The first train arrived in the area that became Rogers on May 10, 1881. At that time there was no Rogers, but only local communities such as Escalapia Hollow, Silver Springs (which became Monte Ne), War Eagle and Cross Hollows. Just 18 days later, the new town was incorporated on May 28, 1881, and named after Capt. C.W. Rogers, the head of the Frisco Railroad. Almost immediately a depot was built at the location today of Fire Station No. 1 at the corner of First and Chestnut streets. This first depot accommodated both passengers and freight.
Rogers grew fast after the Frisco Railroad came through, and just two years later, in 1883, a larger and nicer passenger depot was built beside the tracks between Elm and Poplar streets where Railyard Park is today. During this period, Rogers was served by both the freight depot and the passenger depot. At this time, virtually all supplies for the area came in on the trains.
With the arrival of the locomotive, Benton County became the apple-producing capital of the world -- along with numerous other products. In 1889, hundreds of carloads of apples; 217 carloads of flour, bran and meal; and hundreds of thousands of pounds of tomatoes, blackberries, corn, peaches and strawberries were shipped from the Rogers depot. (Ruth Muse, Benton County Pioneer, winter 1995)
William "Coin" Harvey began building a fabulous resort at Monte Ne in 1900. From the beginning, the biggest obstacle for the resort was transportation for the tourists. The roads to Monte Ne were just wagon trails, and they were virtually impassable in the winter. To solve the problem, Harvey made a deal with the Frisco Railroad to build a line to Monte Ne. And in order for tourists to arrive in style, the Monte Ne Railway Company built a large log depot at the resort on the bank of the lake near Big Spring. It had two floors and two large open-air wings that served as outdoor waiting rooms.
The Monte Ne Railway had only an engine and one car and did not have enough passengers or business to survive. It limped along for several years with erratic service from the resort to Lowell -- and went broke and was revived several times -- but it was finally sold to the Arkansas, Oklahoma and Western Railroad (AO&W) on Dec. 3, 1909. W.R. Felker of Rogers owned the AO&W, and he intended to use the Monte Ne Railway as a link to build a railroad from Eureka Springs to Siloam Springs and westward. However, the company had financial difficulties and went bankrupt about 1910.
The Kansas City & Memphis Railroad (KC&M), also owned by W.R. Felker and his family, bought the defunct AO&W in 1911. The KC&M owned a line from Rogers to Cave Springs and planned to expand east through Monte Ne and across the Ozarks toward Memphis, Tenn. Lack of business caused the passenger service to Monte Ne to be discontinued in 1914, but that was not the end of the story. The line continued to be used for logs and freight.
In 1912, the Ozark Land and Lumber Company, owned by Roscoe Hobbs of Rogers, had 12,500 acres of timber east of Monte Ne and across the White River. (This land is now Hobbs State Park.) The company wanted to bring the logs out by rail, but there was a big problem -- the timber lay on the east side of the White River. To harvest the oak logs, the company built a huge steel bridge with a 600-foot-long trestle across the White River and extended the line from Monte Ne to Piney and leased it all to the KC&M railroad. The Monte Ne bridge was the longest railroad span in Benton County. The KC&M hauled logs and lumber for a little over a year, but the railroad failed during the depression in 1914 and went into receivership. In November 1918, during World War I, the line was abandoned, the tracks were taken up, and the railroad to Monte Ne was gone forever.
In the early days of Rogers, when train travel was at its height, 13 passenger trains came through Rogers each day. With so many hungry passengers coming through Rogers, there was a great need for a restaurant. In 1898, the Harvey House Restaurant was built on the south side of the depot. The Harvey Houses were a chain of restaurants in partnership with the railroads created to feed passengers quickly. The trains would stop for 20 minutes, giving travelers time to grab a meal. The Rogers Harvey House was operated by chef Domino Danzero, and he made the restaurant one of the most successful and popular in the Southwest. He was also a nationally acclaimed amateur photographer credited with several innovative photo inventions. Danzero took many pictures during this time from 1898 until 1910 that give a fascinating view of early life in Rogers.
The Harvey House in Rogers was two stories and larger than the depot. It consisted of three rooms -- a kitchen, lunch room and dining room. The dining room was very elaborate with fancy tables equipped with luxurious tablecloths, napkins, china, silverware and fresh greenery in the center. Light was provided by elegant chandeliers and heat by a pot-bellied stove.
In 1907, six trains a day stopped in Rogers for meal service. The steam engines were fired with wood and sometimes threw chunks of flaming embers out of the stack as big as a hand. Many buildings along the tracks were set on fire from these fiery embers, including the Harvey House. It was damaged by fire several times and rebuilt, but finally in May 1910, the restaurant burned and was abandoned. By that time the Frisco was offering meals on the train in new dining cars, and the Harvey House restaurants were no longer viable.
By 1912, Rogers had grown to more than 3,000 people, and a new depot was needed. W.R. Felker deeded a parcel of land south of Cherry Street to the Frisco Line, and the new depot, named the Union Station, was completed in 1914. It replaced the old freight and passenger depots in Rogers and cost $20,000. It was a partnership with the Frisco owning 97.5% and the KC&M, 2.5%. The KC&M built a track parallel to the Frisco track from Lowell and accessed the new depot on the west side with the Frisco tracks and platform on the east side. The KC&M tracks continued up through the alley into Rogers between First and Second streets. However, the KC&M went bankrupt in 1914, and the depot was renamed the Frisco Depot in 1917. (Information from Tom Duggan, noted local railroad authority, Aug. 31, 2012)
The new depot at First and Cherry was unique due to its unusual parapet roof line. The waiting room was large and well lighted with elaborate chandeliers. There was a newsstand and a "sanitary drinking fountain." There was a "colored" waiting room, too, but, as one of the early newspapers stated, "it is hardly probable there will ever be enough colored people around here to use their quarters, and it is likely it will be more often used as a smoking room for the gentlemen." The women had a separate waiting room with separate toilet facilities. The Frisco platform along the tracks was 16 feet wide and 600 feet long and made of pressed bricks and stone trim. (Ruth Muse, Dec. 28, 1977, Benton County Pioneer, winter 1995)
Railroads peaked again during World War II, both for transportation and for shipping freight, because of the gas and tire shortage. After World War II, automobiles and planes replaced passenger trains as the popular mode of travel. In 1963, the Frisco Railway Company lost $3 million on its passenger train service.
By 1965, in spite of the Frisco spending millions of dollars to upgrade the passenger service, ticket sales in Rogers were down to only about $200 per month. The Frisco dropped its passenger service to concentrate on the more profitable freight business, and on Sept. 18, 1965, the last passenger train came through Rogers. (Rogers Daily News, March 15, 1965, and Sept. 12, 1965)
