Missouri Pacific roundhouse foundation at Cotter, Arkansas, sometime in 1992, photo by Chuck Zeiler. This may be railroad archeology, but at the time I was employed by a local real estate company to photograph property in their area. They hired a plane and I shot out the window some aerial photographs of property they listed. It was only about 10 minutes flight time to "divert" to Cotter, so I railfanned from the air. One shot I got was the skeleton of the roundhouse at Cotter. I went on Google Earth today, and it appears this is now the site of a factory.
One of the reasons for the Cotter roundhouse was the lay of the land. From Batesville to Cotter, the route was built along the banks of the White River, and followed the slightly uphill course to the foothills of the Ozark Mountains at Cotter. So more power was needed to get the trains out of Cotter and up into the Ozark Mountains (really, just steep hills). The MP favored Consolidation locomotives (2-8-0), so for a period of time, westbound trains arriving in Cotter had their locomotives replaced with double-headed 2-8-0s.
According to Walter (Mike) Adams book,,"The White River Railway", the assets of the White River Railway were conveyed to the St. Louis Iron Mountain & Southern, later the Missouri Pacific. The roundhouse was first planned under the White River Railway, constructed under the StLIM&S, and completed under MP ownership. Here are a few quotes from the book:
"The company did announce that the roundhouse at Crane would be identical to the one at Cotter and would be built from the same blueprints and by the same B&B forces, just as soon as they finished the work at Cotter. Like everything else on the division, the work on the roundhouse at Cotter suffered from the attentions of the old river. In early March, 1906 a rise threatened to inundate the new structure and less than a month later high winds blew down a portion of the roundhouse walls. Notwithstanding this, the work went on and in late April, 1906 certain B&B crews started moving out of Cotter for Crane. On July 4, 1906, the new turntable was placed in service at Cotter. This eliminated the temporary table installed when it became necessary to remove the wye track to make room for the roundhouse. The old table was far from satisfactory and the crews heartily welcomed the new one. The new table was a standard Philadelphia Bridge Works steel deck girder, 74 feet and 6 inches long. The table was hand operated and the pit was enclosed with a concrete wall and the floor was paved with brick. The concrete pedestal was poured on a footing of deeply driven pilings. An identical table was installed at Crane. The roundhouse was still not complete, being held up waiting for some vital machinery and tools, but when the turntable was completed, engines could be run in out of the weather and some servicing carried out. When a big engine showed up, say a Spot or 1 Class locomotive, everyone within shouting distance was rounded up to man the "push sticks". When the 1200's (2-8-2's) arrived on the north end of the division in 1927, after fighting their weight for two years, management finally approved an AFE (Authority For Expenditures) in October 1929 to install an air-operated tractor. Since the cost of this installation was only $1135.98, one wonders why it took so long to get the AFE approved. It sure cut down on the incidence of hernias among the work force at the Cotter roundhouse.
Early in 1950, management kicked the diesel situation around and decided that the Western District, which included the White River Division, would be dieselized first and the Southern District last. All heavy steam power on the Western District was sent to the Southern District, and they in turn released many, but not all of their diesels. By June 1950, all redball freights on the White River Division were diesel powered, but all local frieghts still had coal-burning steam engines, and the Southern Scenic (passenger train) was still being powered by oil-burning 4-6-2's. By August the 4100 series EMD GP-7 engines, including some equipped with steam generators for passenger service, had arrived and were placed in service. The locals and passenger trains were now all dieselized, except for a few scattered steamers for emergencies. In October 1950, Engine #14 (2-8-0) left Cotter under steam on Train #269 headed for Newport and the Arkansas Division, and an era ended. The Cotter roundhouse was closed, no more would the flooding of the White River coat the floor with a foot of mud, no more would the "big whistle" signal a train "in the ditch". The roundhouse, coal chutes, and water tanks were on a standby basis. Before the end of the year (1950), all machinery was dismantled and moved to Sedalia.
