

So he smoked it all night long. Every time I looked at him he had that pipe in his mouth.

Next morning on our way back to Ft. Worth we stopped at Roanoke to take water. C.O. says to me “Webb, what kind of tobacco do you use?” I told him and he said “Here you can have this can as my mouth is so damn sore I can’t hardly talk.” I said “OK, put it there in my grip, and the pipe too.” He said “Not the pipe, its my Keewoodie.” But he put it in my grip anyway. I never saw him trying to smoke a pipe again.

C.O.[2] was a short fellow about 5 feet 6 and black headed and black eyed and hated all engineers except me. He lived in Ft. Worth when I was firing on the old KO&G night run out of Ft. Worth.

He always brought his lunch and a bottle of coffee and kept it in his dog house on the top of the water tank.

We always had a car of merchandise to set out in Denton every night. Pete Henderson was engineer. So, while him and C.O. was setting out this car I would slip back and get a cup of C.O.’s coffee. He kept bawling his wife out for not filling his coffee bottle full.

One night I forgot my gloves and left them in the dog house. After we had coupled up and were about ready to go, C.O. came down in to the engine and just stood there looking at me. I was feeling in my pocket and hunting for my gloves. Directly, he pulled them out of his pocket and said “Here they are. Do you know where I found them?” I said “no.” He said “They were clamped right around my coffee bottle.”

I had to fill his bottle in Denison for a month.

Kaywoodie Pamphlet circa 1938 http://chriskeene.com/

[1] The Kansas Oklahoma & Gulf was one of the "Muskogee Roads" which in turn were part of the Midland-Valley family of Oklahoma lines. The KO&G connected and interchanged at Denison with the Denison & Pacific Suburban Railroad (a wholly owned subsidiary of the Texas & Pacific Railroad).

Originally chartered on March 28, 1910, as the Missouri, Oklahoma and Gulf Railway Company of Texas, the name was changed to the Kansas, Oklahoma and Gulf Railway Company of Texas on April 2, 1921.

In 1964 the Kansas, Oklahoma and Gulf system was merged into the Texas and Pacific Railway Company, and the Texas trackage abandoned. http://www.trainweb.org/screamingeagle/ ... _ko&g.html

[2] C.O. was “made” on the old Ft. Smith and Western RR before coming to the T&P.

Post Reply