Train Kept A-Rollin' In From 1963: E.L. DeGolyer Jr. on Railroad Museum

So far in the city's legal battle with the Museum of the American Railroad at Fair Park, it's been he said-he said, and no one can agree on anything -- even if there's an agreement that will allow the museum to stay till August 1, 2011, one year past the...

By Robert Wilonsky

March 25, 2010

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So far in the city's legal battle with the Museum of the American Railroad at Fair Park, it's been he said-he said, and no one can agree on anything -- even if there's an agreement that will allow the museum to stay till August 1, 2011, one year past the city's drop-deadline. Here, then, is a page out of history -- four, actually -- in which railroad enthusiast E.L. DeGolyer Jr. (son of petroleum prospector Everette Lee DeGolyer, of course, and, from 1958 till '77, the first director of his family's namesake library at SMU) offers a proposal and outlines his aspirations for a railroad museum at Fair Park.

This missive, which dates back to 1963, is among the docs the museum will use to prove that while there may not have been a formal agreement in place between the city and museum, there most certainly was an arrangement. If nothing else, it makes for an interesting read. "A Utopian outlook," indeed.

DeGolyer Proposal to SFT 1963

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