The St. Louis & San Francisco Railroad was established
in 1881. Lowell was a village at that time. The 1889 Goodspeed's History of Benton County says greens, fruits, poultry, timber and railroad ties shipped extensively from the depot. The 1892-93 Springdale News reported Lowell shipped more raspberries than any line from Fort Smith, Arkansas to Monett, Missouri. A favorite event for Lowell teenagers was coming to the depot to see the train go by or who got off. Toby Tucker was the mail messenger for years, meeting the train night and morning. If it needed to stop, he signaled by waving a kerosene lantern, otherwise, a mail crane held the mail pouch track side where the train "snagged it" and kept moving on. Heavy incoming mail pouches were kicked or tossed off, at the precise moment, for Toby to take to the Post Office. In the 1940's, railroad officials put the depot building on a railcar and moved it to another location, possibly in Oklahoma. The boy in the photo on his bicycle is Elza Tucker, his son.
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