Snapshots of History

By Editor | July 16, 2025 |

By Mike Avitt
It has been quite some time since I wrote about our friend Harry Bedwell.
This week’s picture was scanned from page 65 of the book, “Harry Bedwell – The Last of the Great Railroad Storytellers,” by Frank P. Donovan, Jr.
The house is described as being two blocks north of the depot.
Mr. Donovan traveled to Kellerton in the fall of 1957 to gather information for his book. Bedwell was a railroader but, like Donovan, he achieved fame as an author.
Harry Bedwell was born on January 8, 1888 about five miles southwest of Kellerton. In 1957, that land was owned by Vern Beck. Harry’s parents were Chester and Flora Bedwell. Harry had one sibling, Howard. I know Howard went to Oklahoma in 1900 to homestead so he was probably born about 1881. But, Donovan’s book did not contain much information about Bedwell youth because Harry left Ringgold County in 1906 and lived most of the rest of his life in the Los Angeles, CA suburbs.
I have the advantage of searching the digitized newspapers and I learned Harry’s parents divorced in April 1894.
Chester married Mary Beede in September 1894 and they stayed in the area, at first. Flora and her two sons seemed to move to Kellerton about this time.
In May 1903 I see Dan W. Cadagan’s name for the first time. Mr. Cadagan, the railroad station agent for many years at Kellerton, rented a room in the Bedwell home. No doubt this influenced Harry to a very great degree.
The May 5, 1904 Kellerton Globe reports Harry had just returned from Centerville where he took an exam to become a certified depot helper. Harry would have been 16 years old at this time. I can find no evidence Harry Bedwell graduated from high school.
In September 1905 I find Harry operating the Chicago, Burlington, and Quincy depot at Andover, Missouri on his own. This was a small station on the Bethany branch. There was a junction one mile east of Lamoni. The south branch went to Andover, Blythedale, Ridgeway, Bethany, and on to St. Joseph, Missouri. The west branch went to Lamoni, Tuskeego, Kellerton, Mount Ayr, and on to St. Joseph.
In November 1905 Harry went to the Leon depot to assist. This was a big move as the Leon depot handled two lines, the Des Moines, Osceola, & Southern and the Chariton to St. Joe branch, both Burlington lines.
Harry would stay until January 1906. He was now 18 years old.
During 1906, Harry relieved depot agents throughout northern Missouri and southern Iowa.
Depot agents often got one vacation a year and that might last one week to one month. At the end of 1906, Harry headed west for California.
It was in California that Harry began his second career, that of a railroad fiction author. This genre was very popular in the first half of the last century.
Beginning in March 1908, Harry had his short stories published in everything from The Los Angeles Times Illustrated Weekly Magazine to Railroad Magazine to Saturday Evening Post.
Bedwell capped his writing career with the novel, “The Boomer,” published in 1942. A “boomer” was a railroad worker of great expertise who could get a job anywhere at any time and were always wandering, adventurous types.
This novel has been critically acclaimed as the best railroad novel ever written.
Bedwell spent many years as a telegraph operator in Whittier, California and finished his career there. Shortly after moving to California he moved his mother out there, as well.
Flora Bedwell’s maiden name was Crow. I know she had a sister in Tuskeego and she was related to Florence Whitson somehow. Harry married but had no children.
To me, trains are like dinosaurs that did not become extinct. They came to southern Iowa 156 years ago and are still here. Railroads were such a great invention that they are still in use in this technology-saturated age.
Long live the rails!