Old Missoula

Americans in Siberia – 1919 – Everett Showalter Railroad Dispatcher

One of the most interesting of letters which has come from faraway Siberia to Missoula, in many days, is one received by Mrs. Everett H. Showalter, from her husband, who is now a dispatcher with a railway regiment in the service at Irkutsk.

According to Mr. Showalter, the trans-Siberian railroad is one of the finest he has ever seen. It has a beautiful roadbed, he says, and is kept immaculately clean, being swept by women. Prices of living commodities are extremely high, one cucumber costing $1.25 and radishes $1.25 a bunch.

In part, his letter follows:

Our trip from Harbin was very pleasant, even though we were on the train eight days. The scenery was interesting to look upon, it being my first trip into Siberia. Though we are only 2,000 miles from Vlady, we have traveled through the only interesting part of the country. The scenery changes a few miles west of here from a wooded and fertile country, through which many beautiful rivers flow, to a vast expanse of plains, and I have been told that the terrain is the same as far west as the Ural mountains, which form the boundary between Siberia and European Russia.

Describes Lake Baikal.

The most interesting part of our trip occurred after we touched Lake Baikal. We traveled along the bank of this lake for 200 miles, and passed through 39 tunnels between Clydohka and Baikal City. The Russians considered that they lost the war[1] because, owing to the lack of transportation facilities, they had been forced to move their troops across the ice from Baikal City. Thousands of the troops died from the exposure. As a result of this two of these tunnels were built. I took a snap shot of the old landing at Micobar.

These tunnels I have just mentioned were pickings for the Bolsheviki last summer. Many were blown up. This has been one of the chief causes for the slow restoration of the traffic on the trans-Siberian railroad. Now that the Americans have taken over the supervision of the road, our own troops do guard duty from Bepdhuyuhck to Baikal city, and they guard and have charge of all of these tunnels. Although the mileage which they guard is not great, the territory is the most important on the whole trans-Siberian railroad.

Further, regarding the lake and its history. It has a fresh water area of 13,185 square miles. It is 400 miles long and from 18 to 56 miles wide. Its depth in places is as great as 6,500 feet. The water is so absolutely pure and clean that one can look down many feet and see fish.

Water Extremely Clear.

Colonel Cantry is very enthusiastic over this city and the lake. The latter does not touch Irkutsk, however. Here we have a beautiful river called the Ahsapa. It is the most placid looking body of water I have ever seen, and it is so clear and so pure that the city’s water supply is taken therefrom without filtration. The weather is warm at this time of the year, and one sees many row boats thereon. The river is quite wide, and at the present time is crossed only by a pontoon bridge. Possibly the construction of a better one is being thought of, but I can see no evidence of any such thoughts being put into action.

From my window I can see the whole city of Irkutsk. It is made a beautiful sight by the dozen (sic) of vast churches and the one great cathedral, the largest in all Siberia. I took a picture of it this morning. There are several parks here. I walked through one of them in which there is an immense monument of Alexander the Great. It overlooks the river, and there is a bath house and a boat house there. It must be great “pickings” here in the summer. In a certain part of the city on our way up town one can see the result of Bolshevism. The buildings are burned and shot full of holes and the corners were shot off of some of them during the street fighting.

The city is a real one and it looks the part. It is vastly unlike Harbin and Vlady. The latter is built on a hill. Here the city in a valley.

Prices Extremely High.

The stores seem to be quite well stocked, but the prices are outlandish. Cucumbers cost about $1.25 each, and radishes cost about $1.25 a bunch. The only things that are reasonable and which correspond to our home prices are meat, butter, eggs and milk. All other supplies for our table come from America, except the vegetables, which we shall buy locally regardless of price. It costs us 4,600 rubles to feed our bunch between here and Harbin on our diner. Our bill for bread alone was 1,200 rubles. But regardless of the high cost of living, wages are awfully low. I was talking with the “hog head” on our train on the first district of the Trans-Baikal division, and he said he received only 220 rubles a month, which is about $15 at the present rate of exchange. I said I could not live on it at all. All the working class eat over here is bread and tea, but the bread here has some nourishment in it. If you were to drop a loaf of it on your toe, you would think it was flatiron or a brick.

Everywhere you go, if you are an American, the people have you spotted as a millionaire. I have given away more money to the beggars since I landed in Vlady than all the rest of the corps put together. I cannot pass up a woman who is, to all appearances, starving, and in most cases with an infant in her arms. It is the same if the beggar is an old man. I love old people.

This city is full of soldiers and officers. There are only a few Americans. They are mostly Czechs, Bulgarians, and Russians. I think there are about 35,000 in all, excluding 5,000 German and Austrian prisoners.

The population here is death on the Jews and Japs. No Jap can stay here at all, unless he be a soldier, and there are none of them. I do not know how our Jew interpreters will get along. I do not think very successfully.

Oldest and Largest City.

This is the oldest city in Siberia, as well as the largest. It is also the capital. There are tombstones in a grave here with dates, 1720 and 1726, respectively. It is here where all the Czar’s exiles were formerly sent in herds, and distributed from here to all the various mines. In a word, it is worth waiting nearly two years just to see it.

Our party, which when we left Harbin, consisted of 30 men not including an equal number of interpreters. They were distributed over two divisions. The first two dispatchers got off at Popaz, a little place in the desert near Manchuria station. The rest of the interpreters were grouped off at subdivision points in twos, the other fellow and myself being the choice for the best city in the country. This was because it was the headquarters. Farnsworth was left with two trick (sic) men at Bepdnyauhcks, 483 versts[2] east of here. He hated to leave me, and would have asked that I be left with him, had I not wanted to go to Irktusk. But he will come up occasionally.

At every station, where men were left, quarters had been arranged for, and in every case they were elegant, and were nice and clean. No one can kick for a single minute.

Two dispatches and two trainmasters are located at Clydohka, about 150 versts east of here. It is on the bank of Baikal, and so is there (sic) home. It is a summer resort and all that a man could desire.

The railroad – all double track from Omsk east for 2,500 miles – is the finest in the world, I believe. I never saw much beautiful roadbed and such smooth riding. It is kept immaculately clean, being swept by women. There is not a blade of grass anywhere. The yards at all points are as clean as a cement sidewalk, regardless of the fact that people who reside in cars at nearly every station, throw their waste outside. The New York Central has absolutely nothing on this road. Their bridges are wonderfully built. Precaution of every kind against slides have been taken, and while they look curious to me, they do the business. The power used on the trains to Baikal is not as heavy as that used farther east, but they whip right along. The box cars are small, averaging 32,000 pounds capacity.

 

The above article appeared in The Daily Missoulian on July 6, 1919.

https://www.newspapers.com/image/349049562/

 

Showalter Home, Long in Siberia

Finds Morals of Russians to Be Very Low; Speaks of Work Abroad

Ingratitude and theft are the principal characteristics of the Russians of Siberia, is the belief of Lieutenant Everett Showalter, who Tuesday night returned to his home in Missoula, after spending nearly two years and a half in the service of the Russian Railway corps, most of that time being stationed at Irkutsk. The American railway men who went to Siberia were forced to combat treachery and double-faced officials in their efforts to aid in the establishment of a stable transportation system, Lieutenant Showalter said. As evidence of the double dealing is submitted the fact that though the Kolchak government through orders issued to its employees apparently gave the American officers absolutely (sic) authority over the Russians, secret contradictory orders were found which told the Russians to disregard the former commands.

Lieutenant Showalter who was a dispatcher at the division headquarters of the Northern Pacific in Missoula, enlisted in the railway corps in 1917, and left this city October 20, 1917, not to return until last evening. He arrived at Vladivostok December 14, 1914, three days later returning to Nagasaki, Japan, where the corps remained until August 1, 1918, waiting for an agreement to be reached with the new authorities following the overthrow of the Kerensky government, under whose auspices the Russian Railway corps had been sent to Siberia. Finally consent was received from the new government to place the Americans at various points along the line and Lieutenant Showalter was one of a party of seven which accompanied Colonel Thomas H. Lantry to Irkutsk, 2,000 miles from Vladivostok, and the center of Siberia, where they remained in charge of railway traffic.

Lieutenant Showalter was placed in charge of the dispatching district between Enokentovskaya and Baikal City, a double-tracked district, with excellent construction. It was his duty to train Russians as dispatchers, which he did not find a difficult task, though the Russians were slow to grasp the necessity for a perfect record of trains with a double track. He did his tutoring through the aid of an interpreter. At first it was thought that the Americans would be able to accomplish a great deal, with an American dispatching system established on every division on the Trans-Siberian railway, and though considerable opposition was encountered, a great deal was done in relieving congestion of traffic and improving operation methods. The steady flow of refugees coming to Irkutsk to escape from the Bolsheviki proved one of the principal problems that the railway men were forced to solve, difficulty being experienced in obtaining enough “tepushchkas” or box cars to handle the traffic.

In January of this year Lieutenant Showalter resigned and left Irkutsk, staying a month in Vladivostok because of his failure to get first-class accommodations on the transport Sherman. Later he boarded the Great Northern, leaving Vladivostok on January 17, remaining at Nagasaki three days, then stopping at Guam, Manila and Honolulu on the way to San Francisco.

 

The above article appeared in The Daily Missoulian on March 4, 1920.

https://www.newspapers.com/image/348695374/?terms=e%2Bh%2Bshowalter

 

More information about American involvement in Russia during this period is available from the article “Guarding the Railroad, Taming the Cossacks” by Gibson Bell Smith, linked below:

https://www.archives.gov/publications/prologue/2002/winter/us-army-in-russia-1.html

 

Everett H. Showalter was born in Ohio in 1887. He began working for the Milwaukee Railroad in 1908 as a telegraph operator at Garrison and came to Missoula in 1910 to work for the N. P. His father, W. C. Showalter, was chief dispatcher for the Northern Pacific railway in Missoula in 1908. Everett later rose to the chief dispatcher position in Missoula in 1922, after his return from Siberia. He left Missoula in 1930 for a similar position in Fargo, N. D. then returned to Missoula in 1936 as trainmaster on the Rocky Mountain Division. He became general manager of the Spokane, Portland and Seattle Railway in 1953.

He married Carolyn Young of Ovando, Mt. in 1911. She died of a broken neck while alone at her home on Eddy Avenue in Missoula in February of 1922. Her death was reportedly an accident when she fell down her basement stairs. Everett was not at home at the time of the accident. He married his second wife, Ruth Carnall Edwards, in February of 1923 in Los Angeles. Earlier, she had been an office employee for the N.P. in Missoula. In 1927 he married his third wife, Georgiana Lacasse, the daughter of George Lacasse of Missoula. Everett died in Oregon in 1966.