All about the community of model railroading and rail enthusiasm
February 27, 2019
Past and future issues of Cowcatcher Magazine will be included in the collection of the DeGolyer Library and Special Collections at Southern Methodist University, the magazine announced in February.
Publisher Tim Blackwell donated a copy of each issue of the magazine, which began publishing as Cowcatcher Round Up in January 2004, to DeGolyer Library Director Russell Martin on Feb. 26. The library will receive a copy of future issues to maintain a complete set.
DeGolyer Library is the principal repository at SMU for special collections in the humanities, the history of business, and the history of science and technology. The library is well-known for its collection of local and national railroad history. “We are delighted to have a complete file of the Cowcatcher,” Martin said. “Preserving railroad history is part of our mission.”
DeGolyer Library has an extensive repository of railroad photographs, documents and other materials, including the works of Everett Lee DeGolyer, Jr., who lived in Dallas. His personal collection, the Everett L. DeGolyer, Jr. Collection of United States Photographs, holds some 15,000 photographs and thousands of negatives of railroads that extend far from Texas.
Through May 17, the library is hosting “A Highway to the Pacific: Building the Transcontinental Railroad.” The exhibit features the library’s collection of original pamphlets, maps, photographs, government surveys, and other materials documenting the building of the transcontinental railroad that connected in Promontory, UT, on May 10, 1869. The exhibit is free and open to the public, 8:30 a.m. to 5 p.m., Monday through Friday.
Also, the DeGolyer Library is home to several Baldwin Locomotive Works collections that include photographs, builders’ cards, drawings and manuscripts.
The DeGolyer Library recently received as a gift the library collection of the National Railway Historical Society, which includes several thousand books, pamphlets, and periodicals of interest to railfans and model railroad enthusiasts. Cataloging of the NRHS collection is in progress.
The Cowcatcher collection includes issues published from 2004-2010 as Cowcatcher Round Up and those since published under the current title. The primary audience of the magazine is the middle U.S., although distribution locations have recently been established on the East and West Coasts.
“We are pleased that the DeGolyer Library has accepted Cowcatcher Magazine into its periodical collection,” Blackwell said. “The magazine was founded with the purpose of chronicling the community of model railroading and prototypical railroads, past and present, something that has become our trademark. For it to be included in the rich railroad culture of the DeGolyer Library is quite an honor.”
The DeGolyer Library is located in the Fondren Library West on the SMU campus.
