The term "granger" railroads...????

[Kozzie]

In several recent Trains Mag articles I have seen the term "granger" railroads. I've tried to sort out what it means from the context but I'm still stumped. [:I] Any comments would be appreciated. [:)][;)]

Kozzie [:)]

[Modelcar]

...I'm no expert Kozzie but we had vast networks of rail into our great plain states and little farming communities and did commerce with the farm products etc....and much of that is now just history. Many on here will have much more details....

[bobwilcox]

Generally its the railroads in the grain belt west of Chicago (ie. IL, WI, IA, MN, NE, SD, ND, MT and KS.). It was also known as the Western Trunk Line Territory(WTL) when it came to rate making. Untill Staggers the territory was characterized with lots of light density branch lines and financially weak railroads. The Granger RR included the CNW, CBQ, CRIP, MILW, CRIP, CGW and MsTL.

The term granger came from a political presure group called the Grange. They were active in the last third of nineteenth century about declining farm commodity prices and the power of the railroads. There agitiation led to the first Federal attempt to regulate railroads in 1877. They continued to be active politically untill everything got turned upside down with the Great Depression.

[JoeKoh]

kozzie
granger rr were termed because they mostly just hauled farmers livestock and crops to market.a couple of granger roads were the chicago & nothwestern and the CB&Q.
stay safe
Joe

[Kozzie]

Thanks everyone. I had an inkling there was a historical connection. This background info is very helpful.

Kozzie

[Modelcar]

...In our little home town in western Pennsylvania we had a "Grange Hall" right on my street....and they were active up into the 30's....The hall building still exists but of course not active with that organization at all anymore....

[locomutt]

I'm thinking the "Grange" basicly; is now what we call "CO-OPS" or the "Farm Bureau."

[Modelcar]

....As I think back about it...I remember people talking about the "Grange" and just sensing from it's activities it was a pretty tight woven network and organization.

[Kozzie]

So the name continues today, albeit in a somewhat different, but still connected usage.

Now I'm getting a handle on this - thanks everyone.

[Modelcar]

...Yes one hears the word "granger" lines yet today in someone expressing his stories about such lines...But as far as I know the Grangers as an organization do not exist under that name. As I remember as I noted in an above post...the Grange Hall on my street was active back in the 30's and maybe just a bit into the 40's....not sure about that but that is all gone now.....

[mudchicken]

Still active in Denver/Lakewood, Campo CO, Willits CA, and a few other places I can think of. The organization is fading, never was much for fancy and simple in its approach. In many small towns, they are the only common meeting place/ meeting room other than a church. Guess I have a photo assignment for Kozzie now.

[Modelcar]

....As an organization...I haven't heard any word of activity in the western Pennsylvania area I spoke of above for many years.

[Modelcar]

...I will add this...Remembering when that Grange Hall was active....I can remember cars parked all over the streets when they would meet so it was very active there and they had a pretty nice building.

[Anonymous]

Actually folks, one of the first Grange organizations, if memory serves me, was in Pendleton SC near Clemson. If there is someone from there in the forum that knows the truth in this matter, I would appreciate being either confirmed or corrected.

[MichaelSol]

April is "National Grange Month." The National Grange of the Patrons of Husbandry is still active and their National Headquarters is at 1616 H Street NW • Washington, DC 20006 (888) 4-GRANGE • [phone] • Fax: [phone]. The Granger roads are gone, but the Grange still exists.

Best regards, Michael Sol

[siberianmo]

Always wondered about that term ... now I know! Appreciate the "education"![tup]

[CShaveRR]

Before the organization, the word "grange" (lower-case) could mean a granary, or a farm ("grain" comes from the same Anglo-French root), and a granger (again, lower-case) was another name for a farmer.

Pardon me while I go back to the farm (LaGrange) to watch some trains on BNSF!

[MichaelSol]

A copyrighted observation on grange history:

"One historian, however, has pointed out that railroad rates were invariably cheaper than the wagon rates that they replaced, but any gratitude was short-lived. "The criticism of "high rates" that swelled up in the post-Civil War era reflected farmer's expectations that they could settle virgin lands hundreds and even thousands of miles from markets, raise great surpluses of heavy, bulky, low-value commodities, and still ship them to market at a profit." However those expectations might have been unrealistic, that did not prevent widespread anger at the perceived unfairness of freight rates by the farmers of the new territories.

"The collective anger of these farmers finally found political voice in 1867 when Oliver H. Kelley, an ex-Minnesota farmer who had become an Agriculture Bureau clerk in Washington D.C., founded the National Grange of the Patrons of Husbandry, mainly to battle the perceived discrimination and oppressive freight rates of the railroads, but also to express the farmer's sense of frustration with the whole economic system. As the Grange movement added thousands of members, and chapters began organizing throughout the upper Midwest, the anger that propelled the organization was well expressed by a typical Grange poster, with several men in characteristic poses:

""I carry for all," said the railroad owner; "I fight for all," said the soldier; "I prescribe for all," said the doctor; "I legislate for all," said the statesman; "I plead for all," said the lawyer; "I trade for all," said the merchant; "I pray for all," said the preacher; and in the center stood a giant heroic figure, the farmer, who said, "and I PAY for all."

"The Grange organized chapters throughout the "Grange" states of Illinois, Wisconsin, Minnesota, Iowa, Kansas, Nebraska, the Dakotas and into other areas, including Washington state, where the arrival of the Oregon Railroad and Navigation Company had left the farmers "no better off than they were before."

"Although the Grange claimed it was not a political organization or party, in the late 1860's and during the 1870's, it overtly sought the political regulation of the railroads. Although their complaints were echoed by many around the nation, and the high freight rates as common throughout the country as the upper Midwest, their anger was focused mainly on the four railroads which dominated the Midwest. These four -- the Chicago & Northwestern, the Chicago, Rock Island & Pacific, the Chicago, Burlington & Quincy, and the Milwaukee Road -- became known as "the Granger roads," and the Grange movement was to prove a most potent adversary for these railroads in the quarter century after 1867."
--"A Railroad Story"

Webster's 1913 dictionary states the following for the origins of the term:
1. A building for storing grain; a granary. [Obs.] --Milton.

2. A farmhouse, with the barns and other buildings for farming purposes.
"And eke an officer out for to ride, To see her granges and her bernes wide. "--Chaucer. "Nor burnt the grange, nor bussed the milking maid". --Tennyson.

3. A farmhouse of a monastery, where the rents and tithes, paid in grain, were deposited. [Obs.]

4. A farm; generally, a farm with a house at a distance from neighbors.

5. An association of farmers, designed to further their interests, and particularly to bring producers and consumers, farmers and manufacturers, into direct commercial relations, without intervention of middlemen or traders. The first grange was organized in 1867. [U. S.]

In French, Grange means "barn."

The first widespread usage of the term "Granger" railroads resulted from a series of lawsuits involving Grange-inspired state regulatory schemes. The cases were consolidated on appeal to the US Supreme Court. As "Grange" inspired state regulations applied to those roads, in turn the railroading and financial communities, as well as the press, began referring to the railroads involved in those cases as the "Granger" roads -- named after the "Granger" cases on appeal. Munn v. Illinois (1876) 95 S.Ct. 113, Chicago, Burlington & Quincy Railroad Co. v. Iowa (1876) 95 S.Ct. 155, Peik v. Chicago & Northwestern Railway Company (1876) 95 S.Ct. 164, Chicago, Milwaukee & St. Paul Railroad Company v. Ackley (1876) 95 S.Ct. 179, Stone v. Wisconsin (1876) 95 S.Ct. 181, Winona and St. Peter Railroad Company v. Blake (1876) 95 S.Ct. 180. Specifically, those are the "Granger roads" as the term was originally used.

The rights of states to impose individual regulatory schemes was upehld, over the objections of Milwaukee Road's General Counsel John Cary who presented, on behalf of both the Milwaukee and the North Western, the most eloquent and insightful arguments against state regulatory jurisdiction.

Cary's argument that state legislation imposed conflicting and contradictory regulations in violation of the Commerce Clause of the US Constitution, while rejected in 1876, was later adopted by the Supreme Court when it reversed its 1876 opinion in Wabash v. Illinois (1886) 118 U.S. 557, and which in turn became the impetus for the passage of the Interstate Commerce Act in January, 1887.

Best regards, Michael Sol

[ValorStorm]

CShaveRR is the only one who really answered your question. A granger was and is a farmer.

[Modelcar]

...Original question was what is the meaning of granger railroads.

[KOWENG110]

I was taught that a "granger" road was one that lived off the land, originating more traffic that it received from connections. The CB&Q has been called the great granger of the grangers. The opposite of the granger roads were the "bridge" lines, which handled more traffic between connections than they originated online. The NKP was a prime example as was the TP&W.
Bear

[nobullchitbids]

Thanks, Mike, for the history lesson. You forgot to mention that, in the wake of the farmers' victory in Munn v. Illinois, their opponents promptly organized the American Bar Association to "educate" everyone (especially judges) re the sanctity of "contract." The effort obviously worked -- to a point -- since Munn was, indeed, reversed by the case you mentioned. Congress responded with the Interstate Commerce Act in 1887, only to have the courts again water the whole thing down for a time with subsequent decisions. The Grange may still exist, but it lost much its raison d'etre once FDR brought in the New Deal -- today, we consider it common for governments, state and federal, to become involved in economic regulation, but back then, that was a No-no. According to the courts, the Fourteenth Amendment shackled the states while the Fifth Amendment shackled Uncle Sam. The Supreme Court abandoned that doctrine by 1937.

[bobwilcox]

QUOTE: Originally posted by nobullchitbids

Thanks, Mike, for the history lesson. You forgot to mention that, in the wake of the farmers' victory in Munn v. Illinois, their opponents promptly organized the American Bar Association to "educate" everyone (especially judges) re the sanctity of "contract." The effort obviously worked -- to a point -- since Munn was, indeed, reversed by the case you mentioned. Congress responded with the Interstate Commerce Act in 1887, only to have the courts again water the whole thing down for a time with subsequent decisions. The Grange may still exist, but it lost much its raison d'etre once FDR brought in the New Deal -- today, we consider it common for governments, state and federal, to become involved in economic regulation, but back then, that was a No-no. According to the courts, the Fourteenth Amendment shackled the states while the Fifth Amendment shackled Uncle Sam. The Supreme Court abandoned that doctrine by 1937.

We did not have effective railroad rate regulation untill the Hepburn Act in 1906 when shippers getting rebates faced criminal penalties.