Celebrating Gaines: Pine Bluff railroad historian

Saving the St. Louis Southwestern 819 engine from ruin and giving it a home at the Arkansas Railroad Museum became an important cause to Elizabeth Gaines. 
(Special to The Commercial/Deborah Horn)
Saving the St. Louis Southwestern 819 engine from ruin and giving it a home at the Arkansas Railroad Museum became an important cause to Elizabeth Gaines. (Special to The Commercial/Deborah Horn)


The Arkansas Railroad Museum at Pine Bluff started as a conversation one evening almost 40 years ago at a restaurant inside Pine Bluff's Union Station, and Elizabeth Baresch Gaines, community activist and amateur historian, remembered that October 1983 night well.

Little wonder it changed her life.

The approximately 18 who gathered realized that most of the old steam engines and passenger cars had been scrapped, discarded or refitted as small attractions like the St. Louis Southwestern 819 steam engine displayed for years at Pine Bluff's Oakland Park.

That night, it became Gaines' and the group's goal to save the 819, Gaines told a SEA Life magazine reporter for an article in 2017.

But no one knew then that the idea for the museum had also been born. It eventually became a historical destination that continues to attract people from around the country, or that the 819, the last steam engine built at the Pine Bluff Cotton Belt engine shops, would become Arkansas's official state locomotive.

Elizabeth Gaines, 84, died June 25. She was buried June 27 in the Greenwood Cemetery at Camden.

BUILDING A MUSEUM

Lynn and Elizabeth Gaines were together for 77 years before he passed in 2013. As kids, they lived across the street from each other in Fordyce, and like his father, Lynn Gaines went to work for the St. Louis Southwestern Railway, also known as the Cotton Belt, in 1949, about 10 years before they married.

He worked as an agent and telegrapher at 25 different locations in five states, while Elizabeth Gaines worked for several financial institutions. Then at Pine Bluff, she worked as a bank teller for Cotton Belt Federal Credit Union and the Pine Bluff Chamber of Commerce.

The railroad life was in their blood.

Their son, John Gaines of Pine Bluff, described his mother as "smart, hardworking and she had a way of dealing with the public that was special. She loved Pine Bluff and knew more about Pine Bluff and Jefferson County than Carter's got liver pills."

Sometime during the mid-1950s, the 819, built in 1942, was permanently displayed at the city's park. But in the early 1980s, Cotton Belt, the engine's owner, turned it over to the Cotton Belt Historical Society Inc. for restoration.

Both Lynn and Elizabeth Gaines, along with dozens of others, dedicated themselves to the restoration of the 819, and in 1983, she helped organize the Cotton Belt Rail Historical Society. The group continues to oversee the operation of the museum.

John Gaines said his mother "could move mountains if she wanted to get something done. She was something else."

The Arkansas Railroad Museum, 1700 Port Road, was established in 1986. Fittingly, it's located in the former Cotton Belt locomotive shop.

J.P. Dunger, formerly of White Hall and an engineer for the railroad, was at the dinner when the idea of a railroad museum was hatched.

"They were a driving force behind the museum," he says about the Gaineses.

Peter "Pete" Smykla, who ran the railroad museum for years before retiring, agreed with Dunger.

"Elizabeth was key in its establishment ... It's one of the city's greatest assets. It's the premiere railroad museum in Arkansas. It attracts people from around the state and the country," Smykla said.

In fact their records show the number of guests from overseas.

"Each month, they usually had about eight-to-10 visitors from foreign countries come to Pine Bluff to visit the museum," Smykla said.

David Ware, former Arkansas State Capitol historian and railroad enthusiast from a young age, said the museum is something special.

"It's a converted engine shop. It still has the smell [a mixture of iron and diesel] of an authentic engine shop. It's amazing," Ware said.

It's a tribute to Elizabeth Gaines and her "knowledge and appreciation of local history. She was determined that the story of Pine Bluff and Jefferson County be preserved," Ware said.

Mark Christ, Arkansas History Discussion Group participant, former Arkansas Historic Preservation Program outreach director and currently producer and host of the "Encyclopedia of Arkansas Minute" on KUAR, often turned to Gaines for insight and a hand.

"She always helped (me) on projects from National Register nominations to local activities during the Civil War Sesquicentennial," Christ said.

A TRUE COMMUNITY SPIRIT

While she volunteered at the museum full time, Elizabeth Gaines "was community-minded and belonged to a number of different organizations and dedicated herself to a variety of activities that benefited Pine Bluff," Smykla said.

John Gaines agreed.

"She was business savvy and civic minded," he said.

For example, she never missed a Pine Bluff City Council meeting.

Joy Blankenship, longtime friend and Pine Bluff Downtown Development executive director, said, "That's because Elizabeth wanted to know firsthand what was going on" at city hall.

According to her obituary, Gaines belonged to "virtually all of the local historical societies," including the Pine Bluff/Jefferson County Museum, and helped put together the Historical Society's quarterly newsletter.

Sue Trulock, former Pine Bluff Jefferson County Historical Museum director, said, Gaines was an "active" member of the historical museum's board for about 20 years.

"She was dedicated and a wonderful volunteer, and took part in all our programs. She always helped with fundraisers and was very important to the museum," Trulock said.

Blankenship remembered that Gaines taught her how to use a computer in the 1980s and was always ready to step up and lend a hand with downtown activities.

"She was involved in so many different projects that we'll never know all that she did or was involved in. She will be greatly missed," Blankenship said.

Ware said, "Hail and farewell, Elizabeth," while Christ said, "She was one in a million and they don't make 'em like her anymore. RIP, old friend!"


  photo  For a long time, Elizabeth Gaines volunteered at least five days a week at the Arkansas Railroad Museum in Pine Bluff, of which she was a founding member. (Special to The Commercial/Deborah Horn)
 
 


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