Roland E. Collons photographs of railroads

A Guide to the Collection

Biographical Note

Roland E. Collons (1903-1989) graduated from the University of Chicago, class of 1926 in petroleum geology and spent three years in Oklahoma and Kansas doing exploration and scouting work. With the stock market crash in 1929, petroleum exploration slowed down and Collons returned to Chicago to begin research and writing for investment houses. In the late 1920s and early 1930s working as investment analyst and as a railroad finance specialist, Collons was in contact with top railroad officers and eventually went to work for the Illinois Central in 1936 doing historical research and publicity writing. Because his job involved much research and travel he began to assemble and construct railroad scrapbooks. He wrote a study of the "Casey Jones Story," which was published by Collier’s Magazine (1939) and later reprinted that same year in Readers Digest.

In 1939 as the Great Depression continued to curtail transportation, the Illinois Central reorganized its departments. As the newest hire in the public relations office, Collons was terminated. Considering his work and years of experience, he became somewhat bitter toward the railroads and all work on his scrapbooks was suspended. Collons abandoned his interest in railroad lore almost entirely for this period of time, occasionally taking a train photograph on vacations and reading works by railroad historian, Lucius Beebe. In 1964, Beebe selected 59 of Collons’s images for his book on passenger trains, The Trains We Rode.

In the early 1940s an opportunity arose, after inheriting some money, for Collons to open a menswear store in Jefferson City, Missouri. This business was successful for the next twenty years. "Rip" Collons, as his retailing peers referred to him, won the Brand Names Foundations "Retailer of the Year" award in 1956 and 1957, and was written up in the Saturday Evening Post. National exposure eventually brought an opportunity to sell the store, which he accepted. Collons traveled for retail manufacturers for the next three years and revived his interest in railroads. He began working on the scrapbooks between trips. In 1961 he stopped traveling all together and moved to California to begin a career in real estate.

Collons also had an extensive book collection of over 650 books relating to railroads and American history. Wanting his scrapbooks and photographs to go to an institution where they would be used for research, on the suggestion of Lucius Beebe, Collons donated his collection to the DeGolyer Library in 1964. Roland Collons died in Sacramento, California, on December 22, 1989, leaving a legacy of historical railroad research behind in his scrapbooks and negatives.

Sources

Collons, Roland, and Quentin Reynolds. 1939. The man at the throttle was Casey Jones. Collier’s Magazine, August 12.

Collons, Roland, and Quentin Reynolds. 1939. The man at the throttle was Casey Jones. Readers Digest 35: 53-55.

Retail Promotion News, Men’s Wear Edition. 1957. James Lee says "Hats Off" to award winning Rip Collons. The Saturday Evening Post, May 13.

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Scope and Contents of the Collection

The collection consists of 104 scrapbooks (86 US and 18 foreign) with canvas covers, containing 15,338 prints, 2,446 clippings and 10,798 negatives. Collons made most of his photographs between the years of 1926 to 1939. The Collons scrapbooks reflect his emphasis on the "total" railroad, the property as a whole, including the right-of-ways, stations, bridges, engine houses, freight yards, etc. He made numerous views of roundhouses and coal chutes. Collons saw track layout and depots as important as the trains, thus creating a collection that has a unique coverage. Collons wanted to show a continuous, almost "moving" picture of the railroad line under study, the important main lines, and also the branch-lines and industry as a whole. He photographed almost every major US railroad, but primarily emphasized the Chicago area, with some attention given to Omaha, Kansas City and other major cities throughout the United States. Besides his photographs, he supplemented his scrapbook images with earlier material from Railway Age magazine (circa 1900s), other railroad magazines, and railroad maps. His collection also contains conventional three-quarter views of steam locomotives.

The negative collection housed in 8 metal drawers (two rows per drawer) consists of two sizes: 3 x 5 inch and 3.5 x 5.5 inch. From 1930 to 1933, Collons produced 3 x 5 inch negatives made with an Eastman "2-C Special" camera. He created an index with numbered and dated negatives, listing the subject matter, and a description of the location. In 1934 to 1939, Collons used a 3.5 x 5.5 inch or postcard size camera and began a new index and filing system.

Two folders contain drafts, photographs, and printed articles of Collons’s published works, 1936-1958, including "Casey Jones Story," published in Colliers magazine, 1939.

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Restrictions

Access to Collection:

Collection is open for research use.

Publication Rights:

Permission to publish materials must be obtained from the Director of the DeGolyer Library.

Copyright Statement:

It is the responsibility of the user to obtain copyright authorization.

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Administrative Information

Preferred Citation

Roland E. Collons photographs of railroads, DeGolyer Library, Southern Methodist University.

Acquisition Information

Gift, Roland E. Collons, 1964.

Processing Information

Collons’s alphabetical order by railroad has been maintained with occasional edits for clarification and standardization. Some of the scrapbooks are wrapped in acid-free covers and all are housed in acid-free boxes.

Two smaller collections (formerly A1985.1172c and A1984.0441c) containing articles and drafts were added to consolidate the collection.

Finding aid by Susan B. Schmidt, November 2007.

Edited by Anne E. Peterson, November 2007.

Encoded by

Lara Corazalla, 2007.

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Detailed Description of the Collection

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