Guide

1933 Fair
Map of 1933 Fair
1934 Fair
Map of 1934 Fair
Greyhound Tour

Topics

Costs for Visitors
Colors and Lights
Downtown Shopping

Exhibits and Attractions

Skyride
Hall of Science
Science Exhibits
Firestone Tires
Prehistoric Animals
Wilson & Co. Meat
Kraft Mayonnaise
International Harvester
Automobiles
Railroads
Air Travel
Mail
Foreign Exhibits
Pantheon de la Guerre
Colonial Village
Foreign Villages
Ripley's Believe-It-Or-Not

News Articles

Memories

Links

Links Page
Contacts Page

Rail Trip to 1933 Chicago World's Fair

I had rode a few freight trains, hoboed, hitchhiked, and such as that. Nothing was going on in Tyler County. No jobs to be had. We couldn’t get a paper and didn’t have a radio. There was no communication except for hollerin’. If somebody got hurt real bad, and needed some ‘coon grease, you could holler over to a neighbor, but that was it.

The Progressive Farmer came once a month. It let us know that there was a World’s Fair going on in Chicago. I wanted to go pretty bad. Thorpe Hutto wanted to go too. We decided to just go up on a train. When we had the crop laid by in September, we decided it was time to go. We each rolled up one suit of clothes and hitchhiked to Silsbee. Thorpe had five dollars. I went by the bank and got $25 and stuck it in the little watch pocket of my jeans. The train always come easin through Silsbee, we swung on and ok, we was gone.

That train went through Louisiana and up into Shreveport. We talked to other hobos who told us which way to go, what trains to catch, word of mouth, one to another. They said to catch the Missouri Pacific out of the Rio Grande Valley, on up through Arkansas, then it goes on to East St. Louis. From there we were to get on the IC (Illinois Central). That sounded pretty good to us. It sort of sounds silly, but you know if that’s the only way you got, that’s the only way you got.

We couldn’t get in a boxcar. Everything was loaded. We were sitting between two cars hanging onto the couplings. There was a place on each side of the couplings just big enough for my feet. Below East St. Louis, a hundred or two miles, we come to a river and some hills. All of a sudden the back end of that train took up the slack toward the front and my feet were just jammed. I hurt my foot, my heel and my toe. I finally got my shoe unlaced and got my foot out. What a relief! But there I was, no shoes, riding a train, a thousand miles from home. I kept my hands and my eyes on my shoes. Pretty soon that thing took up the slack again, my shoes came loose. I sure was glad because I’d have had to turn back if I’d lost my shoes. It would’ve taken $5 or $6 to replace them.

On this trip, we were spending twenty-five cents a meal. We’d buy a can of weiner sausages and a box of crackers or a nickel loaf of bread. You could get potted meat for a nickel or a dime. We ate about two meals a day. And we might squeeze in a Baby Ruth.

One of the nice hobos told us how to get on the Illinois Central. You know those hobos were just good. They’d tell you, “ You get over yonder by that track, and when that guy toots that whistle twice, that means he’s fixin to move. He might be switching there for thirty minutes, but when he finally gets that train made up, he’ll pull out. You better get you a boxcar right then.”

We got ready, the old boy tooted his horn, we hopped on. After a piece, they switched our boxcar off and we had to ride an oil tanker. There was a twelve inch wide walkboard all the way around the tanker.

It got night and I was so sleepy. I’d been going two days and two nights now. I went to sleep with that train going wide open.

Thorpe woke me up saying, “Boy, you’ll kill yourself. You better stay awake!” I didn’t sleep no more.

That train took us into Chicago, near Lake Michigan, right down within a few blocks of the fairgrounds. We got off on Pennsylvania Avenue.

Thorpe and I decided we didn’t want to pay to get in every day. That would be a whole dollar every day for the two of us. So we bought $1.50 worth of groceries (pretty nice little bag), paid our admission and went in. First thing we had to do was look for a place to hide the bag. We found an old abandoned VFW building, with old flags and rags thrown behind it. We hid our groceries there.

Then we went down by the lake, and behold, there were men swimming out there in the nude, just taking a bath. I said, “Thorpe, it don’t look too good but if they’re doing it, why shouldn’t we?” Somebody gave us a little piece of soap and we bathed up, cleaned up and felt good.

Telephoning was out of the question, so we decided we better mail a postcard to our mamas and daddies. We told them where we were and when we’d be back. I imagine they thought we were bad boys gone crazy.

You know, the World’s Fair is a pretty big thing. We had a tremendous time in there and tried to take in all we could without paying anything. We ate breakfast and supper from the grocery bag and bought a ten cent hamburger at lunch. We went from morning until about ten o’clock each night.

The thing I remember most was the automobiles. They had an endurance track and that ’33 model Plymouth just tore up the country. We decided right then and there that it was about the best, toughest car that could be built.

One night the police almost caught us behind the VFW building, but we eluded them by getting off to one side and getting real still until they passed by.

We had a tremendous time for three days. Then we decided we’d better start for home. We walked down the railroad tracks and crawled into a boxcar and fell asleep. We didn’t worry when we felt the train move. We figured “This is the Illinois Central. It’s got to go to St. Louis.” Next morning we woke up. The sun was shining. Where were we? We got out and walked about a mile down the tracks and came to the spot where we’d gotten on. So we lost a mile that night.

Next, here came a pretty fast train. I hopped on pretty good, looked back and there was Thorpe bent over with a pain in his side. I knew he had very little money left and I thought, “If I stay on this train, I may not see Thorpe again. If I jump off, I’m liable to break a leg.” The train was getting faster all the time.

I sailed off. It almost throwed me for a flip, but not quite.

We caught another train together, went to East St. Louis, changed to the Missouri Pacific and fell asleep with Fred, Texas on our mind. When we woke up, our car had been switched off on a side track and the train was gone.

The next train through was a passenger train. Choo! Choo! The engineer gave it the throttle. We ran but that engineer saw us and let off that throttle. “You boys ain’t ridin this train. Get back!”

It was 24 hours before another train came along. We caught it. A little way down, riding through the swamplands of Louisiana where the alligators grow, I realized it was October 2nd, my twenty-first birthday. We rolled on into Beaumont, Texas and caught a ride on to Fred.

It is miraculous to realize the money we did not spend. We had $15 on us when we got home and we had not missed a meal. We’d done everything we’d wanted to do for fifteen days, and even eaten hamburgers at the Chicago World’s Fair.

Home      Top