Moniker: Identity Lost and Found, Buz Blurr 8 Massillon and the Moniker Tradition, Alexandra Nicholis Coon 12 J.B

1 1 3 3 © Massillon Museum 2018 121 Lincoln Way East Massillon, Ohio 44646 massillonmuseum.org

ISBN: 0-9830553-7-8 Library of Congress: 9780983055372

This catalog is made possible, in part, by Ohio Humanities, a state affiliate of the National Endowment for the Humanities. Any views, findings, conclusions, or recommendations expressed in this publication do not necessarily represent those of the National Endowment for the Humanities.

TOM E. DAILEY FOUNDATION

4 5 ontents

ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS 6

THE ESSAYS Moniker: Identity Lost and Found, buZ blurr 8 Massillon and the Moniker Tradition, Alexandra Nicholis Coon 12 J.B. King Esq, Andy Dreamingwolf 14 Jim Tully, Paul Bauer and Mark Dawidziak 24 Leon Ray Livingston: A-No.1, Andy Dreamingwolf 28 Moniker Writing as Invented Tradition, Susan A. Phillips 36 Bozo Texino, Andy Dreamingwolf 44 Drawing and Deciphering, Scot Phillips 58 Jack London, Andy Dreamingwolf 66 Palm Tree Herby, Andy Dreamingwolf 72 buZ with Markals Gurdon, Arkansas, 2016 Monikers in the Independent Media, Kurt Tors 76 Photograph by Scot Phillips Kilroy Was Here, Andy Dreamingwolf 80 National Hobo Convention, Andy Dreamingwolf 88 Colleen Claybourn’s Moniker Photography, Scot Phillips with Michael Green 90 Read Between the Lines, Kurt Tors 92

THE PANELS 98

THE TRIBUTES 126

THE GLOSSARY 140

THE CONTRIBUTORS 142

5 cknowledgements

The project team is extremely grateful for funding provided by the Ohio Humanities to offset To those who authored articles for inclusion in this unprecedented catalog effort and have devoted expenses associated with the exhibition, catalog, and programming. Moniker: Identity Lost and time professionally and personally, driven by their passion and sought out for their expertise on the Found is rooted in tradition, language, history, and folklore. It speaks to a prominent subset of our topic, we thank you: buZ blurr, Andy Dreamingwolf, Kurt Tors, Scot Phillips, Alexandra Nicholis country’s workforce rarely identified as anything other than its profession. These individuals are Coon, Michael Green, Susan Phillips, Paul Bauer, and Mark Dawidziak. celebrated for staking claim to personas which allow them to emit creativity and document their existence. Ohio Humanities’s understanding of the Massillon Museum’s desire to tell their story Thank you to Margy Vogt for providing professional and sensitive editing support and to Dan Bates has been paramount to our success. Additional funding for the project was provided by the Tom E. and Jillian Bates-McKenzie for their assistance with catalog layout, photography, and printing of Dailey Foundation, Cyrus Custom Framing, and, by way of operating support, from ArtsinStark and this beautifully rendered document. We appreciate the editing assistance of Megan Fitze and the Ohio Arts Council. The indiegogo campaign supporters who pledged their belief in the project the glossary assembly of Shauna Wenneman. Thank you also to Mark Pitocco, who provided included Russell Butler, John Charette, Alexandra Nicholis Coon, Dave Desimone, Tav Falco, Carol photography assistance, and to Museum staff, interns, and volunteers who assisted with all facets Ann Garner, Micah Gibson, Christian and Ashley Harwell, Brian Marra, Sandra and Scot Phillips, of production from research to scanning, shipping, and gallery and event preparation: Jillian Decker, Irene Stergios, and Daina Valatis. Nancy Jobe, Lois McHugh, Michelle Persons, and Amanda Sisler. Thank you also to Andy Rock Fine Art Services, and to Colossus of Roads for the handwritten lettering used in the catalog’s titles. The following individuals provided invaluable support toward realizing this project in a variety of forms, from casual conversations which gave shape to big ideas, to fabrication of exhibition We sincerely appreciate the curatorial and documentation assistance from Heather Haden, who materials and loaning artifacts for inclusion in the exhibition and catalog, to cheerleading along the was involved at the outset of this project and helped articulate the vision in its early stages. And way. We owe them a tremendous amount of gratitude for their support of our work to validate and to Mandy Altimus Stahl, we extend much appreciation for her support of this project and assistance document this little-studied art form: Paul Bauer, Black Butte Center for Railroad Culture (BBCRC), with organizing all archival information for catalog production and exhibition preparation. Irene Bosnjak, buZ blurr, City Slicker Press, Coaltrain, Dr. Will Cooley, Bill Daniel, Fat Owl, Busch As always, we appreciate the support and guidance of the Massillon Museum’s Board of Directors Hog, Mark Dawidziak, Danny Devine, Charlie Duckworth, Jennifer Hachita, Toby Hardman, Frank throughout the life of this project, from its inception to its culmination. And to a man who gave Harris, Hellephant, The Hobo Museum, Anthony Johnson, Kent Historical Society, Kentucky Metal more than thirty years of his retired life to the Massillon Museum, who, though only having given Fabrications, Khaze, Kris Krengle, Kevin Lahm, Massillon Plaque Company, Medford Railroad Park, roughly two years of his professional life to the railroad, had loved it for all its history, mystery, Melissa Melton, Michael Merritt, Midwest Railway Preservation Society, Missouri Pacific Historical and adventurism since childhood, we offer a special dedication to John C. Sparks. Society, Museum Acrylics, Mr. Nar, NEAR, North Bank Fred, NY Tomato, Pat Perry, Sandra Phillips, The Rambler, George Reese, Joe Riley, Smokin’ Joe, The Solo Artist, Dale James Tetley, Jacinda Wolf, Nia Wolf, Wooden Axle, and all of our participating artists.

6 7 7 oniker—Identity Lost and Found

Seemed everybody on the railroad had a nickname, and I’ve had a few myself. Mr. B tried to pin the My father’s options were open to stay with the railroad, in a management position of Assistant appellation of “Kaw-Liga” on me for my static, stoic, inscrutable countenance, from Hank Williams’s Roadmaster, or go on either the traveling rail or tie gangs; another proposition was made by my Wooden Indian, but it didn’t stick. For awhile I was known as O.C. Moon, for my embarrassing mad mother’s brothers who could get him on at the aircraft factory in Riverside, California. He chose fits when I showed my you-know-what. the identity of railroad man, and accepted the management position, to her consternation.

My father called me Brush. Everyone in the paternal side of the family called me Brush. When We moved to Paragould, just eight miles south of where my father was born; he became the I asked him why, he replied, “’Cause you’re just brush, we’ll see if you make a tree.” Assistant Roadmaster, and I started the eighth grade. No sooner did we move than he was assigned to the position at Earle, Arkansas, on the Bald Knob to Memphis line. The promised salary, with Dad was the youngest of nine kids raised in a section house on the Missouri Pacific Railroad, expense account enticement to stay with the R.R. (railroad) as lower-level management, was between Paragould and Knobel, on the Helen Sub-division, now no longer extant. Grandfather was being imposed upon him in Missouri Pacific’s attempt to avoid receivership, by Dad’s cruel District the foreman on this same section of track from 1907 until he retired in 1945. My father hired out Engineer’s denial of most of his expense account submission and moving allowance, thus driving us with maintenance-of-way as well in 1942, and retired in 1983, and died less than a year later. deeper and deeper into debt. I hired out in train service in 1962 and retired in 2003. Each of us had careers of forty-one years, over a ninety-nine-years span of time, with my grandfather having hired out in 1904. As a result of our attempts to keep up with Dad’s various assignments, I attended ninth grade in Earle; tenth grade in Palestine, Texas; eleventh grade in Monroe, Louisiana; and senior year where After years of working the traveling rail gangs and tie gangs, staying in bunk cars, seldom coming I now reside in Arkansas after Dad bid in the position as Roadmaster. home if they were too far away, dad finally had enough seniority to bid in a section foreman position on the Helen Sub, south of Wynne, and we moved into the section house on the coldest Christmas Reading On The Road by Jack Kerouac in tenth grade along with other novels while traveling on all- Day I can remember. When school resumed, I was in the second grade. night passenger trains back to Earle to see my girlfriend on weekends, and returning Sunday nights to Palestine, gave me the ambition to be my own Sal Paradise, or Holden Caulfield, Beatnik poet, Missouri Pacific had been under bankruptcy since 1933, and eventually discontinued the and adventurer in my teenaged romantic fantasies. maintenance process by sections, switching instead to periodic wholesale reconditioning by expanded rail and tie gangs. Thus ended my tenure by the tracks at the section house, where When I graduated in 1961, I wanted to join the Navy to see the world, outside the confines of I became aware of the graffiti on the railcars of passing trains, whose origins were described the squabbles and harangues of our indebtedness; but being seventeen years of age my parents’ by my father as “hobo chalk marks.” signatures were required. The R.R. was hiring college boys to work the trainmen extraboards to

8 9 replace vacationing workers, but they had already hired the group for 1961, and you also had to be eighteen. My folks shamed me into going to the nearby state college until the next summer of ’62, when my dad was certain he could get me hired on as a brakeman, to help pay down the debt, some of it incurred by my juvenile delinquent activities and car wrecks.

Taking art classes—painting, drawing, and printmaking—further fueled my art ambition, and compulsory ROTC warned me it was best to avoid the military.

My R.R. career began summer 1962, and I returned to school in the fall. I worked the summer of ’63, and was back to school in the fall. 1964 became pivotal—life sped up, my folks split up, my dad was assigned to Hope, my mom moved to Forrest City, the railroad insisted I work full time, I married my sweetheart, thus making a commitment to family and to making a living.

Despite the commitment to a R.R. career and family I continued my culture-vulture reading of current art periodicals and paperback novels, while working all kinds of night switch engines and

buZ in Gurdon, Arkansas buZ on a trip to visit his mother April 1991 Texas, c. 2008–2009 Photograph by Bill Daniel Photocopy Courtesy the artist Collection buZ blurr

9 locals. Most of the young guys who had hired out for summer jobs before me moved to Little Rock The use of language as captions to add variation to the repetitive, constant icon declares intent to ride the fast freights to Texarkana, or had quit to finish their degrees in college. Thus I was and questions, as Zen Koans to ponder; Fragments of Contumacy, Rote Icon Wrote Language, able to bid in some long hours, all-night locals that tied-up away from home on the turn around, Monumental Yet Life-Sized, various Sorrow Floats, and recurring notations, such as Parolee what they called a “mortgage lifter,” to pay for our home. This was an all-consuming, wretched Stickman-Free 14 years, a reference to my duration of retirement. existence, and I bid in an eight-hour-a-day afternoon switcher, when I had some time to sketch fellow workers, and kept a running collection of cartoon-like drawings of occurrences in my After my retirement in 2003 I became hung up on the phrase “OLD & DIE PHASE” for quite some hometown yard, featuring some recognizable characters that were involved, and were frequently time, on account of the local railroaders having had an axiom of “Retirement: Running Out of TIME, passed up and down the line by photocopies from the depot, or Brush Hogs Gossip Central. All DOLLARS, & SENSE.” Conceit of an artist identity caused me to reveal my vandal culprit status, those older guys, with their various nicknames, like Aunt Tige, Uncle Jug, Jabbo, Good Buddy, Hard and become a destroyer of myths. Lagging energy and infrequent dispatches of late reveal some Rock, Apple Jaw, Red Horse, etc., were offended by my renderings, and so the discovery of how concerns, such as, Slouching Towards Senility, Scrambled Chronology, and Champion of Losing highly disliked I was caused me to cease this practice. Track 2018.

I thus began my research into the folk art traditions of moniker drawings by J.H. McKinley’s writings eom in the Missouri Pacific in-house publication, and his Bozo Texino drawings; the liquor ad for mixed buZ blurr drinks featuring the distinctive signature of J.B. King Esq, and variations of the same done by others, 74 still running on the lines; the books by A-No.1, a true tramp; the current crop of practitioners, such as Herby, Charlie Brown, The Rambler, Water Bed Lou, etc., mostly railroad workers, whose iconic signage was so prevalent you’d see one almost every day. This seemingly omnipotent presence in the vast network was my primary inspiration to ply the trade, and create my own. It revealed itself as an outlet of expression and equilibrium device to retain my sanity, or practice insanity.

I had been reading the novels of Kurt Vonnegut Jr., whose characters struggle with the absurdities and injustices of this world. So after practicing an icon on paper I decided to declare his birthday, November 11, 1971, as the auspicious day for commencement of my boxcar icon dispatch. Subsequently, I discovered another global avenue for expression in the Mail Art network in early 1972. My main focus in this discipline is the production of artistamps, with the Issuing Authority of my fantasy realm, Principality of buZ.

Mail Art predated the internet, as a global network of communication appealing for assertive artists who wished to proclaim their work, seeking alternative methods of exposure to spread the art around, whereas the main appeal of moniker culture is the mystery created by pervasive anonymous markings having an omnipresence in the vast physical network of the railroads, which brings about this page and opposite a mystique regarding the authors’ identities. Matokie, Twist, and Colossus of Roads monikers on metal disc 1999 Courtesy Toby Hardman

10 11 11 very well educated, and led a comfortable life until her family’s wealth was compromised in the nationwide financial crisis, known as the Panic of 1857.2 She left home in 1860 and eventually settled in California. It was in San Francisco where assillon and the Moniker Tradition she gave birth to a son in 1876, the famed author Jack London. Jack London romanticized life on the rails in his 1907 book, The Road, about which our Much of Massillon, Ohio, history is connected to the railroad. Founded in 1826, the town was guest curator, Andy Dreamingwolf, writes in this originally a community whose commerce and industry thrived on proximity to the Ohio and catalog. It is a memoir of his time traveling by train Erie Canal. The city’s founder, James Duncan, inspired an industrial zeitgeist which eventually as a hobo in the 1890s, during another economically propelled Massillon’s bustling economy through the transition from steam to steel. The Massillon- depressed period in America’s story. Perhaps some based C.M. Russell and Company, founded in 1842, came to be known for its manufacture of correlation can be drawn, therefore, between his agricultural equipment and train cars. Among its most notable products was a traction steam mother’s flight and his own. engine, the success of which enabled the company to comfortably adapt its focus to the rapidly “Boxcar Art” by Arthur W. Hecox changing industrial landscape. Railroad Magazine, July 1939, page 30 Another perhaps more serendipitous connection Courtesy Andy Dreamingwolf between Massillon and the railroad is one which The first train arrived in Massillon on March 11, 1852, via the Ohio and Pennsylvania Railroad. This relates to a tradition for which Massillon is best known today. On the heels of the city’s industrial event was Russell and Company’s impetus for putting railroad cars into production the following claims to fame came its renown for high school football. Lester Brown was a railroad dispatcher year. While the canal had been Russell’s primary means of transportation up to that point, railroad with the Wheeling and Lake Erie who was transferred from Norwalk, Ohio, to Massillon in 1917. spurs were installed by the company to usher in a new type of delivery system. Following the Civil As a dispatcher, his responsibilities included “split-second switching of trains from one track War, the era of iron and steel flourished here because a national railway network had emerged to to another.” The precision and level of accountability required for this task are traits seen also support it. Coinciding with proliferation of steel mills in Massillon was an entrepreneurial spirit that in Lester’s son, legendary football coach Paul Brown.3 Were it not for the railroad, Massillon’s not only gave the community staying power, but legacies still celebrated today. reputation for having had the greatest high school football team in history during the Paul Brown era (1932–40) may never have been. Joseph Davenport came to Massillon in the 1850s to work with the Russell and Company. He and his brother are credited with having built the first American-style railway coaches with a center The aforementioned examples illustrate how Massillon’s history has been shaped by the railroad’s aisle, or open design. Prior to this improvement, bench seating spanned the cars, in the style of presence. But it was within the Massillon Museum’s archives that a connection between the stagecoaches, after which they were modeled. Before his arrival in Massillon, Davenport is said to community’s rail history, and the contemporary culture of monikers, was discovered. have also invented the cowcatcher, a device installed on train fronts for plowing snow and removing Sometimes clues elude us until the time presents itself for us to look with fresh perspective for obstacles from the track. While Massillon’s economic history is certainly connected to the railroad, something specific. In this case, revisiting the Museum’s photographic archives for evidence of a literary link can also be claimed. monikers revealed something extraordinary. A 1914 photograph of a Pennsylvania Railroad engine, stopped on the tracks following the collapse of an adjacent roundhouse in Massillon, revealed Flora Wellman was born in 1843 to a wealthy canal warehouse operator. Her family’s home was the mark of J.B. King Esq on its tender.4 This moniker belonged to a legendary but otherwise a seventeen-room mansion, prominently situated on what is Lincoln Way East today.1 Flora was anonymous individual whose mark has been replicated by many who perpetuate and honor this

12 13 evolved since the nineteenth century to present day, and were a means of distinguishing an individual from an otherwise homogenized and marginalized group of rail workers.

That is where the Massillon Museum has stepped in, to record this history and document it so it can remain a part of railroad heritage for generations to come. As the anthropologist and contributor to Moniker, Dr. Susan A. Phillips, commented in conversation about this project, the exhibition and catalog are certain to “further the discourse on a tradition confined to its fans and practitioners.” While the Massillon Museum hopes to further research and validate the unique art forms that are monikers, it in no way wishes to expose any of the mystery that attracts so much of its fan base. Ironically, while moniker art is highly visible, it is historically among the most overlooked aspects of railroad heritage. No one with whom Museum staff has spoken to date has denied the significance of this art form and tradition, yet it is formally overlooked and, for the most part, undocumented.

All contemporary moniker practitioners have notable histories or influences on the tradition. Some have been marking since the late 1970s, others have marked over 50,000 cars, and some have even influenced the silver screen. What they all have in common is a love of railroad culture Car checker writing instructions in chalk for special handling of and an appreciation of history. These depictions of their individual marks, along with respective cars going over the hump at a Chicago and Northwestern Railroad yard photographs and biographical information, comprise a substantial part of the catalog, along with Chicago, Illinois, December 1942 Photograph by Jack Delano panels created in tribute to practitioners who have passed, but left permanent marks on this Courtesy Library of Congress, Farm Security Administration ephemeral tradition perpetuated today. Office of War Information photograph collection (LC-DIG-fsa-8d23724)

—Alexandra Nicholis Coon tradition of mark-making. Its existence in the image verifies that the tradition of J.B. King Esq dates back more than a century and contributes to our understanding of how monikers evolved. In spite of searching through the entirety of our related photographic archives, and those of numerous other NOTES historic sites, we have not yet identified another historic image containing a visible moniker. 1 The home sat on the corner East Main and Prospect Streets (now Fourth Street, N.E. and Lincoln Way East), just a few blocks east from where the Massillon Museum stands today. It was razed in 1954. The railroad came into existence in the United States in 1827, starting with the Baltimore and 2 Stasz, Clarice, PhD. “Flora Wellman,” http://london.sonoma.edu/family/Flora.html, accessed May 16, 2018. 3 JRank Articles, “Paul Brown—Growing Up—Football, Game, Programs, and Play,” http://sports.jrank.org/ Ohio as the first available for freight and passenger travel. Photography had become a prevalent pages/663/Brown-Paul-Growing- Up.html, accessed May 16, 2018. medium in the United States by the 1860s, but not widely accessible to the general public until 4 The Salem News (Salem, Ohio), “Massillon Roundhouse Collapses; Man Hurt,” October 21, 1914, 4, accessed via www.newspapers.com, March 17, 2018. The article states, “With a crash the Pennsylvania railroad roundhouse, which the 1880s. Even then, the technology’s ability to legibly capture an object in motion was in its for half a century has stood at Penn avenue and South Lincoln avenue, collapsed Tuesday, injuring one man and damaging infancy. Therefore, railroad enthusiasts would not have had access to portable cameras with speeds four engines.” capable of freezing a fast-moving train until the mid-late 1920s. While it is certainly of import for scholarship on this historic tradition to have discovered J.B. King Esq’s mark within the photograph, the foundation of the exhibition is communicating to audiences ways in which monikers, specifically,

13 14 15 ho Is This J.B. King?

“Who is this fellow J.B. King, who writes his name on everything?” So begins the frequently varied images themselves, nor the appearance of perhaps a thought-provoking or humorous caption and widely repeated verse from the once-well-known poem that tells the tale of J.B. King Esq: “On beneath a particular mark, but the “who, where, and why,” elements that guide curation of boxcars high, or boxcars low, I see his name wherever I go.”1 exhibitions, particularly those rooted in history. But it was not seeking answers to those questions that motivated this exhibition or inspired excitement about its presentation. Point blank, I enjoy Now, just who is this individual with the distinguished name who placed his influential moniker upon the mystery. Having met many practitioners over the years and having gained some treasured an immeasurable number of railcars? Legend has it he was a switchman in the Logansport division friendships in the process, I would be lying if I said that learning the identity of a mark-maker did yards. Or was he a tramp from Old Kingsport? No, he was a car knocker for the Union Pacific. not at times take just a little something away from the fascination of a particular mark. In the Well, some say he was an ex-con from Sing Sing, while others swear he was a fireman at Hillsboro, past, I have found myself withdrawing from certain conversations when I thought I might be privy who marked the Katy boxcars. Those who reject the fireman theory say King never marked a to information that would spoil the mystery of a certain mark. There are just some mysteries, boxcar in his life. It’s been told he was a millionaire hobo who rode the rods as well as the blinds. including that of “King,” I have tried to hold sacred. And in presenting this art form to the public, But perhaps that’s not accurate either. He could well have been a yardmaster for the Kansas City we have attempted to do the same. Belt Line. Still, some say there was no man at all and that J.B. King is just a myth. But myths don’t leave behind physical marks, do they? Truth be told, I don’t want to know. Claimants to the famed I would equate it to allowing a viewer to peek behind the curtain, without pulling it wide open. Far signature are numerous, and outnumber those mentioned above. Pages could be dedicated within be it from me to tell anyone that Santa Claus does not exist. Along with the mystery, I enjoy the this catalog expounding on each of their merits; but some mysteries are best left as just that… anonymity of it all. How fitting it is that an anonymous individual who wished to gauge my interest mysteries. in assembling an exhibition contacted me in 2015. I believe the “King” mark epitomizes the anonymity, however paradoxical it is, that a moniker exemplifies. This exhibition is, in fact, a showcase of mysteries, and that was the challenge in presenting this story to both general audiences and authorities on the topic. As daunting as it was researching The “J.B. King Esq” moniker is a chirographic treasure so well-crafted that those who mastered it folklore, myths, and ghosts, the more difficult task was deciding how to illustrate the topic, while could apply the signature in one single flourish, without lifting the chalk from the side of a railcar. at the same time concealing what is respectfully protected as mystery. As curators, we operated Practitioners would end the mark where they began, completing the “J” last. Amazingly, even the not in blacks and whites, but in greys. The most endearing aspect of monikers, to me, is not the “i” was dotted without interruption. To attempt a guess at the age of “King” may be futile, as the

opposite Collapse of the Pennsylvania Railroad roundhouse Photograph by Stan Baltzly, Massillon, Ohio, October 1914 This photograph reveals the “J.B. King Esq” moniker in chalk on the tender of a train engine. Collection Massillon Museum, Gift of Karl Spuhler Estate (91.7.3230)

15 Beggars of Life film stills 1928 Courtesy Paramount Pictures

mark is rumored to have originated in the 1850s and is still written on freight cars to this day. It is, for the old Oregon-Washington Railroad & Navigation Company in 1902,4 called a crew for an indeed, fascinating that a mark can exist for a span of well more than a hundred years and be seen important Harriman special run.5 After all five men had signed his call book,6 he noticed every one from coast to coast without anyone being any closer to uncovering the writer’s identity. had written “J.B. King Esq”.

“J.B. King” is the precursor to “Kilroy Was Here,” the phrasing sometimes accompanied by a well- Upon learning the Massillon Museum would showcase this intriguing exhibition of moniker history, known drawing of a character peering over a wall made famous during World War II. Both “King” an effort was made to cull the Museum’s extensive photography collection, seeking images that and “Kilroy” share the tradition of being adopted en masse, and continue their presence today. As contained previously overlooked boxcar art. We were elated to discover a glass plate negative that far back as 1917, it was written that brakemen and yardmen followed suit with King and started showed a uniquely executed “J.B. King Esq” moniker on a tender7 dated 1914.8 The photograph applying the famed signature on railcars. In a 1945 article, an old brakeman explained that the was taken at the intersection of Penn Avenue and South Lincoln Street in Massillon, Ohio, where, name of “J.B. King” was old when he first started railroading in 1896. He said there was a saying for a half-century, the Pennsylvania Railroad roundhouse had stood, until October 20, 1914, when around the yard: “You can’t be a good switchman till you can write ‘J.B. King Esq’ without lifting it collapsed, severely injuring a fireman, James Campbell, and damaging four engines. Never your chalk from the boxcar.”2 In the same article, it was also stated that a callboy3 at Umatilla before had I seen a “King” mark this old, nor have I seen one since. This is quite possibly the oldest

16 17 photograph of a “J.B. King Esq” moniker known to exist, though there are likely countless other varying monikers on railroad photographs that have gone overlooked, just as this one had previously been for more than a century.

It is a historically incredible discovery. The synchronicity of its presence was not lost upon us, either. It would be safe to say the mark was probably applied with chalk, not lumber crayon or modern-day oil bar. Chalk marks had a markedly shorter life span as they were exposed to the elements and other external factors. The fact that this photograph documents one of King’s chalk marks makes this find, therefore, all the more momentous. Had this particular unit not been housed within the roundhouse prior to its collapse, the famed signature possibly would have vanished. The strangest part is that, had the roundhouse not fallen down, this meaningful image may never have been captured.

It is interesting how we tend to overlook details that comprise what we see, yet those views would fail to exist without the intricacies. I have just written of that long-overlooked 1914 glass plate negative; however, I, too, am guilty of having not recognized a striking detail, which happens to reside within the 1928 motion picture, Beggars of Life. The Paramount Pictures movie directed by William Wellman is based on hobo author Jim Tully’s 1924 novel of the same name, as was Maxwell Anderson’s 1925 Broadway play, Outside Correspondence from Frank Burnett to Bozo Texino Looking In, starring James Cagney. In the film, Nancy (Louise Brooks) has 1946 killed her abusive father and her crime has been discovered by a hobo, known Collection Charlie Duckworth as Jim (Richard Arlen). He tries to help her escape by hopping a freight train out of town. When they are forced from the train by a brakeman, they land in a hobo jungle,9 where the audience is introduced to Wallace Beery’s character, Oklahoma Red. When detectives discover the camp, Nancy, Jim, and the other hoboes escape by hopping a moving freight train. Onboard the boxcar, Oklahoma Red challenges The Arkansas Snake (Robert Perry) to fight for the company of Nancy; their advances are unwanted and a melee breaks out between Red and the other hoboes onboard. It is this scene that holds the significant detail I mentioned. While I had seen Beggars in the past, never had I noticed any discernable monikers. I acquired a film still from the movie showing a group of hoboes seated in the boxcar. There were a few marks on

17 the boxcar walls, but nothing intelligible. Months later, when I looked again at the image with a magnifying glass, I discovered plain as day, “J.B. King,” located upon the interior wall of the car. I rushed to watch the movie again to see if it was visible to me now that I knew of its existence and its location. And there it was, in all its glory. As astounding as the 1914 glass plate negative discovery was, this was a close runner-up. The dating of the mark from 1928 is substantial, but what is even more important is that the “J.B. King” moniker, whether already on the boxcar or added for the film by some of the reported hoboes who worked on the set, was part of an established culture contemporary to the movie.

During the course of seeking and acquiring items for the exhibition, I came across a photograph almost a year into the project, in May of 2016, illustrating another prolific boxcar art practitioner. It was an image I had never before seen. The photograph showed Bozo Texino (J.H. McKinley), a self-proclaimed hog head,10 sitting within his Missouri Pacific locomotive. I reached out to the image’s owner, Charlie Duckworth of the Missouri Pacific Historical Society, to see if he was interested in loaning the image for the exhibit and if he had any other McKinley items. Little did I know it would lead to the monumental discovery of an astounding collection of Bozo Texino’s personal accumulation of drawings, manuscripts, and correspondence, as well as his own scrapbook. The highlight of the collection was a “Bozo”moniker drawn in yellow lumber crayon on a piece of molding from the Missouri Pacific Railroad depot in Taylor, Texas.

Duckworth generously loaned his collection for the exhibit. As we cataloged the items, I was particularly interested in learning if anywhere within this newfound treasure trove was mention of J.B. King or others. It was always rewarding to discover connections between individuals during our research. For example, J.H. McKinley (Bozo Texino) held an American Bar Flies membership card listing Jim Tully as treasurer. Road kid11 Jim Tully (Cincinnati Red), who had once worked as a tree surgeon, had been issued an endorsement from Jack London, which he proudly boasted on his business card. Jack London (Sailor Jack, Frisco Kid) had connections to Massillon, Ohio—the birthplace of his mother, Flora Wellman. London traveled with Kelly’s Army, the western section of Coxey’s Army, the historic 1894 march on Washington, D.C. that originated in Massillon.12 Leon Ray Livingston (A-No.1, The Rambler), who corresponded with and met London, wrote a fictitious story about the two in 1917. Jeff Davis (Cincy Kid), on his first road trip as a boy, met Livingston. A-No.1 advised the young Davis to go home, telling him the “road was a tough game.” Davis also had taken a photograph I had acquired of A-No.1 with his wife and two children for a newspaper article in 1923.13 Jeff Davis, who also went by the given title “King of Hoboes,” remarkably had a tie to Massillon—he claimed to be the originator of the idea for The Lincoln Highway, the nation’s first transcontinental road, which runs through the city directly in front of the Massillon Museum. It was among these connections I hoped to find some mention of J.B. King, as some of the towns rumored to be associated with King were in proximity to vicinities where J.H. McKinley worked and resided. Because the collection contained an enormous amount of material, it was an especially rewarding day when the tie-in I had hoped for was found.

Among Bozo’s correspondence was a letter from Frank Burnett of Hoquiam, Washington, mailed in November of 1946. In it, he Chartroose Caboose movie poster mentions a “chief boomer,”14 J.B. King, whom he claims to have seen in Seattle, Washington. He was eighty-three or eighty-four c.1960 Courtesy Andy Dreamingwolf years of age at the time. The highlight of the letter was not only the mention of having met “King,” but also the attempt by Burnett

18 19 left Liquor advertisement depicting the millionaire hobo, J.B. King Esq 1972 Courtesy Andy Dreamingwolf

bottom Hobo’s Wife bottle Courtesy Andy Dreamingwolf

to recreate his inimitable signature. Folded and placed between the pages of his letter was also an article clipped from a newspaper detailing the story of a J.B. King from Tacoma, Washington. While we did not get to hear Bozo’s take on King, it was, nevertheless, a welcome link between two of the oldest known moniker artists, legends within the tradition.

If asked, “Who is J.B. King Esquire?” individuals who were children in the early 1990s might reply he was the superintendent and owner of the Indian Valley Railroad on the children’s television program Shining Time Station, which ran on PBS from 1989 to 1993 and included notable cast members like Ringo Starr and George Carlin. It is no coincidence this historic name would be associated with a railroad owner.

Most contemporary lore of J.B. King seems to reference an apocryphal liquor ad from the 1970s. The Heublein company released two advertisements in 1972 for its club cocktails, named for being served or perhaps introduced on the fine dining and “club cars” of the Pullman Palace, a state-of-the-art luxury railroad car at the turn of the last century. The alcoholic concoction was called “Hobo’s Wife.” The ads tell of a man who supposedly met J.B. King while he chalked his name on the side of a railcar. King shared his tale of being a hobo millionaire and majority

19 stockholder in several railroads. Although there is a newspaper article from 1926 that references him as “king of the hoboes,” the first mention I have seen referencing him as a “millionaire hobo” NOTES does not appear until 1945 in The Saturday Evening Post..15 Most articles appearing between the 1 Arthur W. Hecox, Railroad Magazine, “Boxcar Art,” July 1939, 31. time of the Post article and the liquor ads that mention him as a “millionaire hobo” reference the 2 Jean Muir, The Saturday Evening Post, May 19, 1945, 6. Post, but even that article does not suggest him as a railroad owner. It was to my amazement 3 A railroad employee responsible for ensuring that train and engine crews are on hand for their runs. that I discovered a long-forgotten motion picture entitled, Chartroose Caboose. Filmed thirteen 4 Umatilla, located in Northern Oregon, is named for the Umatilla River, which enters the Columbia River, separating Oregon from Washington. years prior to the Hobo’s Wife ads, it was shot in 1959, released in 1960, and included a character 5 A route named for Edward Harry Harriman, a railroad executive. named J.B. King Esquire, played by O.Z. Whitehead. Another character in the film, Woody, played by 6 A ledger that verifies a particular train and the employees who worked on it. At the time there were five-person crews. Edgar Buchanan, seems to think King is the “millionaire hobo” rumored to ride freights in the area 7 A railcar that is hooked directly behind a steam locomotive that contains fuel (coal, wood, or oil) and water. 8 Collapse of the Pennsylvania Railroad roundhouse, glass plate negative by Stan Baltzly, October 1914, Massillon and is perceived to have a lot of pull with the railroad. It was rewarding to find this interpretation of Museum collection, Gift of Karl Spuhler Estate (91.7.3230). King as a possible railroad owner prior to the 1972 release of the Hobo’s Wife ads. 9 Camps consisting of transient hobo communities usually congregated near a railroad where trains stop to change crews, but not so close as to draw attention. Here the traveler can bathe, sleep, and eat. While it cannot be determined with any certainty just who King was, and likely never will be, we 10 A slang term for a railroad engineer. Steam engines were sometimes referred to as hogs, thus one who operates or heads the engine was called a hog head or hogger. do know he was never caught. Many years ago at a shipyard in Virginia, an attempt was made 11 A young vagabond. to catch the elusive artist whose signature had been riddling walls and ships across the facility. 12 Carlos A. Schwantes, Coxey’s Army: An American Odyssey, University of Idaho Press, 1994, 40–47. A notice was prominently posted which read, “Who is this stupid J.B. King who writes his name 13 Green Bay Press-Gazette, March 10, 1923, 9. 14 Railroad slang for an experienced railroader who drifted from one railroad job to another. on everything?” Days passed while waiting for the famous culprit to rear his head. Apparently 15 Jean Muir, The Saturday Evening Post, May 19, 1945, 6. shipyard officials had averted their eyes when the response was written, for one soon appeared: 16 Norton Mockridge, Redlands Daily Facts, “The Little Man Who’s Never There,” July 3, 1968. “You can look and look till your eyeballs itch, but you’ll never catch me, you son of a bitch.” Signed “J.B. King.”16

—Andy Dreamingwolf

20 21 Photo from “Report to the Editors: Who is This J.B. King?” The Saturday Evening Post, article by Jean Muir, May 1945, page 6 Courtesy Andy Dreamingwolf

21 22 23 23 Jim Tully and Edwin Carewe Motion Picture Magazine March 1927, page 69 Courtesy Andy Dreamingwolf im Tully

The son of an Irish ditch-digger in western Ohio, Jim Tully (1886–1947) was sent to the Catholic orphanage in Cincinnati following the death of his mother, when he was six years old. Six lonely years at the orphanage were followed by six years as a “road kid,” drifting across the country in the company of hoboes. He hopped open boxcars, rode the rods below, or just clung to the couplings. He got wet when it rained, baked in summer, and nearly froze one winter riding into Buffalo. He avoided railroad detectives and fought older hoboes. In the South he was arrested for vagrancy and picked cotton on a chain gang. He worked for small circuses and knew how to hustle rubes on the midway. He slept under the stars. He answered the call of the train whistle. Along the way he furthered his education in hobo jungles, barrooms, brothels, and back alleys. He also found shelter in countless public libraries across the country. He left the road in 1907, jumping off a railroad car in Kent, Ohio, with wild dreams of becoming a writer. Tully worked as a chain-maker, boxer, newspaper reporter, and tree surgeon. All the while, he was crafting his memories of the road into a dark and astonishing chronicle of the American underclass.

After moving to Hollywood and working for Charlie Chaplin, Tully began to write a stream of critically acclaimed books mostly about his road years, including Beggars of Life, Circus Parade, Blood on the Moon, Shadows of Men, and Shanty Irish. “My belief is that anything that has been lived should be written about without equivocation,” he said. Readers were fascinated by his raw accounts of hoboes, carnies, con artists, drifters, prostitutes, grifters, and boxers. Beggars of Life was turned into a Broadway play by Maxwell Anderson (with a young James Cagney playing Tully) and a 1928 film by director William Wellman. He quickly established himself as a major American author and used his status to launch a parallel career as a Hollywood journalist. Much as his gritty books shocked the country, his magazine articles on movies and movie stars shocked Hollywood. Along the way, he picked up close friends such as W.C. Fields, Jack Dempsey, Damon Runyon, Lon

Chaney, Frank Capra, and Erich von Stroheim. He also memorably crossed paths with Jack London, Letter from Jim Tully F. Scott Fitzgerald, George Bernard Shaw, James Joyce, H.G. Wells, and Langston Hughes. May 29, 1931 Courtesy Andy Dreamingwolf

24 25 Book dust jacket, Beggars of Life by Jim Tully 1928 re-release with Paramount Picture film stills Courtesy Andy Dreamingwolf

Tully’s literary star began to dim in the 1930s. He made attempts to revive his career with such novels as Ladies in the Parlor and The Bruiser, but his last years were marked by crippling health problems and financial concerns. He looked much older than his sixty-one years when he died on June 22, 1947. By the 1960s, none of his books were in print.

A revival of interest occurred in 2011 with the publication by Kent State University Press of Jim Tully: American Writer, Irish Rover, and Hollywood Brawler along with new editions of four of Tully’s books. Many saw the dark side of the American dream, but none wrote about it like Jim Tully.

—Paul Bauer and Mark Dawidziak

Beggars of Life film still, 1928 Courtesy Paramount Pictures Courtesy Andy Dreamingwolf

25 Beginning Retirement Party Photograph Photograph 1985 2004 Collection Smokin’ Joe Collection Smokin’ Joe

9-85 Smokeing Joe 20,000th mark Photograph Photograph 1985 2002 Collection Smokin’ Joe Collection Smokin’ Joe

26 27 Bozo and Family From Bozo Texino’s scrapbook Collection Charlie Duckworth

27 The newly minted tramp had been born in San Francisco, California, on August 24, 1872, to well- to-do parents. His father, a Frenchman, and his mother, a German, both taught him their native tongues. By the age of eight he could speak three languages fluently. Livingston would go on to learn Spanish in later years. His home would not be the only thing he left behind once he started his life on the road. He would also shed his given name, adopting the moniker, “A-No.1.” A year into his life of roaming, he traveled with an older ex-con who went by the name of “New Orleans Frenchy.” Livingston fancied himself a successful tramp, so much so that his reputation earned the respect of the older “Frenchy,” who said to him one day, “Say, boy, you’re alright. You’re A-No.1. Now always stay that way.”2 They agreed if they were ever separated, they would carve their monikers on railcars, depots, water tanks, and outbuildings everywhere until they found one other. They eventually parted ways, and while A-No.1 did see “Frenchy” carved a few times on cars and depots, he never found him again.

A-No.1 would go on to leave his moniker in the many places his travels took him. His mark could be found from the Atlantic to the Pacific and from Canada to Mexico. His travels were not limited A-No.1 books 1910–1921 to North America, as he journeyed to Europe, New Zealand, China, Japan, and the West Indies, as Courtesy Andy Dreamingwolf well.3 The champion tramp once received a medal and one thousand dollars for besting six other competitors to see who could make it from New York to San Francisco by rail the fastest without paying any fare. He completed the journey in eleven days and six hours.4 eon Ray Livingston: A-No.1 Mark-making would get A-No.1 into trouble on more than one occasion. One time he was arrested in San Francisco for carving his moniker into three mahogany doors worth seventy-five dollars One day after his eleventh birthday, toward the end of summer in 1883, Leon Ray Livingston was each at a prominent downtown bar.5 His skill with a knife would come in handy, as he was able to sent home from school for, as he put it, ill behavior. His teacher had entrusted him with a note, support himself by carving faces or other images in Irish potatoes, trading them for money, goods, which was to have been signed by his father and returned. The young boy feared going home, or favors. feeling shamed and disgraced. After loitering about town, he eventually went home, having decided to present the note to his father the following morning. While standing at an upstairs window, he The man who would log 525,000 miles,6 enough to circle the globe twenty times, unexpectedly saw his teacher approaching the house. Knowing the nature of his visit, Leon took twenty-eight found a life away from the rails. In 1910, a car inspector working in the freight yards in Erie, dollars from his mother’s purse, a one-hundred-franc note (the equivalent of twenty dollars), and his .22 caliber rifle (which would later be traded to a railroad brakeman for a ride); he raced down the back stairs, exited a rear door, and scaled a fence, dropping into the alley outside. From there he ran, arriving just in time to board a river steamboat with the destination of California’s capital, Sacramento.1 So was the beginning of Livingston’s tramping life, which would go on for more than twenty-five years.

28 29 Pennsylvania, found a half-frozen A-No.1 in a boxcar and took him into his shanty to warm up, also providing him a meal. Grateful for the kindness shown him, A-No.1 later gave the car inspector the gift of a box of oranges.7 Upon his next visit, the inspector invited the tramp to his home and introduced him to his daughter, Mary A. Trohaski. They would marry on a January day and set out on their honeymoon by rail, but, ironically, the man who rode the rails for more than two decades without ever purchasing a ticket, bought the fares this time.

The couple had two children together—Ruth, born in 1914, and Kenneth in 1917. Mrs. Livingston was asked if she ever worried whether her husband would be able to resist his “itching feet.” Her prideful reply was that he loved his family too much.8

Years before he met his bride, A-No.1 had been writing down stories based on his tramping, securing his vocabulary on the road by reading newspapers. His literary pursuits were one reason he was able to quell his wanderlust. He would go on to write twelve books published from 1910 to 1921. It was not, however, without effort. “Even the publishers thought I was a fool. They threw Leon Ray Livingston (A-No.1) and family in Erie, Pennsylvania me out of their offices and laughed at me when I tried to have them publish what I had written of my May 3, 1923 9 Photograph by Jeff Davis, “King of Hoboes” experiences. They said it was a lot of rot and no one would read it.” He had the last laugh, though, Courtesy Andy Dreamingwolf as he chose to self-publish the books, which sold hundreds of thousands of copies and earned him a great deal of compensation.

A-No.1 books 1910–1921 Life and Adventures of A-No.1: Courtesy Andy Dreamingwolf America’s Most Celebrated Tramp 1910 Courtesy Andy Dreamingwolf

29 A-No.1 “Meal Ticket” postcards Courtesy Andy Dreamingwolf

30 31 31 American Magazine, Volume 78 “‘Stay at Home,’ Says Ex-Tramp” Wilmington Morning News (Wilmington, Delaware) “L. Livingston, Famous ‘A-1’ Tramp, is Dead” September 21, 1925, page 11 The Daily Times, April 5, 1944, page 11 A-No.1 The Rambler advertisement “Champion Tramp in Jail” Press and Sun-Bulletin (Binghamton, New York) Los Angeles Herald (Los Angeles, California) February 20, 1926, page 10 April 17, 1909, part II, page 5 Leon Ray Livingston headstone “Spring Calls Hobo King, But Cupid Keeps A-No.1 From Road” Photograph by Andy Dreamingwolf Logansport Pharos-Tribune (Logansport, Indiana) March 15, 1923

32 33 Later in life he would hit the road again. This time it was not on the top of a Pullman, however, but on a nationwide lecture tour. He tried to steer youths away from the life of roaming he had experienced. While there are rumors that he died in a Texas rail yard, the famous tramp, who had been ill five years, actually passed away from heart failure in his Cambridge, Pennsylvania, home on April 5, 1944.10

—Andy Dreamingwolf

Lantern from Emperor of the North (1973) The film, Emperor of the North, is loosely based on the tramp writings of A-No.1 and Jack London. NOTES Used by Charles Tyner (Cracker) in the film 1 A-No.1, Life and Adventures of A-No.1: America’s Most Celebrated Tramp, chapter 1, 1910. 20th Century Fox 2 The Weekly Republican, March 19, 1908, 5. Courtesy Dale J. Tetley 3 The American Magazine, “The World’s Best Known Hobo,” Vol. 78, 1914, 58. 4 The Indianapolis Star, April 7, 1908, 6. 5 Press Democrat, April 17, 1909. 6 Erie Daily Times, August 19, 1939, 3. 7 The American Magazine,“The World’s Best Known Hobo,” Vol. 78, 1914, 58. 8 Logansport Pharos-Tribune, March 15, 1923, 3. From Coast to Coast with Jack London 9 Erie Daily Times, August 19, 1939, 3. 1917 Courtesy Andy Dreamingwolf 10 Erie Daily Times, April 5, 1944, 11.

33 35 35 oniker Writing as Invented Tradition

The conception of a dual writing practice among hoboes and trainmen has been a powerful historical an anthropologist, I wish to cordon off rather than to blend, to celebrate separations rather than fulcrum for most contemporary interpretations of the moniker phenomenon. Artist, filmmaker, conjoined aspects, and to create a narrative around contemporary moniker writing that embraces and author Bill Daniel first brought the word “moniker” back into common parlance and linked it the partially invented nature of this tradition. According to Eric Hobsbawm and Terence Ranger, to a particular style of freight train writing after spending over two decades chasing the identity invention is practically a prerequisite of tradition in general: of the elusive train writer Bozo Texino.1 In his book, Mostly True, Daniel creates the character of a fictitious magazine editor who asserts that: “Invented tradition” is taken to mean a set of practices, normally governed by overtly or tacitly accepted rules and of a ritual or symbolic nature, which seek to The rail tag was born the bastard child of two warring parents—the working stiff inculcate certain values and norms of behavior by repetition, which automatically and the shiftless wanderer. […] This duality is manifested in the astonishingly implies continuity with the past.5 elegant and modest drawing modality that tramps and railworkers have spent the last 100 years co-evolving.2

A 1939 issue of Railroad Magazine seems to echo some of the fictitious editor’s sentiment by indicating that railroad employees produced train writing as often as did hoboes themselves.3

Several years of archival, literary, ethnographic, and photographic research have allowed me to immerse myself in hobo lives and in the labor contexts of the railroad. This process has led me to see more disconnections than crossovers between early hobo and railroad written traditions, and to question the assumption that hoboes co-evolved this practice through time. Sure, they might have copied their own names onto boxcars, or used trains as a creative, mobile platform like railroad workers did. Rails4 certainly saw the work of hoboes, and vice versa. And by the 1980s and ’90s, the crossovers between tramps and trainmen were numerous within moniker practice. But here I want to suggest that the historic connections of hoboes to what we think of today as moniker writing were more marginal than foundational.

In thinking about my own contribution to the Moniker exhibition, my urge is to make a temporally Hoboe’s [sic] Directory, Sparks, Nev. Sparks, Nevada, c. 1910 rooted, historical argument about the concept of hobo and rail co-evolution of this medium. As Special Collections, University of Nevada, Reno Library, University Archives, (UNRS-P2017-07)

36 37 Hobsbawm and Ranger assert that past concepts of history used to establish continuity must To the broader public at this time, hobo practices were simultaneously alien and romanticized. In be deemed “suitable.” The concept of suitability is part of the reason why the narrative around 1911, prolific hobo carver and author Leon Ray Livingston, or A-No.1, wrote about “monikers” as moniker writing includes hoboes in addition to trainmen, even if hobo practitioners were originally what he called an unwritten “Code of the Road.” As an example, he used the many options available peripheral to the medium. I now wish to circle back to these two practices as discrete in a way that to a mythical man named George Smith from Peoria, Illinois: I hope adds nuance to the beliefs that current train writers hold about the roots of their practice. The “Code of the Road” demands that each tramp hide his identity under a road Imagine for a moment hobo graffiti as the ur graffiti. Even before the 1890s and well past the name—a “monicker” [sic]. 1920s, hobo graffiti was the equivalent of what more common graffiti tagging is today—the main George Smith, who hails from Peoria, Illinois, calls himself after his home city: kind of subcultural writing routinely inscribed in public locations other than bathroom walls. From “Peoria George” or “Peoria Smithy;” or after the state: “Illinois George” or the mid-nineteenth century on, hoboes had created styles of writing directed at one another that “Illinois Smithy;” or after his own or his ancestors’ nationality: “English George,” were most often placed in or near rail yards. Hoboes carved their monikers primarily onto shed “Dutch Smithy,” “Peoria Frenchy” or “Illinois Dago.”

Should other tramps already have preempted these monickers [sic], he may take resource to the color of his skin, his hair or his countenance, and hit the road as: “Red George,” “Yellow Smithy,” “Peoria Whitey” or “Illinois Blacky;” or his former vocation would assist him in his selection: “Waiter George,” “Printer Smithy,” “Peoria Mason,” or “Illinois Painter;” he could also draw upon some physical characteristic for his road name: “Peoria Slim,” “Illinois Fatty;” or some deformity could be used: “George, the Peg,” (one-legged); “Smithy the Hump,” (hunch-backed); “Peoria Wingy,” (one-armed); “Illinois Crip,” (crippled). In fact, there is no limit to the variety of sources from which a tramp could select a suitable monicker6 [sic].

Livingston asserted that the language of tramps differed “so widely from the common language spoken by the ‘outsider,’ that a few casual remarks made by a tramp will quickly reveal whether or not the person addressed is an interloper or one of the tramping fraternity.”7 Monikers were a way of accepting difference, a method of distinguishing people who belonged within the hobo ranks, and Jim Slick, 8-13-1893, bound north a manner of being known among insiders while remaining anonymous to outsiders. Medford, Oregon Photo by Susan A. Phillips, 2017 For hoboes, writing monikers was a way for a transient population to remain connected despite walls or water tanks. A range of photographic and physical evidence documents these written the unpredictability of clandestine railroad travel, a lack of telephonic communication, and routine conventions: a set of 1969 photographs from Red Bluff, California, documents hobo graffiti as early incarceration.8 People in motion left material traces of themselves behind. Those traces stayed in as 1875 with most between 1890 and 1915. Physical carvings from Medford, Oregon, and in-situ place, acting as clues for other hoboes as to the past and future locations of the carver. One-time graffiti from Los Angeles date from roughly the same period. Later carvings from the 1930s are hobo Jack London wrote about the practice of carving “monicas” in his 1907 book, The Road: preserved in Weed, California, and additional documentation has begun to emerge in other locations.

37 Similar issues have peppered the history of graffiti. Graffiti invites misinterpretation because of its illicit nature and absent authors. In 1970s New York, when tagging first emerged, New Yorkers were said to feel embarrassed by the writing, which they associated with pornographic words and images on bathroom walls. In 1990s Los Angeles, the historical prevalence of gang writing created presumed links between tagging and gangs that persist to this day. Because hoboes were the key subcultural writers around the turn of the century, people automatically associated any writing— and especially train-based writing—with that group. buZ blurr seems to agree with this view in the following quote: “Romantics mythicized that these signature tags and character drawings were the work of hobos [sic], but the most pervasive and persistent authors were trainmen, usually in the larger rail centers of big cities.”10

To be sure, hoboes and trainmen were synergistic as well as opposite. Their work or travels required similar forms of intimate train-based knowledge—schedules, the quirks of cars, and the underbelly of railroad operation. Both rails and hoboes were locked into mostly male pursuits, and NY Mickey. Red Bluff, California carried with them detailed insider knowledge of self, community, and the railroad, of which graffiti Photo by Robert Ranberg, 1969 was part. The wandering of hoboes was often tied to seasonal labor. When work was abundant, 35mm color transparency Courtesy Tehama County Historical Society railroad companies would seasonally attract so-called “boomers,” or temporary laborers, to specific

Water-tanks are tramp directories. Not all in idle wantonness do tramps carve their monicas, dates, and courses. Often and often have I met hoboes earnestly inquiring if I had seen anywhere such and such a “stiff” or his monica. And more than once I have been able to give the monica of recent date, the water-tank, and the direction in which he was then bound. And promptly the hobo to whom I gave the information lit out after his pal. I have met hoboes who, in trying to catch a pal, had pursued clear across the continent and back again, and were still going.9

Such practices—names, dates, and courses—comprise the core of hobo writing, which became fairly strict in its aesthetic as well as its content.

London’s own involvement in hoboing and his descriptions of moniker carving have often positioned him as a historical progenitor within the phenomenon of contemporary train writing. But to my view, citations of London are part of the phenomenon’s invented tradition rather than a direct I Want to Be a Boss connection. My argument here is that London, and references to hoboes in general, have Photograph by Sally and Jerry Romotsky, 1969 35mm color transparency become part of moniker writing’s “suitable” history, lending depth to what were historically Rail worker graffiti under the Fourth Street Bridge in Los Angeles disconnected practices. Courtesy Sally and Jerry Romotsky

38 39 locations. In these instances, hoboes could become rails, and vice versa. What had been distinct Film still, Who Is Bozo Texino? forms of written communication around the turn of the century, anchored in specific communities 2005 Courtesy Bill Daniel of practice, grew together much later in the century into the tradition we know today. If I accept an early story of co-evolution, the figure of the boomer may be what ties it together.

While the concept of monikers or nicknames, as well as ideals of fraternity, were shared between hoboes and rails, they were constructed differently. In one interview I conducted, longtime Los Angeles railroad clerk Eugene Crowner explained how railroader nicknames emerged from the initials of an employee’s first and last name, as well as from incidents or personality quirks.11 Crowner described how someone with the initials, “T.C.” might be known as Tom Cat (a womanizer); Double Door was a big guy. Suit Case, once a prolific Los Angeles railroad writer, most likely had the initials, “S.C.” I’m unsure how far back such naming practices extend into tradition was playful and externally focused and went beyond how people were known on the railroad history, but the double initials were a rail nicknaming characteristic reminiscent of J.B. job. Nicknames and insignia were meant to travel without the writer, a mobile and covert, “I was King himself. here.” Comparatively little evidence exists of rail worker graffiti from the earliest periods—to my knowledge the 1914 photograph of J.B. King’s signature in the Massillon Museum archives is unique The composition on page 38 shows a caricatured portrait of “T-Bone,” with the date, 4-22-48. in this regard. Unlike hobo carving into wood structures adjacent to railroads, railroader media had The composition includes the phrase, “Takes Brains,” with an arrow pointing to T-Bone’s portrait. a shorter life span, and boxcar stock was eventually replaced. T-Bone and Takes Brains might have come from the initials, “T.B.” The composition provides a clear demonstration of rail workers’ self-aware mockery, jovial jockeying, and playful teasing common to A through-line in the lives of railroad workers has been change: the shift from steam engines to many labor contexts. diesel, the switch from lanterns and hand signals to radios, the loss of the boxcar to simply “the box” through the rise of containerization. Railroaders have had to adjust to these technological buZ blurr shares in his essay within this catalog that railroaders used nicknaming to embrace innovations as well as to broader political and economic concerns. individuality. This all occurred within the constraints of a labor community that, despite having connections to train travel, was strongly tied to the yard as a place. While hoboes used the term For generations, a combination of temporal autonomy and spatial opportunity has enabled a graffiti “moniker” to describe their nicknaming practice and its carving, it seems that railroad workers tradition perpetuated by railroaders to flourish. Railroad work is something between labor practice used the term “nicknames” to describe their equivalent practices, and used “boxcar art,” and art form. Switchmen in particular were legendary graffiti writers, who excelled in the crafts “chalking,” or “drawing” to describe what we think of as monikers today.12 Bill Daniel remembers of boredom and in the reversal of hierarchy. Both switchmen and brakemen made frequent use of Grandpa Texino, who started seeing monikers on trains in 1919, simply calling them “markings” or chalk as we know it, along with “chalk” of another kind—grease pencil or lumber crayon. These “drawings.”13 Daniel himself remembers thinking they were “hobo tags” when he first saw them, media were part of their jobs, to identify cars for repair or switching, and became natural media for signifying his own thought process that connected New York to the mythical culture of hoboes. In their writing. With switchmen, their thing was stasis. While their brakemen compatriots rode on part because of the influence of Daniel’s own work, this type of marking has become known by its trains, switchmen remained in the yard. They were not leading anything or anybody. hobo name, as a moniker. Waiting, a lack of surveillance, and relative isolation, in turn, provided opportunity for creativity Whatever the title, the drawings and writings that traveled with the railcars were like a worker’s to emerge during their downtime. Downtime is a key reason for the prevalence of graffiti in labor second face. They were nicknames beyond nicknames, an inside beyond the insider. The contexts as a whole and on the railroad in specific. New, surveillance-style accountability practices

39 are likely to erode that equation and have forced changes not only in the meaning of graffiti but the in a much earlier time. In the ’50s, in Herby’s case. And you’d imagine in the ’50s meaning of railroading as a whole. there were probably still some people up who went further back. So there’s the length of the bridge of time, but also the numbers thing. It was the obsessed Human creativity is hard to suppress, however, which brings me back to the moniker tradition. Bill individuals, like Herby and Grandpa Texino and later the Rambler, who, by volume, Daniel comprehensively chronicled moniker writing as a unique form of folkloric expression over a get the message out and help us make that connection. I think that’s what kept it period of decades. Initially, Daniel had been inspired by New York graffiti in the 1970s and ’80s, alive as a real practice and not just the random things people write. As an actual but in 1983 he found a flourishing, train-based written tradition in Dallas, Texas, at the Santa folkloric art form, these two guys in the ’70s—Herby and Bozo—are who brought Fe Yards across from his studio. He worked documenting the marks for nearly ten years before it to us from deeper history.16 connecting with the people responsible for them: people like buZ blurr, Grandpa Texino, and Herby. All of them were rail workers. That was a later thought process, Daniel said. His curiosity grew as to what he had missed, and what was no longer visible now. When I asked him to compare freight writing and earlier hobo It was kind of obvious to me in the ’80s, before I met any of them, that rail workers graffiti, he said: must be involved. So I had a growing suspicion from the beginning. In those early years I could never actually see a tramp. They were like some assumed extinct Similarities are somewhere in syntax, scale, and material, and in the same bird. But here were these marks…I was deflated when I began to realize they elements. It’s generally a nickname, a portrait, a caricature or identifying icon, weren’t all hoboes. My fantasy was ruined. It took a while before I realized that it like a picto-moniker. Whoever walks up to a train, whether a tramp or a rail was still rad, that they were rail workers.14 worker, they’ve got this thing in their hand, either stolen or part of their work or maybe just a lump of coal. People walk up and they do a line drawing. It’s a simple The hobo fantasy is a powerful legacy within American culture to which Daniel has not been line. It’s fast, it’s cursive, and it has to do with the biometrics of the human arm, immune. But for Daniel, it was a relief to finally be able to talk to people. Some of them did turn standing at a certain height to this big piece of metal that starts 3-1/2 feet off the out to be tramps, but most of the key older practitioners were rail workers. Daniel told me in a ground. There’s an essential expression: “This is me,” or “this is the boss who I 2017 interview: hate,” or “this is who I wish I was.” “This is our nickname.” And then there are the differences. The difference is between work and travel. And that difference When I finally had a chance to talk to people in 1991–92, the thing I started to comes out in their drawings. The tramp is writing about things having to do with ask the old timers was: “What were the first ones you saw? What was up back travel and being rootless. The rail worker is complaining about being trapped by then?” Herby and Bozo: they were the ones. There was a handful of individuals the job, and just the drudgery of it. 17 who had so many numbers up, who provided a bridge between older and 15 newer traditions. For Daniel, the difference between hobo and rail contributions to this genre is far from clear-cut. He retains the idea of co-evolution of the medium between hoboes and rail workers, stating that it is In attempting to describe the bridge between past and contemporary moniker writing, Daniel noted impossible to draw such a definitive line between the two: “Just because rails were more prolific and that the practice could often be sporadic. Certain individuals would have a short but active run, and higher profile does not mean that tramps were not making marks. It’s not either/or. I still kind of in would become well known for brief periods of time and then stop. Bridging the practice between my heart believe that tramps would draw a cartoon character also.”18 past and present, Daniel said, required longevity and something more akin to obsession: In a later interview, I asked Bill Daniel what he thought about the notion that the moniker tradition To make this bridge that I’m talking about, that’s somebody who did it for decades had, in a sense, partly created itself through presumed links to history. He said: and decades. It’s a bridge in distance, because that’s something that they started

40 41 Daniel’s work gave an emergent movement shape, and fixed it with a name and some foundational ideas. Some of these ideas were rooted in what I have argued is a longstanding misperception of the nature and spread of hobo writing in the early part of the twentieth century. Moniker writing has since become an art form partially removed from its original labor context to conjoin rails with tramps and other writers. Monikers now travel much broader distances, both digitally and physically. As with many clandestine pursuits, the culture of moniker writing will continue to defy definitive explanation, but its roots deserve critical examination. Along with the embrace of mystery should come an equal consideration of this tradition’s constructed, associative, and invented elements, which are often as intriguing as the marks themselves.

—Susan A. Phillips

Hobo Bird NOTES Red Bluff, California, 1969 1 Bill Daniel, Who is Bozo Texino? The Secret History of Hobo Graffiti, film, 57 mins. 2005. The film documents in Photograph by Robert Ranberg “realistic black and white film” the “untold history of the century-old folkloric practice of hobo and Rail worker graffiti.” 35mm color transparency Quotes taken from the film’s back cover. Courtesy Tehama County Historical Society 2 Bill Daniel, Mostly True, second edition (Microcosm Publishing, 2012). 3 Arthur W. Hecox, Railroad Magazine, “Boxcar Art,” (July 1939). 4 “Rail” is a term for railroad worker. The capital M word did indeed create its own tradition to a degree. It creates itself 5 Eric Hobsbawm and Terence Ranger, eds. The Invention of Tradition (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2012), 1. as it goes. It retells itself. This is crux of it. A very marginal, “Weird Old America 6 Leon Ray Livingston, Hobo Campfire Tales (Erie, Pennsylvania: A-No.1 Publishing Company), 14. Greil Marcus” thing survived a long period as a seed-form and then blew up, or 7 Ibid. 8 See for example Kelly Lytle-Hernandez’s excellent review of hobo incarceration in her book, City of Inmates: Conquest, flowered. The “Weird Old America” version of it was not a capital-letter thing. Rebellion, and the Rise of Human Caging in Los Angeles, 1771–1965 (Chapel Hill: The University of North Carolina Press, It was unheralded. It was unnoticed. You could say that my film and book were 2017). the germinators, that graf culture was the soil, and that Instagram was the 9 Jack London, The Road (New York: Macmillan, 1907), 125–126. 10 Blake Donner, “buZ blurr,” accessed August 10, 2005, http://www.northbankfred.com/blurr.html. 19 Miracle Gro. 11 Eugene Crowner, recorded interview via telephone, June 20, 2017. See also Crowner’s website, http://railroadmemoirsbycrowner.com/nicknamesandfellowemployees.html. A self-labeled “kook for metaphors,” here Daniel is referencing Old Weird America, the book by 12 Eugene Crowner and Charles Wherry, communication via email, February 12, 2018. Greil Marcus that has acted as a touch point for similar forms of vintage culture.20 Today, moniker 13 Bill Daniel, communication via telephone, February 18, 2018. 14 Bill Daniel, communication via text, March 16, 2018. writing carries a tension between its analog, train-based, and often purist roots, and the digital 15 Bill Daniel, recorded interview via telephone, June 15, 2017. “Having numbers up” is a reference to the number of world that has helped to swell its ranks. “A lot of people would say that the Internet is the antithesis monikers someone has produced. of train art, that monikers and moniker artists are about not having your phone and just being 16 Ibid. 17 Ibid. 21 confronted with direct experience.” Because moniker culture has now evolved to include social 18 Bill Daniel, communication via email, March 12, 2018. media and instantaneous sharing, questions of authenticity now complicate this practice in 19 Bill Daniel, communication via text, February 4, 2018. a manner common to many subcultures. 20 Greil Marcus, The Old, Weird America: The World of Bob Dylan’s Basement Tapes (New York: Picador, 2011). 21 Ibid.

41 42 43 43 ozo Texino

As Arthurian tales go, this could be included amongst its chapters. What resides within the next The mark itself is a caricature of a man smoking a long pipe and wearing a pointed ten-gallon, several pages is truly the Holy Grail of moniker collections, provided by one of the tradition’s cowboy hat, a la silent film star Col. Tim McCoy, adorned with the lone star of Texas. Beneath forefathers, Bozo Texino. The unbelievably enormous assortment of Bozo Texino ephemera spans the drawing was the name “Bozo Texino.” The artist said in 1939 he was working on a different the late 1800s through the 1960s. Fortunately, Bozo saved much of his correspondence and other version of this same caricature, a rendition in profile. writings, which can now be shared. When asked how the name came about, McKinley explained, “Well, I had a nephew who called me Bozo Texino, the man who was said to have autographed more boxcars than Babe Ruth had ‘Bo’ while I was working at Laredo. I just took the ‘Bo’ and added ‘Zo,’ so it would go with ‘Laredo.’ baseballs, was born James Herbert (J.H.) McKinley in a log cabin in Cartwright, Kentucky, March I used to sign it ‘Bozo Laredo’ until I came to San Antonio, then kinda shortened ‘Texas’ and ‘Mexico’ 25, 1893. When he was eighteen years old, he left Kentucky for Texas and three years later was to get ‘Texino.’”6 one of the first firemen hired on the SAU&G Railroad. McKinley later joined the Missouri Pacific Railroad and was promoted to engineer in 1928. He would go on to have a career of fifty years, McKinley received letters from people who saw his “Bozos” all over the United States, Canada, retiring in 1965. He was said to be an intelligent and talented individual with a photographic Mexico, and even Cuba. A woman from California, who had seen one of his marks on the side of memory. One of his peers said he was known to wear a checkered shirt, bow tie, and derby hat with a boxcar at a siding by her home, copied the mark, embroidered it on two handkerchiefs, and sent 7 his denim overalls—“one of the wildest engineers who ever worked for Missouri Pacific.”1 That them to him. Once, when he was in New York City taking a ferry to see the Statue of Liberty, he 8 remark must have been accurate, since Bozo said one of his biggest thrills was riding a brake beam spotted his mark on a train unit that was part of a barge loaded with freight cars. under a locomotive.2 J.H. McKinley wrote and submitted numerous stories to various newspapers and magazines over McKinley said he started to write his moniker in 1919, and by January of 1939 he claimed to the years under his moniker’s name, “Bozo Texino.” He also became the subject of a story himself have applied it to both sides of a quarter of a million freight cars,3 although he would go on to in a 1936 Railroad Stories magazine written by The Engine Picture Kid: “Swinging myself out of an say he never marked a Missouri Pacific car, as there were rules against it. Others have said the empty gondola as the freight pulls into the MoP [Missouri Pacific] yard, I can see this is the place. company did not care much, because the drawings generated attention akin to advertising. A Every car in the garden has got a picture of a man with a long pipe in his mouth and a ten-gallon 9 yellow, waterproof wax crayon was the implement he utilized to affix his trademark drawing. A hat on his head.” In 1925, McKinley started writing a column entitled “Bozo Sez” in the Missouri 1936 magazine story, titled “Uncle Tom’s Caboose,” mentioned the six-foot-tall McKinley getting Pacific employee magazine. He stated that he sold his first story in 1919 before he had even 10 out of the cab of his No. 314 oil-burner 4-6-04 with a long bar of yellow crayon sticking out of his read one. overalls.5 His use of the wax crayon allowed his marks to exist until the freight cars were either scrapped or repainted, which enabled his moniker to travel far and wide.

44 45 45 this page and previous Bozo Texino scrapbook c. 1920s–1960s Collection Charlie Duckworth

47 J.H. McKinley identification card c. 1920 Collection Charlie Duckworth

We can assume his words came easier to him than did typing them. As he said, “Believe me, a 400,000-pound freight locomotive is easier to operate than my seven-pound typewriter.”11 NOTES 1 Nelson Allen, The News-San Antonio, January 6, 1983, 10-A. Luckily for him, on April 10, 1920, he married stenographer Gertrude Preston (born August 1894, 2 Railroad Stories, “Who’s Who in the Crew,” April, 1935, 98. Atascosa County, Texas). She said he would write articles in pencil and she would then type 3 Nelson Allen, The News-San Antonio, January 6, 1983, 10-A. 4 An oil-burner is a steam engine that uses oil as its fuel. The term is usually applied to a locomotive or ship engine that them. Gertrude was pictured alongside her husband in a 1935 Railroad Stories magazine in a burns oil to heat water to produce the steam, which drives the pistons, or turbines, from which the power is derived. The drawing by the famed cartoonist Stookie Allen. She also appeared in a short story in an issue the numerical series “4-6-0” represents the configuration of wheels on a locomotive—four leading wheels on two axles in a following year. Mrs. McKinley, who didn’t think too much of his “silly” drawings, was also not fond leading bogie; six powered and coupled driving wheels on three axles; and no trailing wheels. 5 The Engine Picture Kid, Railroad Stories, “Uncle Tom’s Caboose,” May 1936, 71. of the name. “I never did like that name, ‘Bozo,’ either. Maybe I should have encouraged him but 6 San Antonio Light, “Art of Bozo Texino,” January 22, 1939. I didn’t.”12 They maintained two Texas homes together, one in Pleasanton and the other in San 7 Ibid. 8 Ibid. Antonio. 9 The Engine Picture Kid, Railroad Stories, “Uncle Tom’s Caboose,” May 1936, 71. 10 San Antonio Light, “Art of Bozo Texino,” January 22, 1939. 11 Ibid. Bozo passed away at the age of seventy-five on February 26, 1967, at Mercy Hospital in 12 Nelson Allen, The News-San Antonio, January 6, 1983, 10-A. Jourdanton, Texas. His wife joined him in 1985. They are both laid to rest in Pleasanton City Cemetery. Upon their shared headstone is a carving of his moniker with the words “Bozo Texino Boxcar Artist Laureate.”

—Andy Dreamingwolf

47 “Around Town” by Bozo Texino April 4, 1937 Collection Charlie Duckworth

Untitled pencil and ink sketch by Bozo Texino Collection Charlie Duckworth

48 49 Letters and correspondence to and from Bozo Texino Collection Charlie Duckworth

49 Letters and correspondence to and from Bozo Texino Collection Charlie Duckworth

“Going Places with Bighoss White” by Bozo Texino Collection Charlie Duckworth

50 51 Bozo Texino and fellow workers in front of engine Car 54056, Bozo Texino moniker Collection Charlie Duckworth BC 3363, Lucius M. Beebe and Charles M. Clegg Jr. Collection Library and Archives, California State Railroad Museum, Sacramento, California

Bozo Texino in cab of engine Bozo Texino moniker in chalk on bullring grounds Collection Charlie Duckworth Collection Charlie Duckworth

51 J.H. McKinley railroad passes and various membership cards c. 1920–1958 Collection Charlie Duckworth

52 53 53 Lumber crayon drawing by Bozo Texino on wood trim from the Missouri Pacific Railroad Depot, Taylor, Texas Removed by William E. Harrison Jr. in November 1978 Collection Charlie Duckworth

54 55 J.H. McKinley marking a train Courtesy University of Texas at San Antonio Special Collections, L-2027-E © San Antonio Light/ZUMA Press

J.H. McKinley cancelled check Collection Charlie Duckworth

55 Photographs of Bozo Texino from his scrapbook and an inscribed book Collection Charlie Duckworth

56 57 Letter to Mr. and Mrs. Robbins From Mrs. J.H. McKinley Collection Charlie Duckworth

57 rawing and Deciphering

Through conversation, we seek to reach out to others who share a common passion. Some interests merely doodles to pass the time, or attempts to converse with others in the rail culture? Perhaps may be foreign to others, misunderstood, or altogether unknown. And in this case, monikers serve they are mementos left behind as a way to be remembered, or to remember. Are monikers marks as an ephemeral correspondence between like-minded individuals spread out among a network of to make a statement, or points of pride to say how far one has traveled? Monikers are unique cold steel rails. Distance—both geographic and temporal—is immeasurable, yet interaction occurs and personal, and so, too, are the reasons they are made. Some exist solely as a means of self- in the present, and is instant, while time in between a railcar’s movement is forgotten. Moniker expression, but one cannot eliminate the viewer from the conversation. Sometimes a definitive line practitioners reside in a continuum of anonymity, whether retired, accessible, prolific, or ghost-like cannot be drawn. Once released a moniker operates autonomously. Some individuals engage in the and untraceable. Motive and value of the tradition differ significantly, as do the personalities of art of moniker-writing possessing a deep-seated appreciation for the culture and historical value those involved. But what brings them together is a common medium that transcends an array of of the tradition, while others participate merely as a means of passing time, without giving second demographics. The railroad serves as an equalizing channel for discussion: the moniker a surrogate thought to the weight of the marks they leave. In every case, it is the artist who determines the for communication. mark’s importance, and through it exists a common denominator of life experience.

I was continually seeing Colossus of Roads, The Rambler, The Solo Artist, El The image of my moniker and the quotes written below it are completely open for Truncón, Wendigo, etc. and was intrigued by the idea that this medium could the viewer’s interpretation.2 —NOVA be used to keep correspondence with my friends over long distances, via the railroad network. This industrial infrastructure could provide a conduit of thoughts The moniker is a transitory correspondence, not on paper, but on a substrate thought to be much and ideas to a huge viewing audience.1 —Shemp more permanent; yet these marks are fated to be just as ephemeral. Marks were once made in chalk that could be wiped from a railcar, and though now created with “permanent” paint sticks, Through this writing, individuals insert themselves into a loud and intimidating environment. In the perception they will last forever is false. Part of the excitement in finding a Herby, a Water contrast, a moniker is not over the top, but rather a small, gentle reminder that “someone was Bed Lou, or a billowy-bearded Colossus,3 is the fact that these marks were from another decade, here.” Marks live unassuming in size, a raise of the hand, not a shout. A moniker is a whisper in a another point in history, and have aged. The railroad changes, rolling stock is decommissioned world now dominated by color and excess as aerosol graffiti is emblazoned on most rolling freight. and scrapped. The industry’s needs and standards change. As many more people interact with It functions as a succinct statement, distilled and direct. Monikers can be utilized to express one’s the railroad, monikers are covered by other marks, fade with exposure, are painted over, or just thoughts or identity to a wide audience, but can also simply operate to let someone know, “I was rust away. The romanticism about losing a battle with time and the elements speaks of our own here.” They are a direct conduit to the heart of expression, however crude or instinctive. Are they mortality. When a mark is gone, or obscured permanently, only the knowledge we share with

58 59 waiting on receiving and delivering unit trains, or traveling and meeting new friends in the ...4 —The Sunflower Seed Kid

Each mark provides a glimpse into an artist’s identity. The writers operate in an environment surrounded by the railroad and its infrastructure, by which they are influenced and empowered. Their names, given or created, are put in front of the viewer sometimes without context. The mark-maker tells the story and supplies all initial information. This allows the artist to take the first step, and gives the viewer a point of reference from which many times folklore grows. The viewer can make assumptions, and create a narrative about the artist’s perceived identity. However, an assumed identity has power in this form, protecting one’s anonymity. Protecting the identities of moniker artists, even within the culture itself, holds dear something profound and sacred in our time of unlimited access to information. Secrecy is respected among artists in this tradition.

There are still people I know who will not admit what they draw on trains, and that’s how it should be.5 —Ed Haskel

Monikers move across the footprint of more than 139,000 route-miles of track the U.S. freight Colossus of Roads moniker—“Sure As Shootin’…Finite For Certain” industry currently operates.6 Essentially, a moniker is made with nothing more than a surface and a Photograph by the artist drawing utensil; but this simple form of writing travels great distances and has created a discussion for those who employ and observe it. Monikers snake across the country, and an expansive transit others will remain. Knowing that something has a finite lifespan, as does every individual, system allows a mark to travel well beyond the limitations of an individual’s means. However calls into question the time and energy one devotes to such an endeavor. This empowers the aimless the journey of a moniker, one cannot devalue the merit of a railcar as a free delivery system artists’ language. and shared communication tool. The mark is a traveler by proxy for the expressions of an artist, a language of ventriloquism. One can express with either a quick line or a thoughtful pause and motion. Monikers have the ability to operate as honest thoughts. Accepting of flaws and imperfections, fluid lines directly from the These freight cars roll all over North America. Through monikers, I get to instill hand lend themselves to this almost automatic form of natural expression. The side of a boxcar a sense of wonder not only in the audience, but in myself as well. I ask, “Where will becomes a forum through which one can convey frustration, love, bewilderment, crisis, vulnerability, it go? How long will it be gone? Who’s going to see it? Will it ever come back?7 or epiphany; it gives voice to those acting in the moment. For the artists, marking freight may mean —2359 something personal and powerful or simply act as an afterthought. It is their language in a taken space, the risk of an action to say something and to communicate. Monikers act as an economical medium of expression, allowing expansion beyond locality. A mark made in Kentucky may be spotted in California, one birthed in New Jersey could be witnessed in My mark’s not always perfect, I’m not a big name, and I’ve made some mistakes; Texas. A mark with a free stamp, sent off into the flurry of freight travel. There is an excitement but—each mark had its moment in time. Some while waiting on interchange with felt in connecting with those distant, a camaraderie in shared involvement. One could argue that another railroad, waiting on my conductor while he brake tested our train, brake discovering a mark there is like an introduction made byproxy. “I’ve never met them, but I’ve seen testing my own train, waiting on our customers to finish unloading and loading, their marks!”

59 Sluto moniker—“NOLA ’16” Mr. Bass moniker—“Happy Birthday Lilly 8-3-15” The Rambler moniker—“30 years 10-68 to 10-98” Drawn in New Orleans, LA, in 2016; photographed in Akron, Ohio, the same year Photograph by Kurt Tors This moniker celebrates the 30-year anniversary of The Rambler’s mark. Photograph by Scot Phillips Photograph by The Kodak Kidd

Any practitioner can activate the space; it is not reliant on means or stature. No matter who you As I date each mark it gives me a chance to think back to that date, where I was are or are not, what your challenges in life may be, where you come from, or the places you have working when I made it. How old I was, how many children I had. It is a bit of left behind, the simplicity of the medium equalizes anyone’s standing and becomes more about the nostalgia for me.9 —Mr. Bass mystery and message. It becomes more about what you say, what you draw, and how many times you mark it. What is seen by the viewer is exactly what resides on the car. Everything else is left Artists utilize different methods and techniques when conveying information, and monikers ebb to conjecture. A recognized drawing becomes the baseline for mystery, and repetitive prominence and flow between the formulas they employ. As their own editors, moniker artists also direct the breeds interest. The artist can be anyone, from anywhere, deepening the reliance on given conversation. Today, most adhere to particular patterns; one may consist of an image, and no information to determine identity. more, or a simple line drawing revealing no information besides what is depicted. Some images are accompanied by a caption or extended information which may change with each mark; this concept I’d like viewers to have a sense of familiarity with my mark, for my mark to be just of creating alternate versions of the same moniker is attributed to buZ blurr, who began marking as much associated with freights as a “home shop for repairs” label or a “load in the early 1970s. Some marks exist as names with accompanying dates, possibly harkening to limit” stencil. Maybe they’ll see it roll past on a freight and say to themselves, the days of hobo writing, a visual metaphor or a respectful nod. I lived and I was here and this is “Hey, there’s that bat again. I’ve seen that before.”8 —Tex Goth my name. These at times document location, travel, profession, or fleeting thoughts. Even cardinal directions are at times stated, acting as placeholder for a journey. Important dates significant to Artists within this culture share a space and are part of a continuing discussion which pushes the artists can be documented in a mark. These can then be discovered by observers and act as traditional concepts of distance and time. A mark becomes a snapshot, encapsulating when the pinpoints on a long timeline of moniker history, only filled in as more and more marks are discovered author possibly recalled something specific, or was processing a life event. In the viewer’s eyes, a and discussed, a constant conversation in flux. When happening upon their own marks, some mark exists when viewed, as though it were a time capsule of information from an indeterminate artists will “sign in” to register their presence, leaving an updated date to signal they once again past, maybe a decade ago, three years ago, even earlier in that month. encountered this particular railcar. These methods breed a dynamic way of communicating which

60 61 reflect personal decisions artists make about what and what not to write. As times passes, these Proximity lends itself to proliferation. Those emotionally and geographically tied to the railroad tend marks transition to memories, journal entries, for both artist and discoverer. to find themselves physically close to it. Those experiencing the same complexity of infrastructure speak the same language and appreciate the nuances of a rail yard. Communication between artists Here tradition, along with history, is sacred. Moniker culture thrives on a respect for its elders, is common and respect grows when an individual becomes familiar with another’s mark. Moniker influencers, practitioners, and trailblazers. Many times through the language of monikers, one artists are communicators and many have innate instinct to communicate or be known. Respect, will see these inspired figures continue their lives both in reference and recreated representation. relationships, stories, and folklore live longer than a life, or a mark, and live on by the words written, For decades upon decades, marks like those of J.B. King Esq. and Bozo Texino have come into artifacts shown, stories told and passed on, and hands shaken. One can argue that monikers have existence on the rails by anonymous artists. Writings call out figures past. Part of this culture become part of the railroad itself, and the important subject is not this communication device, but is the continuous representation through marks of where it has journeyed as an art form, and the railroad industry that is bringing these people together. most importantly, who has been involved along the way. When these artists pass on, those still participating are able to honor their memory through a common means of communication. Moniker artists often have a different mindset than others in graffiti. You may find that many moniker artists are railroad workers, were once railroad workers, or Appreciation of something larger than oneself combined with common interests in the proximity at least have a respect and love for the railroad and their workers. I myself spend of the railroad breed a respect and relationship among those in the moniker culture. There lives more time enamored by the railroad itself rather than actually marking cars.10 with the predominant figures of this art form an emphasis on communication and a connection to —Anonymous Moniker Artist other forms of language transmission. One could connect a fascination with moniker writing to the more direct act of writing postcards or letters to friends or loved ones. This mark-making builds Once a moniker is seen and an observer made aware of the culture, it cannot be unseen. The relationships between artists, and a line of discussion is formed. audience of the rail yard will arrive at its own conclusions and draw up an identity of those unknown. The viewer’s interpretations are many. Numerous also are the practitioners and what they would

Flangesqueal moniker—”Heavy Heart” Conrail Twitty moniker—“Kilroy” Rolling Z moniker showing “sign-ins” on multiple dates Tribute on the passing of Margaret Kilgallen (Matokie Slaughter) Photograph by Matt Heeren Some artists write new dates near marks when they see the same car reappear. Photograph by North Bank Fred Photograph by The Kodak Kidd

61 like to say. No matter what they want to express, directly or conceptually, the railroad acts as the inspiration for discussion between those making a mark and those deciphering a message. The artist takes the initial step to begin the conversation with an introduction, whether factual or fictional. As an active participant, one grows a network of experience and influence through labor, travel, and the statements of others. No matter what levels of experience one has or does not have, each still has an identity and a story, and sometimes a paint stick.

All in all, the creative act is not performed by the artist alone…the spectator brings the work in contact with the external world by deciphering and interpreting its inner qualifications and thus adds his contribution to the creative act.11 —Marcel Duchamp

NOTES 1 Shemp (moniker artist) quote, written correspondence, January 2018. 2 NOVA (moniker artist) quote, written correspondence, June 2017. 3 Early versions of the Colossus of Roads moniker were drawn with a line that oscillated giving an appearance of a billowy beard. Later versions displayed a more continuous and curved line. 4 The Sunflower Seed Kid (moniker artist) quote, written correspondence, October 2017. 5 Ed Haskel (moniker artist) quote, email correspondence, February 2018. 6 Federal Railroad Administration, “Freight Railroad Background,” March 2012. 7 Alexander Medora, “The Art of Train Hopping,” in Sterling Four, ed. David Bester (Toronto: Sterling, 2013), 91. 2359 (moniker artist) quote. 8 Tex Goth (moniker artist) quote, written correspondence, April 2017. 9 Mr. Bass (moniker artist) quote, written correspondence, November 2017. 10 Anonymous artist (moniker artist) quote, phone interview, April 30, 2016. 11 Quote from a talk, “The Creative Act,” presented by Marcel Duchamp in Houston, TX, at the meeting of the American Federation of the Arts, April 1957.

Colossus of Roads moniker—“Marcel Duchamp 120” Photograph by TRUE2DEATH

62 63 Priority envelope with drawing and lettering by Margaret Kilgallen This envelope was sent to buZ blurr through back and forth correspondence. While most of the artist identities within the moniker culture and this exhibition, are either unknown or anonymous by request, the “Matokie Slaughter” motif and its creator, Margaret Kilgallen (1967–2001), are inseparable. Females with elongated necks and expressive faces, rendered in profile with a harsh yet fluid line, were a hallmark of her style. Documentaries like the Art21 “Heroines” episode, and “Beautiful Losers” film, captured Kilgallen marking cars, providing rare glimpses into the contemporary moniker practice. Courtesy buZ blurr

63 artwork by Sluto Mojave Witch Clamo Courtesy Scot Phillips

artwork by Plot Poor Boy Qualm Courtesy Dexter Cain

artwork by Hold Fast Collection Kurt Tors

Trackside Treehouse, Vancouver, BC 2011 Photograph by Swampy

Found Object Artwork Many times moniker writers find themselves trackside and without a stopped train, and what do writers do? They write. Occasionally, if no rolling stock is currently available, artists may draw on items they can find in their environment. Perhaps they are scraps of metal, old tie plates, rusty cans or discarded signs; all are possible canvases for the resourceful artist.

64 65 65 ack London

“Every once in a while, in newspapers, magazines, and biographical dictionaries, I run upon sketches Jack London (1876–1916), the man who would go on to become a modern-day literary celebrity, of my life, wherein, delicately phrased, I learn that it was in order to study sociology that I became a was born John Griffith London in San Francisco to single mother, Flora Wellman. At the age of tramp. This is very nice and thoughtful of the biographers, but it is inaccurate. I became a tramp— eighteen, with nearly a dollar in his pocket, the young London set out on a journey from Oakland, well, because of the life that was in me, of the wanderlust in my blood that would not let me rest. California, in the spring of 1894, traveling more than ten thousand miles across North America. Sociology was merely incidental; it came afterward, in the same manner that a wet skin follows a London would later write of his tramping journeys more than a dozen years later in a series of nine ducking. I went on ‘The Road’ because I couldn’t keep away from it; because I hadn’t the price of the essays, which ran in Cosmopolitan. By this time he had already acheived fame with the celebrated railroad fare in my jeans; because I was so made that I couldn’t work all my life on ‘one same shift;’ because—well, just because it was easier to than not to.”1 —Jack London

The Road by Jack London First Edition, 1907 Signed by the author to Sculptor Finn Haakon Frolich Courtesy Andy Dreamingwolf

66 67 Tramp life—how Jack London traveled on a passenger coach December 1907 Courtesy Library of Congress, Prints & Photographs Division, George Grantham Bain Collection, LC-USZ62-51743

Jack London, The Road 2 UK Edition, 1946 Army and floating down the Desmoines River are recounted in a chapter entitled, “Two Thousand Courtesy Andy Dreamingwolf Stiffs.” He describes train-hopping stories of besting brakemen3 and avoiding bulls4 along railroad routes. One such story mentions how a “shack,” or brakeman, would tie a coupling pin to a length novels, The Call of the Wild, The Sea Wolf, and White Fang. His Cosmopolitan essays would be of bell-cord and drop it underneath the train while it was moving to dislodge those men who were published together in 1907’s The Road. “riding the rods.” A-No.1, Leon Ray Livingston, would write about the same scenario in one of his books years later. The tale would eventually find its way to the big screen in a scene from Emperor The autobiographical memoir details many of London’s adventures, from hearing “road kids” talk, of the North (1973) starring Lee Marvin as A-No.1 and Ernest Borgnine as “Shack” (see lantern about life on the road, which helped stoke his interest in hitting the road himself, to how he got his film prop on page 33). moniker (Sailor Jack), as well as how others received theirs. While recalling knocking on back doors for meals, he tells how the poor always helped, while the rich did not, an ethos of his socialist views. Below is an excerpt from chapter six of The Road, “Hoboes That Pass in the Night.” London writes A tale of avoiding arrest is countered by getting “pinched,” or arrested, in Niagara Falls and doing a of chasing a fellow tramp over three thousand miles across Canada simply because the tramp, thirty-day stint in the Erie County Penitentiary. His name appears as “John Lundon” on line 176 of Skysail Jack, held a similar moniker, or “monica” as he worded it, to his own given name, the penitentiary records, listing his crime as “tramp.” The author’s time spent traveling with Kelly’s “Sailor Jack.”

67 “In the course of my tramping I encountered hundreds of hoboes, whom I hailed or who hailed me, Boo Gang—a gang with which I had affiliated at rare intervals. We talked fast and bolted the grub and with whom I waited at water-tanks, ‘boiled-up,’ cooked ‘mulligans,’ ‘battered’ the ‘drag’ or in the half-hour that followed. Then my freight pulled out, and I was on it, bound west on the trail of ‘privates,’ and beat trains, and who passed and were seen never again. On the other hand, there Skysail Jack. were hoboes who passed and re-passed with amazing frequency, and others, still, who passed like ghosts, close at hand, unseen, and never seen. “I was delayed between the passes, went two days without food, and walked eleven miles on the third day before I got any, and yet I succeeded in passing Skysail Jack along the Fraser River in “It was one of the latter that I chased clear across Canada over three thousand miles of railroad, British Columbia. I was riding ‘passengers’ then and making time; but he must have been riding and never once did I lay eyes on him. His ‘monica’ was Skysail Jack. I first ran into it at Montreal. passengers, too, and with more luck or skill than I, for he got into Mission ahead of me. Carved with a jack-knife was the skysail-yard of a ship. It was perfectly executed. Under it was ‘Skysail Jack.’ Above was ‘B.W. 9-15-94.’ This latter conveyed the information that he had passed Now Mission was a junction, forty miles east of Vancouver. From the junction one could proceed through Montreal bound west, on October 15, 1894. He had one day the start of me. ‘Sailor Jack’ south through Washington and Oregon over the Northern Pacific. I wondered which way Skysail was my monica at that particular time, and promptly I carved it alongside of his, along with the date Jack would go, for I thought I was ahead of him. As for myself I was still bound west to Vancouver. and the information that I, too, was bound west. I proceeded to the water-tank to leave that information, and there, freshly carved, with that day’s date upon it, was Skysail Jack’s monica. I hurried on into Vancouver. But he was gone. He “I had misfortune in getting over the next hundred miles, and eight days later I picked up Skysail had taken ship immediately and was still flying west on his world-adventure. Truly, Skysail Jack, Jack’s trail three hundred miles west of Ottawa. There it was, carved on a watertank, and by the you were a tramp-royal, and your mate was the ‘wind that tramps the world.’ I take off my hat date I saw that he likewise had met with delay. He was only two days ahead of me. I was a ‘comet’ to you. You were ‘blowed-in-the-glass’ all right. A week later I, too, got my ship, and on board and ‘tramp-royal,’ so was Skysail Jack; and it was up to my pride and reputation to catch up with the steamship Umatilla, in the forecastle, was working my way down the coast to San Francisco. him. I ‘railroaded’ day and night, and I passed him; then turn about he passed me. Sometimes Skysail Jack and Sailor Jack—gee! If we’d ever got together.”5 he was a day or so ahead, and sometimes I was. From hoboes, bound east, I got word of him occasionally, when he happened to be ahead; and from them I learned that he had become interested —Andy Dreamingwolf in Sailor Jack and was making inquiries about me.

“We’d have made a precious pair, I am sure, if we’d ever got together; but get together we couldn’t.

I kept ahead of him clear across Manitoba, but he led the way across Alberta, and early one bitter NOTES gray morning, at the end of a division just east of Kicking Horse Pass, I learned that he had been 1 Jack London, The Road, New York: MacMillan Company, 1907, 152. seen the night before between Kicking Horse Pass and Rogers’ Pass. It was rather curious the 2 A western wave of protesters marching toward Washington, D.C., concurrent with Coxey’s Army, which marched to way the information came to me. I had been riding all night in a ‘side-door Pullman’ (boxcar), and the nation’s capital from Massillon, Ohio. 3 Hopping a train was a cat-and-mouse game. Brakemen tried to keep hoboes from catching free rides. It was a true nearly dead with cold had crawled out at the division to beg for food. A freezing fog was drifting skill to avoid being caught or killed by both the brakemen and the trains themselves. When a hobo beat the brakeman by past, and I ‘hit’ some firemen I found in the round-house. They fixed me up with the leavings from out-hustling or out-thinking him to catch the ride, he had bested him. their lunch-pails, and in addition I got out of them nearly a quart of heavenly ‘Java’ (coffee). I heated 4 Railroad police, or detectives. 5 Jack London, The Road, 122–125. the latter, and, as I sat down to eat, a freight pulled in from the west. I saw a side-door open and a road-kid climb out. Through the drifting fog he limped over to me. He was stiff with cold, his lips blue. I shared my Java and grub with him, learned about Skysail Jack, and then learned about him. Behold, he was from my own town, Oakland, California, and he was a member of the celebrated

68 69 69 70 71 71 alm Tree Herby

From 19551 through November of 1980, a two-foot-tall drawing of a sombrero-wearing character, showing up about 1965?”5 St. Louis was the second largest hub in the nation at the time, which seated with his back leaning against an upright palm tree while taking a siesta, both bewildered allowed his dozing character to be circulated among infinite locales with great frequency. and entertained everyone from railroad employees working in the yards to motorists stopped at rail crossings while going about their daily routines. Those who viewed the image adorning the sides Mayer’s anonymity was concealed for so long, in part, due to his loyal coworkers who helped keep of countless freight cars crisscrossing the North American continent were all left to wonder about the secret even when attempts were made to identify the man behind the mark. One such attempt the artist’s identity and locale and why someone would apply the mark to so many “steel canvases.” was an ad placed in the UTU (United Transportation Union) News in 1979 asking for information This particular moniker offered no clue as to its owner, other than a signature accompanying the about the real Herby. As Mayer put it, “Heck yeah, even some of our railroad police knew I’ve date of each marking, appearing underneath the famous napping Mexican: “Herby.” been doing it, but even they kept the secret. I never really feared getting caught, my thing was to keep it secret.”6 Mayer only came forward at his family’s urging when he found out about a group After twenty-five years of anonymity, the real Herby stepped forward in November of 1980, two selling items emblazoned with the “Herby” drawing without his permission.7 Had it not been for months prior to retiring from a forty-one-year career as a switchman with the Terminal Railroad discovering this, we might have been left to wonder about the identity of this man behind the Association in St. Louis, Missouri. His name was Herbert A. Mayer (born July 23, 1918). The iconic drawing. married father of four had begun drawing the well-traveled moniker after giving up smoking and finding himself in need of a distraction while idling at work. Crews often sat in a caboose while Herbert Mayer passed away on December 9, 1995, but his fading marks, now extremely rare, waiting for cars, but he kept busy by walking the length of the cars in the yard. “I have a lot of can still be found rolling around the country. Before he was discovered, the editor of the Missouri nervous energy. I started drawing ‘Herby’ over in the Sauget rail yards when I had stopped smoking Pacific safety newsletter wrote: “Herby is becoming as much a part of rail lore as steam engines, and got restless waiting for the American Zinc man to tell me what he wanted done with his cars. It was just a doodle.”2

Mayer first drew “Herbys” with yellow lumber crayons before eventually switching to Markal Paintstiks3 after discovering the crayoned marks faded after a few years. He said he could draw the mark in twenty seconds, but tended to average about thirty. “I could go around a freight train with 120 cars in about thirty minutes. Some of the railroads painted over my ‘Herbys,’ but then I did some more over the new paint. On a good day I can do 200 or more; on a bad day, maybe ten.”4 He was rumored to have marked 700,000 freight cars; a number he disputed, but responded to by saying, “There are 3.5 million freight cars out there and each has two sides. So you are talking HERBIE HO scale model boxcar about seven million car surfaces. Do you realize how many I had to do before I started to see them Courtesy Andy Dreamingwolf

72 73 pocket watches, and Casey Jones.”8 As Mayer himself would reflect, “It’s always been a fun thing with me, both drawing ‘Herby’ and hearing comments: ‘Who? What? Where? When? Don’t that S.O.B. have anything else to do? I’ve had more fun. Herby helped me through some bad spots in my life. The Mexican is not me, but I’ve always been a loner, so in a way maybe he is me.”9

—Andy Dreamingwolf

NOTES 1 Cindy Yingst, The San Bernadino County Sun, July 29, 1984, B-4. 2 Sally Bixby Defty, St. Louis Post-Dispatch, March 8, 1981, 7. 3 A solid paint marker combining the durability of paint in the convenience of a crayon. It is long lasting, weather/UV resistant, and works well on a variety of surfaces. It is used in many industrial applications including metal fabrication, construction, railroads, tire repair, and casting foundries. 4 Cal Samara, Battle Creek Enquirer, January 22, 1981, A-2 5 Sally Bixby Defty, St. Louis Post-Dispatch, March 8 1981, 7. 6 Cal Samara, Battle Creek Enquirer, January 22, 1981, A-2. 7 Ibid. 8 Cal Samara, Battle Creek Enquirer, January 22, 1981, A-1. 9 Cal Samara, Battle Creek Enquirer, January 22, 1981, A-2.

Herby moniker on railcar panel, 1980 Terminal Railroad Association Patch (TRRA) On loan from the National Hobo Museum, Britt, Iowa Courtesy Andy Dreamingwolf

73 “Help Us Find Herby” “A Mexican in Maine” by Herb Ceaves Photograph by Colleen Claybourn Bangor Daily News (Bangor, Maine), November 5, 1979 Collection Michael Green

“If I drew different things, it wouldn’t mean anything. I always stuck to Herby. It’s kinda like the ‘Kilroy was here’ drawing. Everybody wanted to know who Kilroy was. There were all kinds of

stories about Kilroy, just like there are about me.” “Leaving His Mark” —Herbert A. Mayer, The Journal Herald, November 5, 1980 Detroit Free Press (Detroit, Michigan), March 10, 1981

74 75 H.A. Mayer “Herby” Shirt Courtesy The Solo Artist

75 up too much about the artist, because there has to be this mysterious aura. ”Faded Glory has released thirty issues to date. When questioned about whether we should expect another issue, Mick’s only response was, “Who knows?”

One of the most recent recurring moniker art zines, Boxcar Art Forever, has been published in onikers in the Independent Media California since 2013. Ten black-and-white, photocopied issues have been produced, featuring photographs, articles, and interviews with contemporary moniker artists. The author, Bob the Bencher, plans to release a new issue of Boxcar Art Forever in the very near future. “Freedom of the press is guaranteed only to those who own one.”1 —A.J. Liebling —Kurt Tors In 2018, the ability to share information has never been easier. Through Internet and smartphone applications such as Facebook and Instagram, one can post a story and photos nearly instantly and it can be viewed publicly with minimal effort. Tales of the road, along with photos and drawings, NOTES have traditionally been discussed among fans and those who participate, but the methods to share 1 A.J. Liebling, The New Yorker, “The Wayward Press: Do You Belong in Journalism?” 1960. 2 Phone interview with Mick Trackside, conducted January 20, 2018. such experiences have not always been readily available. Much like the do-it-yourself attitude of art produced on railcars, the portrayal of life on the rails has been documented and produced independently in publications called “zines” (short for “magazines”) since the 1930s.

One of the earliest examples is the Hash on Life Scrapbook by Jeff Davis, “King of Hoboes” a collection of newspaper clippings, articles about hobo life, photographs, and moniker drawings. Four known reprints have occurred, the last in 1961, with each edition having more content added.

Standard Capp Magazine was a color-photocopied and hand-stapled, aerosol graffiti zine based in Texas, published by a man known as “Ghouls.” The fourth issue was groundbreaking when released in October of 2000. Stepping away from the usual aerosol format, this issue was a full-color, all-chalk-art moniker issue, the first of its kind. It featured an introduction explaining the reason for the special issue, and every remaining page was chock-full of photographs of monikers found on railcars. As this was not the publication’s norm, the reactions were, indeed, mixed. Just one issue was created in this format.

The longest-running moniker publication, Faded Glory Magazine, was first published in 2001. The editor/creator, Mick Trackside, stated, “Faded Glory was the first strictly moniker zine, hands down; “How the Word Hobo Originated” there was nothing else that I could find.”2 His first issue featured an interview with Colossus of Hash on Life scrapbook 4th edition, 1961 By Jeff Davis, “King of Hoboes” Roads. He continued, “The reason I wanted to do Faded Glory is because I’m against coffee table Courtesy Andy Dreamingwolf type stuff, just pretty pictures and nothing else. I wanted for there to be information…not giving

76 77 Zines on this page courtesy buZ blurr, Luke Connor, Andy Dreamingwolf The Ghouls, Scot Phillips, and Kurt Tors

77 78 79 79 Still frame from Operation ilroy Was Here Crossroads Atom Bomb Test, Bikini Atoll film 1946 In the summer of 1945, nine weeks after the unconditional surrender of Nazi Germany, the world’s Courtesy National Archives (20943, ADC 7171) Allied Powers of the United States, Great Britain, and the Soviet Union met in what was known as the Potsdam Conference to discuss reparations and to determine postwar borders. In Germany, on the grounds of Cecilienhof, the home of Crown Prince Wilhelm, where the meetings took place, an While the “Kilroy was here” phrasing was definitively an American invention, the drawing that outhouse was erected for exclusive use by Teddy Roosevelt, Winston Churchill, and Joseph Stalin. It would come to be associated with it most certainly was not. That honor goes to the U.K., and just as is rumored that Soviet leader Stalin, after having emerged from the newly constructed facility, was there are varying stories about Kilroy’s origin, so too are there for the character who would come to said to have asked an aide, “Who is Kilroy?”1 Apparently Kilroy had been there, too. be known as Mr. Chad.

“Kilroy was here” is the popular phrasing made famous during World War II by servicemen who Long before the drawing was the appearance of cockney tag lines in public locales, such as, “Wot, wrote it upon the sides of countless military equipment, munitions, walls, latrines, signs, and other no dial-tone?” scratched on the wall of a telephone booth, or “Wot, no rebate?” fingered on a dusty surfaces. So popular was it that it can be found today engraved twice on the World War II Memorial income-tax office window. As World War II progressed, these phrases reflected whatever might in Washington, D.C., unveiled in 2004. During the war, when GIs showed up to an unfamiliar be in short supply due to rationing. “Wot, no Petrol?” and “Wot, no Stockings?” reflected a dry location, they were often greeted by the mark which let them know for certain “Kilroy” had been British wit and helped inject some humor into the struggles many were enduring. there. It provided some much-welcomed comic relief in their distant home away from home. So well-traveled is “Kilroy” that the mark has been spotted all around the globe. From the top of the The image of a character with a bald head, a question mark atop it like a curling hair, addition- Statue of Liberty to the base of the Arc de Triomphe, these omnipresent scribbles have inhabited our sign eyes, and a proboscis-like nose, which dangles over a wall onto which the figure hangs with spaces for three quarters of a century. The phrasing is most frequently accompanied by a bulbous- clasping fingers, cannot be pinpointed to a particular origin, but there are many theories as to its nosed character with a large, elongated bald head peering over a wall and fingers dangling on either creation. While both the British Army and Air Force claim to have “discovered” him, one theory 2 side. There are many similar versions of the drawing, and captioning with varying names such as is that he originated as a doodle by a Royal Electrical Mechanical Engineer (REME). The curving Foo, Smoe, Mr. Chad, Clem, and Jeep, and while “Kilroy” may not have been the first, there is no line passing through a straight line (in the image it acts as Chad’s wall) is a standard symbol for AC denying it is the most well-known of them all. current and voltage. The plus signs, which form his eyes, are a positive polarity symbol. Sometimes he is featured with a minus sign (the negative polarity symbol) for one eye, as though winking. Comparisons can be made between the mark and that of its predecessor, J.B. King Esq, in that it Zigzag interruptions in the straight line, or wall top, easily interpreted as fingers appearing over the was not created by any one person, but rather by a multitude of individuals who continue the mark edge, are symbols of electrical resistance. It has been suggested the drawing may be a simplified and its legacy today. diagram of a meter bridge.3 Other popular origins suggest the character was created by cartoonist

80 81 Many varying stories have been told of Kilroy’s origin, the first having been published in 1945. Francis J. Kilroy, a twenty-one-year-old Army Air Force recruit from Everett, Massachusetts, was stationed in a Boca Raton, Florida, training camp in 1943. Apparently, while he was sick with the flu, one of his good friends, James Maloney of Chicago, who missed being able to patronize the bars with him, wrote, “Kilroy will be here next week” on the wall of a latrine. It was said the phrase was then repeated and repeated with variances to the wording at different locations. Another story of Kilroy’s origin relates to an unknown infantryman who grew tired of hearing the Air Force brag about always being first on the spot. Yet another tale tells of two disgruntled would-be frogmen who drew a caricature of a Marine sergeant named Roy Schodee and penned the words “Kill Roy”beneath it. There are others, including the widely accepted story of James J. Kilroy who said he chalked “Kilroy was here” to prove he had counted rivets installed on the tanks, double bottoms, and other areas of newly built Liberty warships. In addition to these claims of the phrase’s origin were the unfortunate soldiers burdened with having the “Kilroy”surname. They sometimes caught the ire of officers who accused them of writing the phrase or of having been AWOL, and were made to remove the unwelcome markings. Mr. Chad card game c. 1940s “Rainbow Corner, Red Cross Club in Piccadilly Courtesy Andy Dreamingwolf As the “Kilroy” phenomenon grew and returning soldiers brought tales of its sightings stateside, Circus, closed, evoking this comment by Chad” Life Magazine the phrase both endeared itself to the public and ingrained itself into pop culture. It entered the March 18, 1946 lexicon used among soldiers, at times referred to as “Kilroys.” The name was soon seen attached Courtesy Andy Dreamingwolf to ad campaigns, a movie production, restaurants and bars, newspaper cartoons, and songs. It could be seen adorning fashion items and knick-knacks. Throughout the years, the phrase and/or George Edward Chatterton,4 and another suggests it was an adaptation of the Greek letter drawing has raised its bald head, appearing on albums by musicians including established artists “omega,” which again is utilized as the symbol for electrical resistance.5 At some point during the like The Rolling Stones and Styx. Television shows and cartoons alike have given nod to “Kilroy” war, with the intermingling of allied troops, Mr. Chad emerged with the “Kilroy was here” caption as well. Mash, Seinfeld, Looney Tunes, and Futurama reside among others that have included the beneath it. iconic marking. From its inception to present-day, “Kilroy” can still be spotted.

One story of Chad’s orneriness happened at a northern England Army camp, where his “Wot, Capitalizing on the “Kilroy” popularity, Monogram Pictures released the aptly titled Kilroy Was Here no?” phrases were scrawled everywhere. The commanding officer called the men together and film in July of 1947. The motion picture starred former Our Gang actor Jackie Cooper in the role announced, “This Chad business has gone too far. From now on, anyone pinning up these silly of fictitious Army serviceman, John J. Kilroy. Cooper had, in fact, served in the Navy during World things will get twenty-eight days C.B. [confined to barracks]!” After dismissing the men, he War II, achieving the rank of captain. The former child star had the distinction of once being the returned to his office to find a message from Chad on his desk. Underneath the drawing was the youngest actor to be nominated for an Academy Award for best actor in a leading role for his work caption, “Wot, only 28 days?” in the 1931 picture, Skippy, which catapulted him to larger featured roles. He filmed a number of these features coincidentally enough with Wallace Beery.

81 “Kilroy Was Here” True Comics July 1947, pages 6–8 Courtesy Andy Dreamingwolf

Beery had starred in Beggars of Life, a 1928 film based on former “road kid” Jim Tully and his claiming to have originated the famed mark; however, one respondent stood out among all the 1924 novel. The Champ (1931) and Treasure Island (1934) were two of the more well-known others. His name was James J. Kilroy. He was not, nor had he ever been, a soldier, but was a forty- films Cooper and Beery made together. Kilroy Was Here depicts John J. Kilroy not as the famed six-year-old former Boston city councilor who, two days prior to the attack on Pearl Harbor in 1941, doodler but as a GI reluctant to accept the attention he receives for having the same name as the started work as a rate-setter for the Bethlehem Steel Company at the Fore River shipyard in Quincy, mysterious artist. There are many visuals depicting the drawing and its caption, from the opening Massachusetts. credits, to a brig showing the chalk mark and caption on a wall, to, oddly enough, a potato. Cooper’s character at one point picks up a chair and peers over it like the drawing. A faux coffin painted with As he told it in 1947, “I started my job with enthusiasm, carefully surveying every inner bottom and the character is used in one scene, and an individual scrawls the drawing and caption on the door tank before issuing a contract. I was thoroughly upset to find that practically every test leader I met of a fraternity house at its conclusion. The movie even gives a nod to Mr. Chad at its beginning. wanted me to go down and look over his job with him, and when I explained to him that I had seen the job and could not spare the time to crawl through one of these tanks again with him, he would In 1946 the American Transit Association sponsored a contest on the Spotlight on America radio accuse me of not having looked the job over. I was getting sick of being accused of not looking the program to try to unmask the identity of the one, true “Kilroy.” Nearly forty individuals responded, jobs over and one day, as I came through the manhole of a tank I had just surveyed, I angrily marked

82 83 83 “Kilroy was Here” promotional card 1947 Courtesy Andy Dreamingwolf

“Kilroy was Here!” lapel pin c. 1940s Courtesy Andy Dreamingwolf

Kilroy was Here movie poster 1947 Courtesy Andy Dreamingwolf with a yellow crayon on the tank top, where testers could see it, ‘KILROY WAS HERE.’ The following Kilroy himself never drew the cartoon, which became associated with his mark. To verify his claims, day a test gang leader approached me with a grin on his face and said, ‘I see you looked my Kilroy asked company officials and riveters from the shipyard to confirm his version of events. He job over.’”6 was determined to be the original “Kilroy” and won the contest. His prize was an actual twenty- two-ton trolley car. The bright orange car was transported thirty-five miles over a two-day period From then on when he inspected a job, Kilroy scrawled the phrase over what he had inspected, and from the Boston Elevated Railway shops in Everett to the Kilroy home in Halifax, Massachusetts, while normally these locations would have received several coats of paint, they were rushed to sea where it became a playhouse for the family’s nine children. during wartime without the coats applied. He believed the 14,000 shipyard workers who entered the armed services were responsible for its subsequent worldwide use, as servicemen would see the While Kilroy’s mark has appeared all over the globe, he himself was not as well traveled. He never marks on their deployment and write it themselves at the locations where they eventually landed. It left Massachusetts except to visit horse tracks, where he enjoyed handicapping races. James J. was said that at a Bethlehem Steel shipyard in Texas, management instructed employees to write Kilroy passed away at the age of sixty on November 26, 1962. “Kilroy was here” on every barge sent out. —Andy Dreamingwolf

84 85 Kilroy obituary November 26, 1962 Courtesy Andy Dreamingwolf

Photograph from “A home for Kilroy’s children: Is he in Halifax, Mass., to stay?” Newsweek, January 6, 1947 Courtesy Andy Dreamingwolf

Notes

1 Independent Press-Telegram, May 13, 1962, A-7. page 83 2 A corps of the British Army, Royal Electrical and Mechanical Engineers maintain the technical equipment of all units of “Kilroy was Here” salt and pepper “Kilroy was Here” MacMillan Oil ad the Army. shakers c. 1940s 3 The Observer, November 19, 2000, 15. c. 1940s “Kilroy was Here” vinyl audio record 4 Life, March 18, 1946, 20. “Kilroy was Here” Corby’s liquor ad Song written and performed by King Perry & 5 Ludington Daily News, “Changing Patterns in World Graffiti,” March 16, 1977, 19. May 17, 1948 His Orchestra 1947 6 Frank W. Hoffmann, PhD and William G. Bailey, MA, Mind & Society Fads, 1992. “Kilroy” pinball machine ad “Kilroy” buttons c. 1940s c. 1940s “Kilroy” patches “Kilroy was Here” figurine c. 1940s c. 1940s All courtesy Andy Dreamingwolf

85 86 87 87 union in 1899, asking to hold the convention four hundred miles west. Britt hosted the convention beginning in 1900, and continues to do so today.

Hoboes have visited the annual gathering in Britt for more than a century, participating in the weekend’s events, sharing stories, visiting the National Hobo Museum, and dining on mulligan stew. They carry monikers like Road Hog USA, Fry Pan Jack, Fishbones, Sidedoor Pullman Kid, Steam Train Maury, The Coast Kid, Boxcar Betty, The Pennsylvania Kid, and numerous others. One name of note among the attendees was Iowa Blackie, a staple at the event who was elected “Hobo King” in 1993. Born Richard Gage, he hopped his first train at the age of fourteen, climbing out of the ational Hobo Convention window of his New Hampton, Iowa, home at two-thirty on the morning of June 20, 1963. Dodging Walt, the town cop, he caught the stirrup of an ore car on a Chicago Great Western freight,5 holding A hobo wanders and works on for the next thirty-four miles. “Along the way the sun came up, and I was falling into the sun, A tramp wanders listening to the clatter of the wheels, it was a saturated feeling, something got into me…I wondered 6 A bum neither wanders or works1 what kind of people did this all the time. It was the inspiration of my future chosen career.”

Years later, hoboes with whom he was hanging out in Hampton, Iowa, gave him the moniker, The individuality monikers encompass are none better related than to the hobo. Many tend to “Hampton Blackie.” Some locals had taken to throwing rocks at the hoboes, forcing them to leave romanticize the hobo’s place in American culture. That fascination boils down to the simplicity the area. “I didn’t want to be associated with someplace where they do things like that to people, of the ultimate freedom of the individual. so I changed it to Iowa Blackie, since I was raised in Northeast Iowa anyway.”7 Iowa Blackie would Hoboes who took to the rails and roads of America in search of temporary employment, were go on to document his travels, writing poems, and publishing them in several books. He caught the often the targets of police agencies assigned to enforce local vagrancy laws. These measures westbound on February 24, 2011. were aimed to minimize the influx of migratory workers. However, individuals who were card- carrying union members could not be prosecuted for vagrancy in any city while attempting to —Andy Dreamingwolf gain employment. The subject of arrests, along with the benefits of being a union member, were discussed fireside in a hobo jungle2 off the mainline of the B&O Railroad in Ohio in the mid-1800s.3 To combat the problematic policies, hoboes at this location formed Tourist Union #63, so named for the sixty-three hoboes present at the time. NOTES 1 uni.edu, http://uni.edu/carrchl/wp/allaboard/hobo-culture/ via hobo convention website. The founding members would register their union in Cincinnati, Ohio, occupying a small office at 2 Camps consisting of transient hobo communities usually congregated near a railroad where trains stop to change crews, but not close enough to draw attention. Here the traveler can wash up, get some sleep, or grab a meal. 1143 West Market Street near the B&O and Nickel Plate Railroads.4 The union would go on to hold 3 HoboNews.com, June 20, 2014, via globegazette.com. a national hobo convention every August. There, they would sign up new members, collect dues, 4 Ibid. and bestow by vote the titles of King, Queen, and other various royal designations upon members. 5 Chicago Great Western Railway was a Class I railroad that operated from 1885–1968 and linked Chicago with Kansas City, Omaha, and Minneapolis. The conventions were held in a different city every year until 1887, when Chicago was voted to host 6 Star Tribune, “Hobo poet rides rails to freedom,” July 4, 1992, 1. the following year’s gathering. It would go on to be held there for the next twelve years. The town 7 Star Tribune, October 11, 1984, 36. of Britt, Iowa, in an attempt to make a name for itself and boost the local economy, approached the

88 89 National Hobo Convention license plate January 7, 1980 Courtesy Andy Dreamingwolf

Iowa Blackie 1990 Courtesy Andy Dreamingwolf

Hobo Day Poster, 1937 Courtesy Andy Dreamingwolf

Autographed photo of “Steam Train Maury” Courtesy Scot Phillips Iowa Blackie publications 1991–1993 Courtesy Andy Dreamingwolf

89 were drawn and easily visible. There is not a wealth of archival material from this era, and now, through constant change, the industry determines what you still see.4 “Most are gone now; [the marks] have been painted over or the cars scrapped altogether,” Green explained. “We see through to the past with these photographs.”

Deep in conversation with Claybourn, Green gushed about driving the Midwest, seeking out farmers who used boxcars on their properties.5 He expounded about the idea that climate keeps the railcar paint from fading; that, at the very least, there was a catchy slogan in a stylized font or an advertisement for a passenger train that hadn’t existed in fifty years. “All of my time that day was olleen Claybourn’s Moniker Photography spent with her, at her booth,” Green said.

The collection of Colleen Claybourn includes photographs that are powerful as individual images, but 1 Furloughed from the Montana division of BNSF Railway in March of 2016, Michael Green made a as a whole, it reveals a dynamic glimpse into mark-making during a particular time period. Water stop at a train show in his hometown of New Braunfels, Texas. There, he had a chance encounter Bed Lou, Herby, Bozo Texino, Proviso, and many more are legible, represented in a clean context, with Colleen Claybourn, a widow from Palacios, a small fishing community in East Texas. She sat unobstructed by age and elements, or concealed by others. at a nondescript table, surrounded by an assortment of her husband’s possessions, a menagerie of railroad trinkets, random items, and HO scale2 train cars. She said it was her husband’s collection, “Colleen was willing to take the time and energy to highlight the moniker in its own right,” Green which she had saved for ten years since his passing. noted with admiration. “Film photography is a commitment of time and resources. She found importance enough to utilize those resources. She passed this collection on to me. Part of the Green conversed with Claybourn about his interest in monikers and his interactions with farmers as deal was my promise to mail her Palm Tree Herby stickers I had made to give to farmers as a he sought out railroad markings. While rifling through Colleen’s binders of photographs, he noticed thank you.” a palm tree3 and said something like, “I think your husband and I would have really gotten along,” to which she replied, “I took those! He photographed the trains and I photographed the art on the —Scot Phillips with Michael Green sides.” For her, this was a way she was able to spend meaningful time with her husband, as the two shared a genuine interest in monikers.

Before that encounter, Green did not typically search through photographs at train shows. As fate NOTES would have it, he was drawn to Claybourn’s table and he said he, “just decided to [look through 1 Burlington Northern Santa Fe. 2 The HO model train 1:87 scale developed after World War I to create tabletop railway layouts. photos] that day, spotted a palm tree, then another…” 3 Herbert A. Mayer drew the famous Herby moniker—a sombrero-topped figure taking a siesta against a palm tree. 4 Railroad companies consistently change out cars depending on the demand for certain models that may carry a “Well, look at these!” Claybourn exclaimed, pulling out more archives from a stack of items behind certain or wide range of products or industrial goods. Cars are repainted, rebuilt, and repurposed constantly, and for that reason many monikers are lost. her. In these binders resided her photographs, unseen documentation from a period of massive 5 Southern railroads often sold obsolete boxcars to farmers, who used them for utility sheds and outbuildings. infrastructure turnover. The 1970s and ’80s encompassed a major transition era for equipment, boxcars, and rail machinery. Nowadays, one sees a photograph or an old railcar and tries to make opposite out what mark is there, or what may have been there that is now obscured. But, Claybourn’s Moniker Photographs Photographed by Colleen Claybourn photographs represent the heart of a period of dynamic creation, a time when these notable marks Collection Michael Green

90 91 91 ead Between the Lines

The moniker is a simple line drawing or name scrawled onto the side of a train, wall, water tower, or other trackside surface, and is often anonymous; the art itself is intended to be quick and repetitive. Take, for instance, two of the most widely-known monikers. (Grandpa) Bozo Texino is a forward profile of a man wearing a cowboy hat, smoking a cigarette. Similarly, the Colossus of Roads is a condensed, yet highly stylized, side profile drawing of a man smoking a pipe, wearing a cowboy hat. The creators of these monikers sketch them effortlessly, in seconds, and have done so repeatedly over the course of decades on upward of 100,000 or more trains. No art degree or Grandpa formal training is needed to create this art form. The moniker is, in essence, the true embodiment 1992 of folk art, the art of the common person expressing his or her aspirations, frustrations, and ideas. Photograph by Bill Daniel Courtesy the artist Sometimes moniker artists draw what comes to mind—or mark their territory as they navigate through life on the rails. When exactly such personalized markings gave way to the first moniker is difficult to pinpoint. Perhaps it started with an overzealous railroad brakeman killing time between switching lines of cars, or the tramp “riding the blind”1 and bragging about it on the side of the car. The railroad has long been a subject on which many wax poetic, and understandably so. These Whatever it may be, the Moniker: Identity Lost and Found team is grateful for this mystery person’s hulking steel monsters are constantly on the move and are often noticed only by impatient drivers act, as it sparked a new connection and fascination between art and the railroad. stuck at crossings when late for a meeting. While communities rally against the “bomb trains”2 and complain of being awakened at all hours of the night with their horns blowing, there is a subset Moniker: Identity Lost and Found seeks to document and display this art form that is in no way of train lovers who hear the same horns as music for their souls. The click-clack of the rails and ties archival. Each mark has a limited time of display before being erased from the side of the railcar, bouncing on ballast as tons of weight roll on the long steel rails above can act medicinally for those thus eliminating it permanently from history. Monikers typically last between ten and thirty years, who truly love the railroad. disappearing as railcars are decommissioned, painted over, cleaned, or weathered by the elements so that pigment from the artist’s paint stick fades. Occasionally a “ghosted” mark will appear on An anonymous moniker writer once told me, “I’ve never understood anyone who wants to be around a railcar, this is when the oil in the moniker has preserved the original paint of the car, and as the trains but doesn’t cherish the railroad.” It’s quite easy to show appreciation for these mile-long pigment of the moniker itself fades, the ghosted mark appears in its place as the rest of the original or longer magnificent metal machines. But why would artists want to risk discipline, arrest, or car’s paint fades. their lives to create this art form? Each answer is slightly different, but all seem to point back to

92 93 Found art postcard, inscribed by The Rambler in 2017 Beaumont, Texas, 1908 Courtesy Andy Dreamingwolf

something larger than the artist himself. A tag3 on the street will remain in place, to be seen by me to turn thoughts off, no thoughts of work/home, I’m walking around focused. It’s time alone passersby until removed. A mark on a train will travel North America and can be seen by people with my thoughts which is hard for some people to come by these days, it’s therapy.”4 spread over thousands of miles. The moniker, itself, is soon personified with a life of its own and travels via rail from town to town like a hobo. Over the past three years of development for this show, I have spoken to dozens of moniker artists. Each seemed to have a different reason for creating his or her mark. The Rambler, a retired North American trains will see places that sometimes have no roads on which to drive, no towns railroader who began his career with the Houston Belt and Terminal Railway, seemed to find similar with modern amenities; there is nothing but raw land covered in tracks. If you ever want to solace in the rails as did Homebrew. He explained his process of working through problems by discover “the middle of nowhere,” look at a railroad map for the routes it traverses. Many of walking a line of railcars. “When I’m upset or uptight, I like to walk a railroad yard. When it’s just these roads were laid out two or more generations ago, before wireless telephones, in a pre- me and boxcars, that’s where I’m comfortable—amongst all that steel. Nothing bothers me when digital landscape. This alone can be a moniker-writer’s reason to be trackside, an escape from I’m there, it’s just my environment. When I have problems, I will start walking and chalking and I modern-day entrapments. The moniker artist, Homebrew, told me walking a line of cars brings will think them out. Every Sunday at the Port [of Beaumont, Texas], I’d get the dog, the twelve- him an unparalleled sense of serenity. “For me, a moniker is a completely peaceful and tranquil pack, and a box of chicken. I’d walk the line, ‘walk and chalk’ as I called it.”5 experience... it’s quiet, the only sound is nature. It’s like a nature walk, the only thing I hear is the crunch of the ballast, its peaceful meditation experience often early in the a.m. It’s time for me to The moniker takes on the role of the traveler, a piece of the artist’s expression—perhaps even a unplug all of the other shit in my life, and be walking around in quiet with my thoughts. It allows small part of his or her soul if you believe in such things—and it sets off on a voyage across the

93 country to go places that will never even be seen by the artist themselves. Texican Gothic, often contribution is beneficial to understanding and developing an appreciation of monikers as a whole. referred to as “Tex Goth,” shared his feelings about the moniker and its travels. “I’m always The history of folk art has forever been altered as railroad monikers are becoming recognized as a thinking, ‘Where is this train going to go? Where is it going to end up? Who is going to see it?’ legitimate form of art, documented by fanatics and historians alike. The Rambler was the one I noticed the most early on, it made me want to draw on trains…to put something out there that represented myself that would become a tangible part of the railroad.”6 —Kurt Tors

Khaze—a very animated person—much like his drawings, had a very different take on monikers and their existence. He said he had always been aware of drawings along the sides of trains as he worked as a brakeman for the Union Pacific. The first streak he noticed was Herby, and within a NOTES short time, someone informed him that the artist behind Herby was a carman from Saint Louis. The 1 A term often heard in old railroading songs meaning to ride a passenger train in the baggage car or another freight intrigue grew and he found himself copying some of the drawings he saw on cars onto scrap pieces car. It was called the blind for it had no windows. of drywall. He stated that his first character, “Zap,” was a near copy of another character he saw, 2 “Bomb trains” is a pejorative term used by those who oppose trains that carry explosive materials such as petroleum or other flammable materials. Example http://www.chicagomag.com/Chicago-Magazine/May-2016/Bomb-Trains/. but altered a bit to make it his own. During our conversation, we discussed what his motivation was 3 A tag is the most basic writing of an artist’s name; it is simply a handstyle. A graffiti writer’s tag is his or her for creating monikers. Interestingly, Khaze had an answer unlike anyone else we had interviewed. personalized signature. Taken from https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Graffiti#Tagging Accessed 4/15/18. “It wasn’t a passion as much as it was a part of the railroad. I never had to sneak in and do it. It was 4 Phone interview conducted 3/21/18. 5 Phone interview conducted 3/25/18. a passing of the time and joining the group. I think, after a while, that my ego, and being an artist 6 Phone interview conducted 3/16/18. fell in a lot more—because it was nice quality you knew that it would get more attention. I do the 7 Phone interviews conducted on 3/25/18 and 3/13/18. same with my music, I never play half-assed, whether it’s to two German shepherds or hundreds of people.”

Khaze commented that the Internet actually played a positive role on his mark-making. As the photo-sharing website Flickr came into vogue, a group of people sharing photos of train art quickly manifested. He discovered this and found his own moniker noticed, photographed, and posted online. “I had no idea that there was a following until about 2009 on Flickr—and it was more motivation than anything else—that’s when I started doing it for more than just me. When it was being posted and catalogued on the Internet, it brought more and more ideas, I wanted to do more of it. When I build my art pieces now, I do two of the same and then I’m ready to do something different. I did realize that buZ and other guys were putting sayings (captions) underneath, and what kept me from doing that is [laughs] my spelling and vocabulary. I didn’t see that as something I wanted to do.”7

opposite This represents only a small collection of artists and their words about the art form that have made Found art photograph, Brakeman, them famous (or infamous in many cases). No matter what the motive may be for each of these inscribed by Khaze in 2017 Brakeman Church, Leroy Township, Ohio, 1975 artists, be it a physical attachment to the railroad that travels from town to town, the approval of Courtesy Andy Dreamingwolf their peers, finding a semblance of solace, or any other means of inspiration, we can all agree their

94 95 95 96 97 97 he Panels

The twenty-seven contemporary, living artists represented in the following images span fifty The imagery is known visually to those who choose to observe it, yet unknown in the art historical years of the moniker tradition. They appear in alphabetic order by name, accompanied by three canon. It is documented on railcars, yet previously undocumented in a museum context. The marks documented sightings of their monikers and bibliographic information when provided by the artist. upon these thirteen-pound steel sheets provide audiences an up-close glimpse into the art form of All panels were donated with the understanding they would be included not only in this exhibition the moniker. The individuals who contributed are rail workers, travelers, and those perpetuating the and catalog, but made part of the Massillon Museum’s permanent collection. This will ensure they tradition. The exhibition’s objective in commissioning these panels is to preserve the identity last for generations, available for posterity to a museum audience and for research. of those working in this medium today.

To document a brief selection of those working in the medium, artists were given identical sheets of Great distances were traveled to retrieve many of the panels directly from the artists; many of nineteen-by nineteen-inch uncoated steel, on which their marks were rendered in white Markal to the marks were made while our team was present, while in the midst of conversation. It quickly neutralize the substrate and focus attention on the mark itself. Unlike traditional marks on railcars became obvious we were connected by a common interest that fostered mutual respect and a deep subject to the elements, these were created with the intention of documenting what is historically sense of camaraderie. Another advantage of the in-person visits was having the ability to record ephemeral to celebrate and preserve the culture of moniker mark-making. In the catalog, each oral histories that will also become part of the narrative. The panel format was chosen to give an moniker is paired with examples documenting its appearance in natural environments. appropriate amount of space for the artists to effectively render their marks and enable the viewer Through conversations, relationships, and references from artists, we were able to make to focus on the mark itself. connections with the moniker-writers in this section, both known and anonymous. This culture and its artists are extremely prolific. It would be prohibitive to attempt any comprehensive, encyclopedic collection of everything known and visible. While this is only a small fraction of working artists in the medium, it presents a wide range of styles and identities as expressed through marks. They represent a vast swath of geographic terrain, hailing from all over the United States, Canada, and Mexico.

98 99 2359

I worked briefly for both CN and CP as an intermodal groundman and top lift operator. Hopping trains in BC, I was given the nickname, “Owl,” by some fellow wanderers.

The mystery. The meditation. The trains themselves. The desire to become an anonymous and tiny legend.

99 Alquimia Ferrocarrilera

Mi gusto por marcar es el mismo que, por admirar la estructura Ferrocarrilera. Y me siento influen- ciado por otros garabatos. Mi marca es identificada por algunos amigos y otros vagos.

My reason to mark is the same as, to admire the railway structure. And I feel influenced by other scribbles. My brand is identified by some friends and other hoboes.

100 101 Coaltrain

The culture has influenced me as a person, some good, some not so good. I created it myself back in the 1970s doodling around on boxcars where I was raised. Next road, any load. Send it on its way and bring more. I don’t have twenty more years left to play around; I’m sixty years old now, but I will be doing my moniker until the day I die.

101 Colossus of Roads

I bid in an afternoon switch engine and worked the long field position whose primary responsibility was to make certain the rails didn’t roll out the downhill yard. I had brief periods of time between lining air joints and watching long shovings, so I started making drawings on the cars. My first character was following the norm of the medium, which was a name and date, given the redundancy of the icon as a constant. I began to use cryptic language as a variation, and tried to elevate the drawing from the comic to the heroic, thus in search of an identifying appellation, which became Gypsy Sphinx, the neutral minimally defined icon!

I decided to give the character an adequate send-off with a year of that caption, while searching around for a replacement. Doodling around in my sketchbook, I came up with a rider motif character, perhaps subliminally inspired by a visit from a ghost of the net, Bozo Texino. So I transitioned to this character and went back to the day-to-day different captions. Eventually my marks began to look like me!

102 103 Ed Haskel

I grew up by the tracks. There was a major derailment right by my house as a kid. Stacks of cars haunted my memories. It seemed the Southern Pacific left the scene for months. We would go play around the site. Perhaps that is where I saw my first “Marlboro man” moniker affixed to a side of one of the cars. That is not when I got the itch to leave my mark, but a memory I remember. Fast forward, I ended up falling in love with the mystery of these drawings and signatures. Leaving my mark for the future, I was able to communicate with those I would never meet otherwise. I consider myself retired from the practice now, but I’m always looking when time permits.

103 Fat Owl

They presented me with the Golden Handcuffs. I have worked for the railroad that is slightly better than CSX for over ten under fifteen. I’ve had a few jobs, but sometimes I wish that I was actually out moving freight.

I have met some really great people and opened my home to more than a few of them. I like clubs, but I really like small and secret clubs. I started seeing all of these really cool marks that were tagged in my city and state; I got really excited. When I first started seeing these monikers and started envisioning what I wanted mine to be, I immediately thought of two people: Ed Emberley and Don Pendleton.

104 105 Flangesqueal

Colossus inspired me to include captions referring to whatever occurred to me that day, and the name, “Flangesqueal,” was sort of a spin-off or rip-off of another guy’s tag, “Flangehead.” “Flange squeal” is a term for the high-pitched screech a train wheel makes as its flange rubs against the rail on curves; it is an ever-present factor in the noise of riding freights, hence the image of a guy with his hands over his ears.

105 I’m Ugly

I grew up along the tracks and quickly discovered the railroad was a place I could go to get away from the people in my neighborhood. Many years later, I realized I could actually get on those trains that were passing and escape the city itself. It’s been a way to blow off steam, to celebrate joys, to keep in touch with friends, and to disappear as needed.

Riding trains in Georgia in the early 2000s, waiting for a ride west out of Savannah for way too long, we noticed that a lot of hoboes had signed in under the bridge where we were sitting. There was this moment when we suddenly thought, “Why haven’t we been doing this?”

106 107 Khaze

My father and I are both retired switchmen. I worked for the Missouri Pacific/Union Pacific R.R. From October 23, 1971, till June 2013.

There is a lot of downtime involved in railroad work…also a lot of metal canvas. My first marks were done with a piece of drywall. There was a character that I would see from time to time, and I tried to make this drawing, and it turned into Zap! For many years this is all that I would do. At some point I became interested in many of the classic drawings, Gypsy Sphinx, Water Bed Lou, Easy Honey, Herby, and, of course, Colossus of Roads. I realized there were many other folks enjoying boxcar art. This led me to come up with my Brakeman, which is a tribute to buZ blurr’s cowboy… quick and easily recognized, and few strokes. I have no hidden agenda…it’s just art.

107 The Kodak Kidd

My connection is an ideology that boxcars are my traveling diary to share my thoughts with all to see throughout the USA, Canada, and Mexico. The unraveling roll of film represents my ever- changing life as it unravels, always accompanied with a quote and marked with the location and area.

108 109 Lamps

Le mystère fournit une raison pour se renseigner qui fournit une raison de vivre.

109 Leroy Drown

I grew up near the local spur. I would see them push cars on weekends. I always liked trains. As an adult I started to document railcars. I did this for a few years before starting to mark on them.

I am by no means an artist, and I didn’t want to just tag (not that my mark is anything special). I think that is why I waited three-plus years of walking lines to start marking. I really just respected the culture. I grew up in a house where my mom would be playing Jim Croce. I always liked the Leroy Brown song. My name is a play-off of that. The face I draw was a failed attempt to draw a fancy capital letter “D.”

110 111 Milktooth

It’s my place of work, my place of rest, my peace of mind; home. Conductor, brakeman. It’s a hermeneutic circle. The mark identifies and references myself as I reference the mark.

“We say the map is different from the territory. But what is the territory? Operationally, somebody went out with a retina or a measuring stick and made representations, which were then put on paper. What is on the paper map is a representation of what was in the retinal representation of the man who made the map; and as you push the question back, what you find is an infinite regress, an infinite series of maps. The territory never gets it all. […] Always, the process of representation will filter it out so that the mental world is only maps of maps, ad infinitum.”

These marks and signs can be individual, as unique snapshots; but it is important too, to look at the continuity of space, movement, and time we are ceaselessly embroidering onto steel. We are patchworking an endless gestalt quilt of our history in the making. And it’s beautiful.

111 Mr. Bass

I worked as a track maintenance employee, pounding spikes for two years. Then transferred to trainman working as a switchman for the rest of my career. Southern Pacific and Union Pacific, 1975 to 2016.

This was just something I did for myself. I told no one that was my mark. I enjoyed doing it in my own way; it was fun to do it. When I started seeing the Herby moniker, I thought that would be cool to see my name traveling around the country. The longevity of my mark and the distance traveled. It’s special to me to find one of my old marks. I haven’t seen older than ’83 for a long time. I am now retired so no new marking will be appearing.

112 113 NY Tomato

I’ve been actively writing monikers eight-ish years.

113 North Bank Fred

My grandfather was a conductor for the Rock Island R.R. My nickname is Fred, and I began riding on the Spokane, Portland, and Seattle Railway, the “North Bank Route.” The circle with the slash is an old hobo sign for a road that’s good to follow.

114 115 NOVA

I started riding freight trains at age twenty and rode all around the county for a few years. Eventually I settled in Richmond, Virginia (by way of South Carolina), and marking freight cars was a way to fill the void of no longer being in motion. It helped me remain connected to the railroad.

Being connected to the railroad helped expand my horizons (through free transportation). Through countless hours spent waiting on trains, I have learned the art of patience. The act of marking cars has been therapeutic frequently (although not always). I’ve made many long-lasting friendships through the railroad and moniker community.

115 POOH

I was raised around Watsonville Junction, Watsonville, California. We farmed next to the yards. I was taken in by the crews and, after having five children and raising them alone, I spent many hours at the yards until 1988. My son’s nickname was “Pooh” growing up. Still call him that.

Always have respect for others and take pride in your work.

116 117 The Rambler

We had a railroad safety meeting one time, and it was voluntary. Voluntary, but you better be there. So my general manager was there, and the vice president was also there, a very nice man. So we’re standing there talking. I’m there with an engineer who’s dead now, a conductor who’s still alive, and I think another conductor who’s also dead; there’s only one other person alive out of that conversation. So, one of these guys was kind of a smartass. First thing, we shake hands with the vice president of the railroad. “How’re you doing?” “Fine,” and all this. And so “mouth” he says, “Hey, Mr. Vice President, this is the guy that draws on all them cars! This is Rambler!” Man, I might as well turn in my keys, you know? He just looked at me and said, “You do that, you the one drawin’ on them cars?” Then he asked, “What do you use?” “I use chalk.” “You don’t use spraypaint?” “Nah, they don’t last very long,” I told him. “Do you write on engines? Cabooses, cars?” I said, “only cars.” Then he said, “Well that’s no problem, as long as you don’t write on engines or cabooses, and don’t spray paint, I don’t care.” So I got permission to do it.

117 Shrug

So, wandering/pedaling ’round Omaha in the chAir Force happening upon marks in UP yard by Missouri River and repeat. Then the hooks get set. Came back to CLEVEBURGH: Spray painting backwards morphed into crayons (MARKALS): ’cuz quick application, economical substitute, direct results, and so it now sticks as a humble medium for expression. I’m old-ish so it’s easy to jam this in on a weeknight, etc. and the little drawings go far and wide. Small stuff on big stuff going great distances (they say)...

My mark is the continuation of aerosol stuff reduced down to bare minimum sketches and then sloppier and squiggled ’cuz clean cuts and such gave way to the directness of a melting Markal on the sunny side of a hot grainer. Basically things from the margins of the notebook find their way to the margins of a grainer and me trying minimize differences between paper and grainer. Geez, but really it’s fishing. I go fishing; I’m glad to just be fishing. I don’t care if I catch any fish. I am just trying to kill time before it kills me but do it in fun way so not to be all morbid and shit.

118 119 Smokin’ Joe

My dad worked on the railroad for DT&I (Detroit, Toledo and Ironton). He was an oiler. He was in charge of greasing the journal boxes in the boxcars. He was already retired when they did away with journal boxes. I started at the DT&I, then it changed to the Grand Trunk, and finally the CN (Canadian National). That was the worst. I started as a fireman. A fireman was an engineer trainee. The only reason I got the job was because Ohio had a law that they needed a fireman, then I became an engineer. I was in the first group that made you go to class, engineer school.

You know, over the years I worked for quite a while before I started writing. Herby had to be the biggest inspiration. I copied all these monikers I’d see, drawing them into a book and I kept thinking what I was going to do. After that, I got started with Smokin’ Joe. I’m an engineer, that’s why there’s an engine on there and my name’s Joe. I never really worried about getting caught; all the detectives on the R. R. knew me and caught me all the time, but it didn’t matter, they didn’t care. The Detroit Edison boss wanted to catch me real bad. I did about fifty hoppers a day down there. He really wanted me bad—he said it would cost $200 each to buff all of those aluminum cars in the 1990s. He never caught me.

119 The Solo Artist

During the first three years of writing on freights with aerosol (’87, ’88, ’89), monikers were just about all I saw for other graffiti on them, and that sparked my interest. I learned about them, loved the history and continuity behind them, and then in mid-late 1989, I transitioned away from aerosol completely toward monikers.

120 121 Stonewall Jim

I am a retired car mechanic for Canadian National Railway, 1977 to 2015. I was changing wheels on railcars and I wanted to keep track of how many wheels I changed. So I decided to make my mark.

121 Swampy

I ride freight trains to travel North America. The skull was conceived while reading about how domesticated pigs can regress back into wild hogs when set free. They’ll grow tusks and coarse hair like their ancestors. I imagined a human skull rewilding but growing tusks and horns, which, to me, are almost the embodiment of ferality. I guess it was inspired by my desire to be free.

Rooted in American tradition, mystery, and romanticism, monikers are one of the most publicly accepted forms of vandalism. History and mystery are amazing companions. Everyone loves a good whodunit?

Keep life mysterious.

122 123 Take 5

Living in a mainline R.R. town offered me much to look at on rolling stock. After benching monikers for a long time and taking my first ride on a freight train, I realized there was something deeper I was seeking than the fame of being a graffiti artist. My friends and I took the graffiti scene as an open invitation to something bigger than just contemporary graffiti…we became railroad enthusiasts, railroad employees, moniker dispatchers, train riders, artists, and poets. The attractive aspect of moniker subculture was that it was indeed much older than contemporary graffiti, and that offered a more complete picture of what was happening in the train scene. Becoming an active participant in that scene was inevitable, as we were so deeply immersed in train subculture each day. The subculture has taught me many spiritual lessons about impermanence, synchronicity, joy, and community.

What we normally deem as incapable (wheelchair), and infinite (railroad tracks), are now combined in juxtaposition to create a synergistic icon of triumph over what seems impossible (wheelchair in train yard). Upon dispatch, this logo becomes a victory stamp for its paraplegic dispatcher, added to the sides of railcars to symbolize the struggle of the individual and the capacity to overcome what is deemed impossible.

123 Tex Goth

Seeing the drawings of The Rambler and other artists on trains rolling through my hometown was my first motivation. I wanted to make my own mark on the trains and have my drawings become a tangible part of the railroad. I liked the idea that the cars I marked would eventually become scattered throughout the North American rail network, crossing distant mountain ranges and deep rivers and vast deserts, rolling through dismal swamps and dark forests and unfamiliar cities, eventually—or possibly never—finding their way back to me in Texas. Later motivation came from my exposure to Colossus of Roads drawings and the cryptic captions they included. I wanted people who viewed my drawings to be captured with that same sense of wonder and curiosity I had about Colossus.

124 125 Wooden Axle (@)

I’d consider both railroad culture and moniker culture to be a part of railroader culture, which has just about defined me as a person. I’m a creative nostalgic who works for the railroad. It was just meant to be.

Wooden Axle was L&N slang for a no-good switchman. It was only by embracing the fact that I’m just not able to draw anything objectively beautiful that I could identify myself with my mark. Hopefully, a lot of mystery and wonder, but more than likely it’s a lot of time wasted.

125 he Tributes

Ten contemporary artists were invited to pay tribute to moniker artists regarded as pioneers and celebrated as influencers within the history of the tradition. Using their own hands to pay homage to these individuals, the contemporary artists elected to either recreate or reinterpret the original marks. In the pages that follow, each tribute panel is accompanied by three photographs (top of page) illustrating the monikers that served as muses for the panels. The bottom three images on each page document occurrences of the contemporary artist’s moniker. J.B. King Esq and Bozo Texino tribute panels were created by anonymous artists. These panels honor those moniker artists unable to represent themselves in this exhibition.

Matokie Slaughter moniker Photograph by Bob Bencher

126 127 Bozo Texino (Grandpa) Tribute by Anonymous

127 Conrail Twitty Tribute by Sir William

When my brother, Travis “Conrail Twitty,” passed away, I began marking trains. We were nine years apart in age so I didn’t get the chance to know him on a personal level well. In the couple of years just before his passing we were starting to scrape the surface of who each other really were. I was old enough to not just be a kid anymore. Trains and monikers played a huge role in Travis’s life. We had talked about it some; I was very intrigued by it all. I wanted him to introduce me to the ins and outs of the culture, but he was reserved and I didn’t want to pry. After his passing I jumped into the train and moniker world as a way to cope with his death and learn who he was. It began to help me on many levels personally besides getting to know my brother.

128 129 Herby Tribute by Faves

Years ago, I chose not to seek employment with the railroad because it is in my true passion for trains where I feel an escape. It is a therapy from the chaos of life and noise of society. I am not sure why trains are so deeply entrenched in my blood and marrow but that is the way it has always been since I have been. The sights, sounds, smells, history…the art!

I would like to think that my mental moniker alter ego represents the best of me. I strive to live up to what my icon represents and the captions and words that I convey to so many eyes and minds. I am proud to be considered a part of the moniker and railroad art culture. Through the steel network I have met some of the most genuine, conscious, creative, and decent souls in the fellow artists and moniker madmen that I have been lucky enough to encounter. In most cases forming lifelong friendships and brotherhoods.

129 Iowa Blackie Tribute by Homebrew

I’ve made friends and enemies doing this. The good probably outweighs the bad. Marking trains clears my head, and I’ll take all the clarity I can get.

I’d like to think that I’m in control of who can identify me and my mark synonymously. But I guess that’s naïve. I just want a friend to be reminded of me and smile about an experience we had.

Please respect the culture. When you stop getting Instagram likes and cast it aside, some of us will still be out there self-medicating with Markals and trains.

130 131 J.B. King Esq Tribute by Anonymous

131 Matokie Slaughter Tribute by RP

Family, freights, and friends are what keep me going.

132 133 Mud Up Tribute by GTrain

Employed by CSX for ten years, 2006–2016, 2018–current as a conductor—remote operator.

It has influenced me by being more open to meeting new people. I have met so many great people on the rails.

133 Taurus Tribute by Bench Reporter

The railroad is my escape, it’s my drug, and in a way it’s my fountain of youth. For the few hours that I am in the train yard all my problems and troubles go away. I have no worries, just fun, like a kid in the candy store.

I wanted a name with a meaning, something that related to me and what I do. The “Bench” part of my name came from the term “benching,” and the “Reporter” part comes from the time I started marking, when I was active on various social media platforms and always posted pictures of my findings, so I just put the two together; that’s how the name was born.

134 135 El Truncón Tribute by The Sunflower Seed Kid

I was a conductor and eventually trained as engineer. After the initial shock of working around the equipment, I was drawn to the doodles. I was infatuated with the love/angst that I interpreted from them. Some happy, some painful. All blended to the aging of everything around the railroad. I wanted to be a part of it. Who would see my mark? How far would it go? How long would it last?

I always took several bags of sunflower seeds to work. My coworker dubbed me the Sunflower Seed Kid and I was always clicking and spitting. Each mark had its moment in time…waiting on interchange with another RR, waiting on my conductor while he brake-tested our train, brake-testing my own train, waiting on our customers to finish unloading/loading, waiting on receiving/delivering unit trains, or traveling/meeting new friends in the culture having/making unforgettable memories!

135 Water Bed Lou Tribute by Shemp

Being a part of this exclusive fraternity of train tramps, railroad men, and freight artists has taken me across all of North America and Europe and led me on some of my life’s greatest adventures. Water Bed Lou, along with the other early monikers I remember seeing, was a huge influence on me wanting to write on trains…the mystery and allure of the marks and wondering who these people were and where they came from and if they also rode trains was intoxicating…

An old tramp gave me my road name…he said one guy we were traveling with was fat, clumsy, named Curly; one guy was slick, smart, named Moe; and I was the other one. So I asked him if I was supposed to be dumb and aloof, and he said, “No, you’re the other one, THE oily funny one, Shemp.”

It has influenced me by being more open to meeting new people. I have met so many great people on the rails.

136 137 137 138 139 139 Bunk cars: a hobo term for a refrigerator car’s end or ice compartment, which provides a safe place to ride the train when empty; it is also the car in which the crew sleeps Canadian National: Canadian National Railway Car inspector: a worker who checks conditions of freight and passenger cars and conducts air-brake tests Car knocker: a car inspector or car repairer, whose name is derived from the early custom of tapping the car wheels to detect flaws; also called car whacker, car toad (as the inspection process requires squatting), car tink, and car tonk Caught the westbound: an old American hobo expression meaning someone has passed away Chief boomer: supervisor of seasonal or migratory worker Chirography: handwriting or penmanship lossary Coupling pin: a device used to connect train cars Detroit Edison: a holding company, once part of North American Edison Company Drag: a slow-moving freight train Artistamps: artwork designed to have characteristics resembling those of a real postage stamp DT&I: Detroit, Toledo, and Ironton Railroad but which has no legal value as payment for postage Ed Emberley: an American author and illustrator of children’s books B&O Railroad: Baltimore and Ohio Railroad Engine: a rail transport vehicle that provides motor power for a train Ballast: usually comprised of rocks, ballast forms the trackbed upon which railroad ties are laid Engineer: the person responsible for operation of the locomotive, also referred to as hog head, Battered: begged hogger, and hostler Beat trains: a phrase meaning one has ridden a train without having been caught or killed Extraboards: a group of employees not assigned to routes Benching: the act of watching and admiring graffiti artwork on rolling freight cars, originally Fireman: a position now obsolete, it referred to the steam train crewman who shoveled coal into coined in 1980s New York City while people sat on subway station benches, observing the graffiti the furnace and maintained the boiler on subway trains Foreman: the manager of a railroad’s employees Blinds: curves, which serve as an ideal place for a hobo to hop the train because the train is forced Golden handcuffs: financial allurements and benefits that encourage highly compensated to slow to a safe speed employees to remain within a company or organization instead of moving from company to Blowed-in-the-glass: hobo slang for “trustworthy” company (first recorded in 1976) Boiled-up: to wash clothes with the intention of killing any vermin therein Grand Trunk: Grand Trunk Western Railway Bomb trains: slang for “oil cars” or “tank cars” which carry gaseous and flammable contents Hand signals: signals given by hand or lantern to communicate direction, destination, speed, Boomer: a railroader who changes jobs often while drifting through the country or stopping Brake beam: a three-foot hickory stick used by freight trainmen to tighten hand brakes, Hired out: to be employed by the railroad industry sometimes called a “sap” or “staff of ignorance” HO scale: a model train Brake testing: the act of applying the brakes to make sure they are set up properly, then releasing Hobo chalk marks: slang term for monikers the brakes, again ensuring that every car releases and the pressure comes up to a specified level on Hobo jungles: hobo camps made up of groups of individuals, usually set up in a hollow or the hind end windbreak, close enough to the rails for easy access to the trains, but far enough away from town Brakeman: a person who tends brakes on a railcar and assists in the train operation they would not be detectable by police or rail bulls Bull: a railroad policeman Hog head: slang term for a locomotive engineer

140 141 Hopper: a type of railroad freight car used to transport loose bulk commodities such as coal, ore, Side-door Pullman: A boxcar or closed car, or a hobo’s home en route grain, and track ballast Southern Pacific: Southern Pacific Railroad Interchange: a junction point that allows two railroads to switch or transfer cars, or to switch/ Spur: a short track extending out from or alongside another track with only one end connected exchange cars between two railroads Stickman: the person who controls the switch Kansas City Belt Line: Kansan City and Memphis Railway Sub-division: a portion of a division designated by timetable Katy: Missouri-Kansas-Texas Railway Switch: a track structure for diverting moving trains or rolling stock from one track to another, L&N: Louisville and Nashville Railroad commonly consisting of a pair of moveable rails Lumber crayon: a wax-based marking utensil used to make monikers Switcher: a locomotive for switching rolling stock in a yard Mail art: a movement based on the principle of sending small-scale artworks through the Switchman: A freight yard worker who assists in assembling of trains and alignments of tracks postal service as ordered Maintenance-of-way: crew in charge of maintaining the tracks Tagging: the act of drawing graffiti Missouri Pacific: Missouri Pacific Railway Tie gangs: general railroad track maintenance crews Monica: a hobo’s nickname Tramp: a migratory non-worker (2) a person who travels the land but is willing to pay his way Mulligan: a stew containing ingredients contributed by those who intend to consume it through hard work, working for others as well as for himself, unafraid of hard work or long hours (3) Nickel Plate Railroad: New York, Chicago, and St. Louis Railroad a poor wanderer, vagrant or vagabond (4) one who travels aimlessly about Northern Pacific: Northern Pacific Railway Union Pacific: Union Pacific Railroad Oil bar: a type of oil crayon UP: abbreviation for Union Pacific Railroad, the second largest in the United States after BNSF Oregon: Washington Railroad & Navigation Company (Burlington Northern Santa Fe) Railway and one of the world’s largest transportation companies Don Pendleton: an American artist largely known for his skateboard graphics Water tanks: containers that provided water for steam locomotives in the mid-twentieth century Privates: private passenger train cars Yard: a rail yard, railway yard, or railroad yard is a complex series of railroad tracks for storing, Pullman: a sleeping car sorting, or loading and unloading, railroad cars and locomotives Rail gangs: groups of railroad workers Yardmaster: a railroad official in charge of a yard Railroad dick: derogatory term for a railroad policeman Riding the rods: a dangerous, old-time hobo practice, now virtually obsolete, in which the hobo BIBLIOGRAPHIC SOURCES would place a board and ride across truss rods beneath a car Tanglecrafts.wordpress.com. Tacoma Public Utilities Rail Terminology, www.mytpu.org, accessed May 15, 2018. Road Kid: (1) a young person who belongs to a gang (2) a boy apprentice among the hoboes, or a Tate modern, www.tate.org.uk, accessed May 15, 2018. young hobo (3) one who is not versed in the ways of the road American Rails.com, “Railroad Glossary and Terms,” www.american-rails.com, May 15, 2018. Roadmaster: one responsible for railroad track maintenance Railroad Language – Lingo – Dictionary, www.catskillarchive.com, accessed Mary 15, 2018. Rods: the underside structure of a freight car OHNS: A Dictionary of Old Hobo Slang, www.hobonickels.org, May 15, 2018. Union Pacific website, “Past and Present Railroad Job Descriptions,” https://www.up.com/aboutup/history/past- Roundhouse: a round building with a turntable in the center for housing and switching locomotives present_jobs/index.htm, accessed May 15, 2018. Route-miles: the actual physical, geographical, distance the railroad line travels not including https://www.merriam-webster.com/dictionary extra tracks, yards, sidings, etc. Rubes: natives to a particular place Section house: housing for a track maintainer provided by the railroad employer Shanty: caboose Shed: the engine shed under the operating foreman

141 Canton/Stark County and the Akron Chapter DAR and resides in North Canton with her husband and twin daughters.

Mark Dawidziak Mark Dawidziak has been a theater, film, and television critic for almost forty years. He has been the TV critic at Cleveland’s The Plain Dealer since 1999. His many books include three slices of TV he Contributors history: The Columbo Phile, The Night Stalker Companion, and Everything I Need to Know I Learned in The Twilight Zone. His other nonfiction work includes The Barter Theatre Story: Love Made Visible; The Bedside, Bathtub and Armchair Companion to Dracula; five books about Mark Twain; Paul Bauer and, with Paul Bauer, Jim Tully: American Writer, Irish Rover, and Hollywood Brawler. In 2002, Paul Bauer is the coauthor of two books. Catching Dreams: My Life in the Negro Baseball Leagues he and his wife, Sara Showman, founded the Largely Literary Theater Company, a touring troupe (with Negro League catcher Frazier Robinson) was selected by Booklist as a “Top Ten Sports Book devoted to promoting literature and live theater. of 1999.” Jim Tully: American Writer, Irish Rover, Hollywood Brawler (with Mark Dawidziak and a foreword by Ken Burns) was the “2011 Gold Winner for Biography” from ForeWord Reviews and Andy Dreamingwolf—Moniker Guest Curator the “2012 Silver Award for Biography” from the Independent Book Publishers Association. It was Andy Dreamingwolf is a self-taught artist. Spending his formative years entrenched in the skate also a finalist for the “Ben Franklin Award in Biography” from the Independent Book Publishers and punk scenes helped to establish the do-it-yourself aesthetic that he applies to his works today. Association. Bauer and Dawidziak have written introductions to reprints of four of Jim Tully’s books: His paintings implore a conversation about the relationship between advertising and class systems, Beggars of Life, The Bruiser (foreword by Gerald Early), Circus Parade (foreword by Harvey Pekar), while also documenting that which has become obsolete in his Rust Belt Americana-inspired works. and Shanty Irish (foreword by John Sayles). Bauer lives in Kent, Ohio, where he has been a used and Not adhering to any one medium or style, Dreamingwolf primarily works in acrylic, producing rare bookseller since 1986. photorealistic concepts which utilize monochromatic values and colors applied in multiple layers to craft and tighten up the paintings with each passing brushstroke. He has shown his artwork in Alexandra Nicholis Coon numerous exhibits, several including solo shows. Among the museums where Dreamingwolf has Alexandra Nicholis Coon, executive director for the Massillon Museum, holds a BA in art history exhibited are the Akron Art Museum and the Massillon Museum. His work is represented in many from Kent State University, an MA in art history through the joint program at the Cleveland Museum private collections as well as ARTneo—The Museum of Northeast Ohio Art. When he is not painting, of Art and Case Western Reserve University, and a collections care certificate from the Campbell he indulges in his love of the railroad by traveling and documenting the vast fleet of railcars across Center for Historic Preservation Studies. She has been with the Massillon Museum since 2001 North America. and served as its curator from 2003 to 2010. Nicholis Coon is president of the Ohio Museums Association (2017–19); a trustee of the Cleveland Print Room and Massillon WestStark Chamber Scot Phillips—Moniker Project Director Foundation; secretary for the Stark County Convention and Visitors’ Bureau (Visit Canton); and a Scot Phillips is the Massillon Museum’s operations officer. He began his internship at the Museum member of the City of Massillon’s Community Improvement Corporation. Her love of photography in 2008. Phillips graduated from Kent State University with a BA in art history and a minor in led her to curate Darkrooms in a Digital Age (2007) and Between Two Worlds: The Photography of fine arts. He worked with Sandra Rose Thouvenin—to whom he is now married—and the local Nell Dorr (2010) for the Massillon Museum. She enjoys digital photography and earned honorable community to acquire the vintage photobooth that has become a popular part of a visit to the mention in the Professional Women Photographer’s 37th International Women’s Call for Entry Massillon Museum. Phillips is the owner and operator of 25th & Lincoln Mural Company, which has (2012). In 2011, she was recognized with the YStark! “Twenty Under 40” award and was a 2012 painted numerous murals across Northeast Ohio. For large and small scale works, Phillips works inductee in the Canton YWCA Women’s Hall of Fame. She is a member of Soroptimist International primarily in hand-painted halftone. Traditionally, this process is used in offset printing or screen

142 143 printing, but Phillips recreates this dot-pattern by hand, exchanging work normally completed by Photography Contributors technology with that of human labor. He finds beauty in the ephemeral and utilizes found objects Thank you to those who also contributed by submitting photographs for inclusion in collage pages as inspiration, subject matter, and materials. Phillips has a passion for the moniker tradition, (22–23, 42–43, 70–71, 78–79, 86–87, 96–97), the panel section (99–125), and the tribute documenting a shared history that spans many generations and demographics. section (126–136): Bob Bencher, Andy Dreamingwolf, Carol Ann Garner, Michael Green, Toby Hardman, The Kodak Kidd, Derek McSwiggen, North Bank Fred, OK NIC, Sandra Phillips, Scot Susan A. Phillips Phillips, Johnny Rosser, Shemp, Smokin’ Joe, Stonewall Jim, Kurt Tors, TRUE2DEATH, and Whiskey. Susan A. Phillips has studied graffiti, gangs, and the U.S. prison system since 1990. She has Photographs on college pages 7, 35, abd 69 courtesy of Andy Dreamingwolf. published two books: Wallbangin: Graffiti and Gangs in L.A. (Chicago, 1999) and Operation Fly Trap: L.A. Gangs, Drugs, and the Law (Chicago, 2012). Phillips was named a Soros Justice Media Fellow in 2008 and received a Harry Frank Guggenheim research grant in 2005. She has been in residence twice at the Getty Research Institute—most recently in 2016, when she received funding for her in-progress book, The City Beneath: A Century of Los Angeles Graffiti. For the past five years, Phillips has immersed herself into hobo lives at the turn of the century and the labor culture of railway workers. Phillips received her PhD in anthropology from UCLA in 1998 and is currently a professor of environmental analysis at Pitzer College in Claremont, California.

Kurt Tors—Moniker Artist Liaison Born in a post-industrial city, Tors has never been a stranger to trains. As a teenager, he began riding the Conrail freight line to get across town. With these surroundings, it is no surprise that a love, fascination, and appreciation for trains began to form. As a teen, Tors was most often found on his skateboard, singing in the school choir, shooting photos, or practicing with various bands in Try Pottery “Potter” vase and ceramic railroad spikes the garage. A loner of sorts, he has always been comfortable living his life the way he wanted with Collection Kurt Tors or without anyone accompanying him. As a young adult, Tors moved on to college and acquired a next page degree in education with a minor in photography. It was here he met the woman who would become Walking with buZ mother to his two children. After moving around, teaching school, owning a skateboard and music Gurdon, Arkansas, 2016 Photograph by Scot Phillips store, and being a father, the railroad began to draw him back in. It was during this time he began to notice small drawings on freight cars. These marks would alter his life. In these marks he found culture, history, community, and a sense of peace. Here, he found a heritage that he honored and wanted to document. Today you will find Tors riding his motorcycle, carrying a camera, creating art, and lingering trackside as he spends time with his mistress—the railroad. He has a genuine desire to educate and enlighten people about the art of the moniker and to document its past. The arts, in one form or another, have always been part of Tors’s life—music, photography, contemporary art, and monikers. It is at this place where the idea for the Moniker exhibit was born and this passion drove him to Massillon, Ohio, and to the creation of this show, along with his two partners and the Museum.

143 144