John Barriger

[NW Mailing List]

As a former St. Louisan, I remember visiting the then-private Mercantile Library decades ago to examine the ancient photo albums bearing Mr. Barriger’s photos.They were kept under the very watchful eyes of librarians. IIRC, no backpacks, ink pens or other items were allowed in the room, nor could you make photocopies of the pages.
They would however, for a cost, use a primitive digital camera of the era to copy the photos upon request. As I recall, I don’t think that Barriger’s negatives made it to the Merc Library. Wonder where they ended up?
Suffice to say, I was elated to see his shots make it to Flickr to share his work more broadly. They often usefully showed a lot more than rolling stock.
A former old neighbor in a different tax bracket than yours truly moved up in the world even further and bought Barriger’s old St.Louis house. The floors of his home’s library were said to have been reinforced by him to hold the weight of all his materials. Another longtime neighbor recalled area kids trooping to his house at Christmastime to see his model train displays.
I got a walkthrough once of his old place long after his ownership and the only RR items remaining were some railfan-type RR logos on the pantry cabinets.
Andre Jackson
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