"Ole Miss"

[Anonymous]

I have been researching the music of W.C. Handy and found the sheet music to his 1916 composition "Ole Miss." The cover depicts a fast passenger train leaving Memphis with the notation "The Fastest Thing Out Of Memphis."

I am guessing that "Ole Miss" operated on either the Illinois Central (or a subsidiary) or the Southern Railway since the departure point was Memphis and the final destination was somewhere in Mississippi. I am familiar with the "name" trains on IC and SOU, but have not been able to find any reference to it in A Treasury of Railroad Folklore or in any of my sources on Southern railroading.

Can anyone help me out with some information on this passenger train?

[al elmore]

I don't have an answer, but I share your interest.  The train apparently ran from Memphis to New Orleans.  It may have stopped in Oxford, home of the University of Mississippi.  In 1896 a UM student named Emma Meek won a contest to name the college yearbook the Ole Miss.  A few years later that nickname was applied to the university and has been ever since.  I suspect that Meek was thinking of the train and not, as is often claimed, of the Ole Miss who was wife to the Ole Massa in the long-ago days of slavery.  

It would be most helpful if someone could locate some other reference to the Ole Miss as a train.

[Deggesty]

It would have been extremely difficult for a train that ran from Memphis to New Orleans to stop in Oxford, for the Memphis-New Orleans line went through Batesville (25 miles west of Oxford), not Oxford,. The old main line, which went  through Jackson, Tennessee, went through Oxford and then down to Grenada, 40 miles south of Batesville, and thence south to Canton and Jackson, Mississippi.

[KCSfan]

Anonymous

I have been researching the music of W.C. Handy and found the sheet music to his 1916 composition "Ole Miss." The cover depicts a fast passenger train leaving Memphis with the notation "The Fastest Thing Out Of Memphis."

I am guessing that "Ole Miss" operated on either the Illinois Central (or a subsidiary) or the Southern Railway since the departure point was Memphis and the final destination was somewhere in Mississippi. I am familiar with the "name" trains on IC and SOU, but have not been able to find any reference to it in A Treasury of Railroad Folklore or in any of my sources on Southern railroading.

Can anyone help me out with some information on this passenger train? 

You're probably familiar with another railroad inspired Handy composition, "Where the Southern Crosses the Yellow Dog". His inspiration for this song came from hearing another black man singing about this at the Tutwiler, MS depot. The Southern line (which later became the Columbus & Greenville) crossed the Yellow Dog (Yazoo & Mississippi Valley) at Morehead, MS.

I'm just guessing but the Ole Miss was likely Y&MV No.12 which ran from Memphis to New Orleans.

Mark

 

[KCSfan]

KCSfan

You're probably familiar with another railroad inspired Handy composition, "Where the Southern Crosses the Yellow Dog"..

Mark

"

My mistake, the song title was the "Yellow Dog Blues".

Mark

[Deggesty]

Mark, I also have no idea as to what specific train W. C. Handy referred to; I have the impression that at that time very few trains were given names by the roads that ran them, unless the road felt there was something really special about them. Mr. Handy may well have picked the name out of thin air.

As to the east-west road across Mississippi, it was, originally, the Georgia Pacific, and ran from Atlanta to Columbus; the mileposts on the main line read from Washington, D.C.--though the C&G may have changed them (I have never seen a C&G ETT).

[wanswheel]

http://hottytoddy.com/2014/10/03/researcher-traces-true-evolution-of-term-ole-miss/

http://hottytoddy.com/2014/10/06/105289/

[daveklepper]

WAS NOT OLD MISS THE SITE OF THE SCHOOL INTEGREATION EFFORT WITH FEDERAL MARSHALLS ESCORTING THE FIRST BLACK STUDENT AFTER THE SUPREME COURT STRUCK DOWN THE SEPARATE BUT EQUAL FORMULA USED IN SOUTHERN STATES?

[efftenxrfe]

Dave K'

Nuggets of memories  are in the pan; a placer recollection....

George Wallace at  an Alabama school?

That Faubus "A  H   "  in, was it   in Arkans-ass? preventing students from going to school? Little Rock?

This page, foremost, should be CLASSIC TRAINS subjects.

Apologies offered, I should not have deviated, by that standard....sorr;y,  I get  scorn from my neighbors.. 

They care not about....any thing  but themselves.

 

[wanswheel]

http://www.usmarshals.gov/history/miss/02.htm

[daveklepper]

thanks, and if there had been tracks in the street and wire overhead they could have arrived by chartered streetcar.   there, now we are back to a transportation issue.