Sandburg's Hobo Journey

Follow Carl Sandburg's hobo journey, beginning in his hometown of Galesburg, Illinois and ending in Omaha, Nebraska. Visit the cities below to learn about Sandburg's time riding the rails. LIbrary of Congress images used below are for historical context only and do not depict Carl Sandburg or people he knew.

• Hobo Tour Title

  
  

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  Follow Carl Sandburg's hobo journey, beginning in his hometown of Galesburg, Illinois and ending in Omaha, Nebraska. Use the map or list below to learn about Sandburg's time riding the rails.

Start: The Journey Begins: A Hobo Tour Intro

• Hobo Tour Intro

  
  

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  At the age of 19 Carl Sandburg was a restless young man, anxious to find himself and to see the country. Prior to his Hobo adventure Sandburg had only traveled as far as Chicago. He was drawn to head west to Kansas, in time for the wheat harvest, where there would surely be work. Along the way, he would stop to find odd jobs to fund his travels and to keep food in his belly. Sandburg left his friends and family in Galesburg Ill on the last week of June in 1897, he returned to his hometown on October 15th of that same year. IN reference to his hobo travels, Sandburg wrote, I was meeting fellow traveler's and fellow Americans, and what they were doing to my heart and mind, my personality. I could not say then nor later and be certain. I was getting a deeper self-respect than I had in Galesburg, so much I knew. I was getting to be a better storyteller. Quotes used in this tour are Sandburg's own from "Always the Young Stranger". Maps are provided by Library of Congress.

Stop 1: Galesburg, Illinois

• Galesburg

  
  

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  Galesburg was Carl Sandburg's hometown - where his hobo journey began and ended.

  In Sandburg's autobiography "Always the Young Strangers" he wrote:

  The family didn’t like the idea. Papa scowled. Mama kissed me and her eyes had tears after dinner one noon when I walked out of the house with my hands free, no bag or bundle, wearing a black-sateen shirt, coat, vest, and pants, a slouch hat, good shoes and socks, no underwear, in my pockets a small bar of soap, a razor, a comb, a pocket mirror, two handkerchiefs, a piece of string, needles and thread, a Waterbury watch, a knife, a pipe and a sack of tobacco, three dollars and twenty-five cents in cash.

  A little west of the Santa Fe station stood a freight train. A conductor came out of the station and waved a yellow flimsy in his hand. As the train started I ran along and jumped into a boxcar. From then on I stood at the open side door, watched the running miles of young corn, reading such station names as Cameron and Stronghurst, names of villages and towns I had heard a thousand times and had never had sight of.

Stop 2: Keokuk, Iowa

• Keokuk, Iowa

  
  

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  His arrival in Keokuk marked the first time Sandburg had ventured outside the state of Illinois. He later remembered seeing the Mississippi River for the first time as one of the most awe-inspring sites on his whole journey.

  Crossing the long bridge over the Mississippi my eyes swept over it with a sharp hunger that the grand old river satisfied.

  A captain of a small steamboat offered the young Sandburg passage to Keokuk for work "shouldering kegs of nails to the wharves."

  It was in Keokuk that Sandburg met his first fellow hobo. This man was a "tramp," which meant he didn't work for money, but instead relied on the kindness of strangers to survive. He taught Sandburg that a "lump" meant food that was given as a handout, and "sit down" was a phrase used when someone would invite a tramp to the kitchen table to eat.

  Sandburg also found work in Keokuk that would provide some extra cash and meals. He spent a day going door-to-door with a can of asphaltum for blackening rusty stoves, and then:

  I saw a sign “Waiter Wanted” in a small lunch counter near the end of Main Street. He said I could make myself useful at 50 cents a day and meals.

  After a day working at the lunch counter, Sandburg slept that night in a boxcar that took him halfway across Missouri.

Stop 3: Bean Lake, Missouri

• Bean Lake, Missouri

  
  

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  The next stop was the railroad section gang at Bean Lake, Missouri. After doing intense, hard labor for two weeks, because of financial struggles for the railroad and the fact that Sandburg didn't have an address at the time, he wasn't paid for his work.

  He writes:

  My Irish boss, Fay Connors, hired me at a dollar and twenty-five cents a day and I was to pay him three dollars a week for board and room in his four-room one-story house thirty feet from the railroad tracks. I tamped ties several days from seven till noon, from one till six in the evening. On Sunday I washed my shirt and socks. At the end of two weeks, on a Sunday morning, I hopped a freight for Kansas City and left Boss Connors to collect for my board and room out of my paycheck. The rest of the pay was still owing and was never collected. If Connors did get it he couldn’t have sent it to me, as he didn’t know my address and I wasn’t expecting to have any address for weeks or months.

Stop 4: Kansas City, Missouri

Union Station Train Depot in Kansas City, Missouri early 1900's Photo Credit: Union Station

• Kansas City, Missouri

  
  

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  After arriving in Kansas City, Sandburg had little trouble finding his next job.

  In Kansas City Mrs. Mullin had a sign in the window of her restaurant on Armour Avenue, “Dishwasher Wanted.” . It was a fight in that dish trough to get enough dirty dishes cleaned for serving the customers. I swept the eating room morning and afternoon and mopped it on Saturday. My sleeping place was the end of a hallway with my cot curtained off, and I washed and shaved, using my pocket mirror, at a sink and faucet in the hall... I worked every weekday till eight o’clock at night except for an hour or two in the afternoon. I had three good meals a day. I had Sunday off and walked miles around Kansas City comparing it to Galesburg, Peoria, Keokuk, and Chicago.

Stop 5: Emporia, Kansas

• Emporia, Kansas

  
  

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  Traveling further west to find work for the Kansas wheat harvest, Sandburg headed to Emporia. The trip between Kansas City and Emporia was eventful. The young hobo hopped a train and snuck onto a car, but he was discovered by a "shack" (term used for a train brakeman) during the trip. After punching Sandburg twice in the face the shack left him to ride the train.

  In his autobiography, Sandburg reminisced about an early interest in newspaper reporting:

  I walked past the office of the Emporia Gazette but didn’t have the nerve to step in and ask the editor, William Allen White, how he came to write “What’s the Matter with Kansas?” I didn’t agree with it but I liked his style. After a big two-bit meal I went to the city park, where I lay on the grass for a sleep.

Stop 6: Lindsborg, Kansas

• Linsborg, Kansas

  
  

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  After a day in Hutchinson, Sandburg traveled to Lindsborg - a predominantly Swedish community. He worked a hay and broomcorn harvest with several other Swedes on a farm near Lindsborg. Although he was staying among people of the same heritage, Sandburg didn't necessarily get along with them.

  I stayed three days at a dollar a day and meals, sleeping in a barn hayloft. On my third and last morning I had been awake a few minutes when I heard voices down below. One voice came clear to me, a Swede saying, "Is that bum up yet?" I said to myself, "Am I a bum?" And I answered, "Yes, I am a bum."... The first time in my life that I heard myself referred to as a bum was among Swedes I had made a detour to see.

Stop 7: Hutchinson, Kansas

• Hutchinson, Kansas

  
  

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  In Hutchinson, Sandburg learned that people who lived near the tracks were less likely to help out errant travelers because they were approached so often.

  In his autobiography, he remembered:

  I walked eight or ten blocks and hit two houses. "Have you got any work I can do for breakfast?" They took one look at me and shut the door. At the third house a woman sent her daughter to get me a saw, showed me a woodpile and a sawbuck. For an hour I kept the saw going, piled the wood, and went to the house.The smiling mother and daughter led me to the family table, set fried ham and potatoes, apple sauce, bread and coffee, before me.

Stop 8: Larned, Kansas

• Larned, Kansas

  
  

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  Larned was the one place on Carl Sandburg's journey where he refused to refer to himself as a hobo. His father had owned and paid taxes on a quarter section of land in that town.

  He wrote in his autobiography:

  When I walked past the courthouse I felt like an important, respectable citizen, even though I was sleeping in empty boxcars that stood on the Santa Fe tracks.

  Sandburg's work in Larned included assisting a local carpenter for three days at seventy five cents a day and a wheat threshing crew for five days.

Stop 9: Lakin, Kansas

• Lakin, Kansas

  
  

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  In Lakin, Sandburg took advantage of the Kansas wheat harvest by working for another threshing crew for about three weeks.

  The work came easier with getting used to it. The dust in your nose and eyes, the chaff sliding down your sweating back, you got used to. One evening at six o'clock the boss said there was only two hours of threshing left and a full moon would be up. We ate supper, at seven went on threshing by the light of a bright full moon, and finished at nine o'clock.

  On Sandburg's trip out of Lakin, a "shack" (train brakeman) kicked him off the bumpers of a fast freight. Riding the bumpers refers to standing on the couplers between two cars and keeping hold of the brake rod for stability. It was extremely dangerous.

Stop 10: Salida, Colorado

• Salida, Colorado

  
  

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  After Lakin, Sandburg left Kansas. He slept in a boxcar as the train headed towards Colorado. When he awoke the next morning he looked up and found himself in the Rocky Mountains.

  My eyes caught high rises of tumbling land I had never met before. "Jesus," I said, "those are the Rocky Mountains." I hadn't planned it but there they were, rolling formations of rock and pine lifted away high. "There's the Hand of God." I said.

  Sandburg spent two days in Salida where he picked pears and earned a few half-dollars.

Stop 11: Denver, Colorado

• Denver, Colorado

  
  

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  Sandburg took a Colorado Midland train to head back east to Denver. This was the first time Sandburg "rode the bumpers" (the couplers between train cars) late at night. He was so exhausted that he fell asleep while standing on the bumpers and later considered himself very lucky he didn't fall to his death that night.

  In Denver, Sandburg found work in the Windsor, a high-class hotel, washing dishes.

  He writes:

  I saw Pikes Peak so I could say I saw it... I washed dishes for two weeks, collected a dollar and fifty cents a week, a cubbyhole for a room and meals as good as were served to the silk-hat guests. Then came the question whether I should head for the West coast or east to Galesburg. I admitted I was a little homesick for the faces and streets of Galesburg.

  After this stint in Denver, Sandburg headed back to his hometown.

Stop 12: McCook, Nebraska

• McCook, Nebraska

  
  

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  Carl Sandburg spent very little time in McCook, but the trip there was interesting. Along the way, police officers were checking boxcars for vagrants so Sandburg decided to hide on top of the car. Hanging on for dear life, he traveled from Denver to McCook. Upon arriving, Sandburg dismounted and was immediately told to leave the city.

  I climbed down and started to walk out of the yards. A one-eyed man in plain clothes with a club and a star stood in my way. "Where did you come from?" His tone was horstyle. "I just got off that train," I said. He gave me my orders in a more horstyle tone: "We don't want the likes of you in this town. You get back on that train."

  And with that, Sandburg climbed back onto the roof of the boxcar and headed out of McCook.

Stop 13: Nebraska City, Nebraska

• Nebraska City, Nebraska

  
  

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  n Nebraska City, Sandburg spent his time picking apples and chopping wood in exchange for two sitdowns (meals at the kitchen table). He also met a lawyer who hired him on to chop wood.

  About the lawyer, he wrote:

  Seeing my suit of clothes somewhat ragged, [he] asked me if I would like an old suit of his. He brought it out, an iron-gray all-wool suit, better than any I had had in my life.

Stop 14: Omaha, Nebraska

• Omaha, Nebraska

  
  

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  Omaha was the last city on Sandburg's Hobo Journey.

  For work in Omaha, he was a dishwasher at the Hotel Mercer for a dollar and fifty cents a week. Unfortunately, for the second time on his journey, Sandburg worked a job without pay.

  He writes:

  It was a little queer how standard was the wage rate for a dishwasher. It never went as low as a dollar and twenty-five cents a week nor a high as a dollar and seventy-five cents a week... The hotel was leased and run by a fancily dressed tall man who slid and slunk rather than walked around the place. He was known as Wink Taylor... At the end of the first week I didn't get my standard pay of a dollar and fifty cents nor likewise at the end of the second week. Then came the word that the Hotel Mercer was closed, gone, up the spout, foreclosed, and Wink Taylor vanished.

  In his writings about Omaha, Carl Sandburg reflected that during his travels he had considered joining the Army multiple times. He remembered walking past the recruiting offices in Kansas City, Denver, and Omaha, but each time he neglected to go inside. Sandburg would eventually go on to join and serve during the Spanish-American War.

Hobo Homecoming

• Hobo Homecoming

  
  

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  Sandburg arrived in Galesburg on October 15,

  I caught one freight train after another till I came in sight of Galesburg the afternoon of October fifteenth. I walked along Berrien Street till I came to the only house in the United States where I could open a door without knocking and walk in for a kiss from the woman of the house.

  They gave me a sitdown and as they had had only two or three letters from me, they asked me where I had been and I told them the half of it. When I showed my father fifteen dollars and a few nickels, he said the money would come in handy and I should watch it.

  What had the trip done to me? I couldn’t say. It had changed me. I was easier about looking people in the eye. When questions came I was quicker at answering them or turning them off. I had been a young stranger meeting many odd strangers and I had practiced at having answers... Away deep in my heart now I had hope as never before. Struggles lay ahead, I was sure, but whatever they were I would not be afraid of them.