The Leon reporter. (Leon, Iowa) 1887-1930, 1911-12-21
OLD bill" PLATTER

Az Old Time Resident of Leon who
s. Drove the Stage Before Rail-
+. roads Came to Leon.
i g. w. Platter, an old time resident
of Leon, writes The Reporter from
Monroe, Iowa, where he now lives,
and encloses the where-with-all to
Day his subscription. For many
years Mr.. Platter has been con-
slant subscriber to this paper, and
he says The Reporters arrival each
week is just like getting a letter
1ron home.
A. All of the old citizens of Leon re-
member Mr.. Platter as "Bill" Plat
Ter, and he was known in the early
SOS to every man, woman and child
fn the village, for he was driver
for The Western Stage Co., long be-
fore the iron horse snorted into Leon,
and when the highest ambition OF
the boys of the community was to
hold the ribbons over -four hoss'
team of the overland company.
Up on the drivers box of big
swaying, rolling Concord coach
booted and gloved, with leather strap
about his middle, and shawl
knotted around his neck, Bills stunt
was to guide the sturdy four horses
that dragged a ponderous stage
coach along the old state road that
stertched across Iowa. When he
Diloted his charge up to the hospita-
Bile doors of the Sales House in Leon
the entire population of the town
was on hands to see the passengers
sdis-embark and to CLEAN items of
news from the outer world. Teams
we're changed here, but the drivers
usually kept on to High Point, or
until q west bound stage was met.
Sometimes bad weather, or accidents
delayed the coaches which were
strung for hundreds of miles across
the continent, and drivers were COM
PEELED to 60 on, and on, and still on,
until a coach was met coming in the
opposite direction. Then the drivers
exchanged seats and started back,
and 1t was no unsual thing for an
unlucky driver to spend twenty-four
consecutive hours, and longer, on
the box of his coach, perhaps exposed
to driving rain, or binding snow, or
maybe to a bowling blizzard or sting
ing sleet. The heavy horses pulled
the big coaches through mud up to
their hubs at times, and hours were
consumed going few hundred
yards. When snow made wheeling
Impossible, sled runners were attach
ed, and the overland mails went on
on these. No excuses served, for
the malls simply ikaal fo 10 foYHasds
Spring freshets made the crve1k xEn6
rivers impossible at times, for there
were no bridges in those days. At
streams like Grand River, when
coaches were halted on opposite
banks because of dangerous high
water, the mails we're exchanged by
ferrying them over on RATS, and the
drivers took the back track over
which they had just Travelled. The
unfortunate passengers, and ii there
we're any they were unfortunate,
could swim, wade, or fly If they
wanted across, and they had to be
quick about it, for the stage COM
pany regarded the passenger business
as q side issue. and a sort of nuis-
ance, and the company's employees
generally reflected this attitude by
word and action.
For several years "Bill' Platter
was q valued driver for The Western
Stage Co., but with the coming OF the
rail road and the taking off of the
coaches, Bill lost his job, for never
more would the big thoroughbred
stages roll along the state road into
Leon, and every boy in the commun-
ity changed face and determined to
become a locomotive engineer, for
the profession of stage driving had
lost it's glamour.
Mr.. Platter is said to have been
rather opposed to rail roads in gen.
eral in those days, and especially to
the building of the line from Chari-
ton to Leon. And who could censure
him, for didn't the pesky thing
knock him out of a job?
8 And now at a green old age, Mr..
Platter has many memories OF those
old times, of his Leon home, and Of
the many friends he had here. and
he Is interested in Leon still, for he
keeps in touch with current events
through the columns of The Re-
por. He is possibly the last surviv-
ing member Of the capable corps of
drivers who put the overland mails
through Leon in the SOS, and when
he comes down here on q visit, as he
intends to do, he will have many
things to relate of those stirring
times, and his friends here will be
glad to greet him.
.'Buck'' Hurst Elected Captain of
Ames Eleven for 1912.