The story of “Rags” is proof that most everyone loves a shaggy dog story, especially those of the literal kind.
From 1907 to 1912, if not longer, Rags, a fiercely independent, free-spirited canine of uncertain pedigree, traveled across Central Illinois on the electric-powered “interurban” passenger cars of the Illinois Traction System. The ITS was a light rail network that connected Bloomington to Peoria, Decatur, Springfield, Champaign and Danville, as well as the St. Louis metropolitan area.
Each of these communities also had its own streetcar system, so upon arriving at the city of his choice, Rags would promptly board a local trolley car. “While evidently no more than a common dog in every sense of the word,” commented The Pantagraph, “his intelligence has been recognized and he is watched by streetcar employees as a mother watches her child.” After a day or two riding the local “cars,” he would once more board the interurban and head to the next city, ready to do it all over again.
Despite having no owner, Rags was always welcomed by motormen and conductors up and down the line. His was a hobo’s life of riding the rails, unencumbered by a master’s leash or a fenced-in lot.
“He could jump on and off moving cars as well as the most proficient trainman,” it was said of Rags. Not surprisingly, he was accorded various honorific titles by the Central Illinois press, including “official line inspector” of the Illinois Traction System.
His parentage and age were unknown, though he was said to be water spaniel on his mother’s side and Scottish terrier on his father’s. “He was a brown, rough-coated dog, with hazel eyes and a most affable nature,” went one typical description of Rags. His name came from his unruly shaggy coat, which even when “well-combed, brushed and bathed, refused to be sleek and smooth.”
Rags may be gone but he’s not forgotten. Bloomington resident and railroad enthusiast Mike Fortney has devoted two articles to Rags in “The Flyer,” the magazine of the Illinois Traction System. His most recent write-up appeared in the spring 2015 issue.
Little is known of Rags, especially when it comes to his pre-peripatetic life. How he came to be the famed traveler was a “matter of much discussion and many wild conclusions.” Consequently, it’s not surprising that there were several wildly divergent “origin stories.” One such account maintained that Rags was adopted by an engine house company of the Springfield Fire Department. After serving “valiantly with the fire laddies,” Rags then “extended his jurisdiction” to Springfield’s streetcars and then the interurban.
Other stories as to Rag’s beginnings are less convincing. For instance, there was speculation—“accepted by many and scoffed by others”—that Rags was in fact the reincarnated form of Daddy Rice, a Springfield streetcar motorman.
Though Rags didn’t have nine lives to spare, he survived, cat-like, several near-fatal mishaps. In August 1907, aboard a fast-moving interurban near Staunton, he leaned too far out the door and accidently tumbled out and onto the rail bed. Left for dead, Rags reappeared the following day, not far from where he was thrown, none worse for the wear and barking up a storm, as was his custom. This wouldn’t be the last time Rags seemingly returned from the grave.
In March 1909, at a siding near Springfield, Rags was caught under the wheels of a passing express. “The trainmen wept openly as they knelt over the small brown body on the track,” reported The Pantagraph. Pronounced dead, Rags was “tenderly laid by the side of the track.” Word quickly spread of his passing across the whole Illinois Traction System. A party was dispatched from Springfield to recover the body for a “first-class” burial, but they couldn’t locate him where he was left. After some searching they found Rags about one mile away hiding under a farmhouse porch, alive but tending to an injured leg.
The poor guy had mashed his left hind foot, losing two toes in the process. Carried back to Springfield, Rags, now described as “three and five-eighths legged,” was fitted with a rubber foot.
By late June, an impatient Rags, tiring of his long period of convalescence, secreted himself away. “The pitiful stump,” reported the June 25, 1909 Pantagraph, “wasn’t yet healed as much as it might have been but Rags had felt the call of the cars and he simply couldn’t stay away any longer,” reported the June 25, 1909 Pantagraph.
In the spring of 1910, Rags served as a main attraction for the fourth annual dog show at the old Bloomington Coliseum, having been brought to this city by Illinois Traction conductor Harry Rugless. “The canine was looking healthy, but not pretty,” The Pantagraph playfully posited. “It is impossible for the dog to look pretty, although he is possessed with a lovable disposition.
The three-day show began March 31, and featured 200 dogs, including Roy Bendure’s celebrated bloodhounds. Rags, with his stall immediately to the left of the show’s main entrance, drew more than his share of gawkers.
“Rags the interurban traveler,” read a sign at his stall. “He rides because there is no smoke, dust or dirt. Rags likes all, excepting the meat trust.” The “smoke, dust or dirt” was a reference to the clean, smooth ride of electric-powered interurban cars, especially when compared to coal-fired, ash-belching steam locomotives. And “meat trust” was a reference to the monopoly-like power of the leading meatpackers of the day, such as Armour and Swift, and their apparent ability to manipulate consumer prices.
In July 1910, Rags tangled with a saucy and imprudent bulldog on the streets of Decatur. The brawl ranged over a full city block, with the overmatched Rags eventually retreating, a little wiser and minus a good portion of his left ear.
Rags never failed to bring out the softer side of even the most hard-bitten trainman. The Daily Review of Decatur noted that “not one of them would any more think of throwing Rags from a car or hurling a brick at him than he would of cursing the ghost of his grandmother.”
The last known appearance of Rags in the Twin Cities dates to early August 1912, when the “well-known interurban and streetcar mascot” spent a day riding the city car line to and from downtown Bloomington to the west side Union depot. “Rags comes and goes,” observed The Pantagraph, “but is always welcome.”
What eventually became of Rags is not known, at least to this author. One hopes, though, that whatever doggie heaven Rags now calls home, he’s aboard an interurban car, his face turned to the wind, and a smiling motorman at his side.