Rail relocation uncovers remnants of 1908 riot
The long-brewing Springfield rail relocation project, which would move the railroad tracks currently on Third Street to 10 th Street, has unearthed significant archaeological findings from the 1908 Springfield race riot. The riot led directly to the formation of the NAACP and so the findings are considered to be of national significance. Librarian of Congress Dr. Carla Hayden is among those who have shown interest in housing artifacts once the sites are explored more thoroughly.
The six-mile-long railroad relocation project, stretching from Stanford Avenue to Sangamon Avene, is being administered by local engineering firm Hanson Professional Services, under the supervision of the Federal Railroad Administration (FRA), which is charged with ensuring that the project complies with federal regulations. “We need to go through their process, make sure all the environmental compliance is done so the project can then apply for federal grant money,” said Kevin Seals, chief environmental scientist for Hanson. “The project has a price tag of $315 million with 50 percent or more coming from the federal government. We would not be able to complete this without their assistance.”
The first piece of construction for the relocation was the Carpenter Street underpass which was started in 2014 and completed in 2016. “When we started construction on Carpenter Street, one of the first things we did was to look for any archaeological finds – which was a commitment in an environmental impact statement that we prepared [for the FRA],” explained Seals. Floyd Mansberger of Fever River Research is the project’s archaeologist. Based on some of the archived information from Springfield, he believed that some of the area around Carpenter Street might coincide with the 1908 riot. “We opened up the area and, lo and behold, it was spectacular,” said Floyd Mansberger. “Since 1908 there was no impact on a series of five houses all destroyed in the riot. There’s the foundations, burned timbers, you could see it all. It was well-preserved, the integrity was phenomenal.”
Then the waiting began. The site – part of a parking lot owned by St. John’s HSHS – was covered back up as the FRA and IDOT each began the slow bureaucratic processes required when dealing with historical resources. “We have been in a waiting phase with the archaeology since about January 2015,” said Mansberger.
According to Seals, before re-covering the site, Mansberger was able to retrieve a few artifacts from “test pits” comprising approximately five percent of the total square footage of the basement of one of the buildings, including dishware sets, silverware, coins, buttons and jewelry. These items were cleaned up and presented at various functions over the years since they were uncovered, including one event honoring Dr. Carla Hayden, the first African- American Librarian of Congress, during a visit to Springfield. According to Seals, Hayden remarked that the Library of Congress houses the most NAACP artifacts in the country but has nothing from the Springfield race riot – which was the impetus behind the association’s formation – making the recently recovered items very valuable to them.
Once a memorandum of agreement, drafted by the FRA, receives the required signatures, Mansberger will then be allowed to thoroughly excavate the portions of the five houses located within the construction area. This is expected to result in more historical enlightenment and with it more artifacts.
According to Seals, parties interested in housing any artifacts recovered from the site – in addition to the Library of Congress in Washington, D.C. – include Congressman Rodney Davis and the Springfield and Central Illinois African American History Museum. “There is a strong feeling that there should be an exhibit in the lobby of the new train station on 10 th Street as well as traveling exhibits for schools around town,” he said It will likely be another month before the documents are signed, and then digging (or “data recovery”) is limited to the nicer weather months of the year. “If [Mansberger] doesn’t get finished this fall, he’ll have to resume activities in the spring after everything thaws,” Seals said.
Scott Faingold can be reached at sfaingold@illinoistimes.com.
