Neosho National Fish Hatchery wants to re-create fish car

Dec. 26—NEOSHO, Mo. — The Neosho National Fish Hatchery was built in 1888 because of two features — springs gushing clear, cold water, and its proximity to a railroad.

Most people know that Neosho promotes itself as a city of springs, but other than the displays in the hatchery's visitors center, few people know why the railroad runs close to its grounds.

The hatchery is the oldest federal fish hatchery in the nation, and its birth was tied to a particular time in the history of American conservation and railroads — the fish car era.

With the help of the local volunteer group, Friends of the Neosho National Fish Hatchery and local residents, the hatchery is hoping to build a fish-carrying railroad to celebrate that history and that time.

"It makes sense that we would bring back a fish car because that's how everything got started here," said Doug Whitehead, president of the Friends of the Neosho National Fish Hatchery. "We're planning to put the car near the tracks at the end of Park Street on the south side of the hatchery. There's a place in Missouri called Ozark Mountain Rail, and they deal in railroad cars. They're looking for the closest thing we can get for what we need, but it's going to be a passenger car of some sort. Then what we will do is convert it to look like a fish car."

Roderick May, manager at the Neosho National Fish Hatchery who has worked there for 29 years, said bringing a fish car to the hatchery has been a longtime goal.

"Neosho was chosen because of its location," May said. "This was a major railroad, and they could ship fish north and south or east and west from Neosho. And Neosho had a lot of water in the springs, so it was only logical that they put a fish hatchery in Neosho. We have handwritten daily logs going back to 1888. We have the original letter that William H. Page received from the Fish and Fisheries Commission telling him to come to Neosho and undertake the construction and build this station, so we've got a lot of history here."

Fish and rails

In the 1870s, when there were no fishing or hunting regulations in the United States, people started noticing stocks of popular game fish declining to near extinction in some of the most popular lakes and rivers across the country.

People called on the federal government to do something about it, and the precursor to the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service, called the U.S. Fish and Fisheries Commission, was formed.

Biologists were learning how to breed fish, and the commission started building fish hatcheries across the country. The challenge at the time was how to move small fish to locations where they could restock the overfished places.

May said horses and wagons weren't fast enough, so the only way to transport the fish being at hatcheries was by the cross-country railroad network.

A brochure produced in 1979 by the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service said fish were generally distributed to places close to the hatcheries until pioneers like Dr. Livingston Stone, who worked for the new agency, devised a way to use metal milk cans to keep fish alive for the railroad journey to distant locations.

"The science was still young," the brochure said. "And it was the beginning of what a few Fish and Wildlife Service veterans can fondly recall as the 'Fish Car Era.' Pioneers like Stone and others soon devised techniques to safely carry fish long distances. In 1879, for example, Stone successfully shepherded a shipment of striped bass from New Jersey to California. During the lengthy train journey, the milk cans containing the fry were cooled by ice. Fellow passengers were hired by Stone to help aerate the water by hand."

The fish cars of the 1870s-1890s were generally wooden passenger cars with tanks of water and sometimes ice installed to keep the fish alive. Later cars were built of steel and had larger tanks and kitchens for the staff caring for the fish, generators and other equipment.

May said these cars were showpieces for the Fish and Fisheries Commission and the railroads.

"Each fish car was different. Each one had its own little unique property ... even though it was still a fish car," May said. "They used to take them around to festivals and things like the World's Fair when the World's Fair was traveling around. They were not only functional, but they were somewhat ornamental too."

The fish car era wound to a close in the 1940s when the last car was dissembled and trucks became the dominant mode of transport.

Fish car in Neosho

May said Neosho's location on the railroad main line and in an area with abundant water from springs made it ideal for an early fish hatchery.

The Neosho National Fish Hatchery was in the heyday of the fish car era. People walking or driving through the fish hatchery grounds can still see the rock walls of the original ponds close to the tracks where fish were raised and transferred to milk cans or later "Fearnow fish buckets" and then directly onto the fish cars.

The goal of the hatchery friends group is to raise $100,000 as quickly as possible and hopefully have the fish car ready by the end of 2024.

The project will entail purchasing the car, transporting it to Neosho, setting it on its new home and rebuilding it to look like a fish car from some part of the fish car era.

"This hatchery is different from a lot of other fish hatcheries in that this is in the middle of town," Whitehead said. "This hatchery is a park for the town, it's a hangout, it's like our national park, even though it's not a park."

"The fish car will be an addition to Southwest Missouri," May added. "I want that to be an attraction that you just have to come check out. That's another issue I want to stress — this is all community money, no government money, not one penny. We want to do it as a community project. The government didn't do this, we did this, we did every bit of this. That's what we want to be able to say."

To donate to the project, people can call the fish hatchery gift shop, which is run by the friends group, at 417-451-0554 or email Whitehead at plantatree.doug@gmail. com.