Cushing was once the crossing of the KATY railroad and the Atchison, Topeka and the Santa Fe Railroads. Both depots were on the west end of the original business districts.
The railroad connected smaller towns with urban centers and created a flow of goods and customers allowing many areas to flourish.
If a town 'boomed' the rail depot became the place where scores of new workers arrived seeking to make their mark on the surrounding landscape or launch out to explore and discover their own pot of gold. As a result, near these depots developed supporting industries: hotels, general stories, banks, land offices, and - saloons and bawdy houses. In nearly every community exploding in growth there was a move to control vice by keeping it hemmed into specific areas in town. There was fear innocent women and children might be offended or insulted by this bawdy element. Most communities, however, learned their manners quickly. Law grew to enforce codes and behaviors, social pressures expanded to control public behaviors and how people drank or otherwise got rowdy.
In Cushing, for instance, saloon owners circulated a petition to expand eastward from the region of the depots to encompass new clientele. Affronted citizens launched a counter offensive. The time passed, wars come and soldiers traveled, and new booms arrived. Until the day the trains no longer slid into the depots as people went by air and car.
Today, with rising auto fuel costs and crowded roads, there is a longing by many for a return of the rail system refitted for a future of distance learning and working. A new network linking people and freeing them from owning and operating costly fossil fuel machines.
All aboard - anyone?
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