This is not uniquely Nebraska-related, but might be useful to researchers anywhere in North America. Someone recently asked me about a well-known but nameless (to her) directory of obscure or now non-existent places in the United States. I love a challenge! Actually, this turned out to be easier than expected. I think what she was referring to was
Bullinger's Postal and Shippers Guide for the United States and Canada, Containing Every Post Office, Railroad Station and United States Fort, with the Railroad or Steamer Line on which Every Place, or the Nearest Communicating Point, Is Located, and the Delivering Expresses for Every Place. Also a List of Railroads and Water Lines, with Their Terminal Point. How's that for a comprehensive title? You know exactly what you're getting! Forts and all.
Anyway, this guide was published on a more or less yearly basis from 1871 up into the 1990s or so, although the title has varied over the years--it has also appeared as the
Monitor Guide to Post Offices and Railroad Stations. It is no longer in business, apparently since at least 2005, when its trademark ("Bullinger's") was cancelled. Its last owner was Alber Leland Publishing (thanks, Ulrichsweb!). Now, of course, we have the United States Postal Service
website, and
RailRoutes.US (basically Amtrak), but these are such a palid shadow of what we once had...(sob).
FamilySearch has
microfilmed a few of the Bullinger's Guides, and they can be ordered in for viewing at the
W. Dale Clark Library in Omaha. Even nicer, the 1922 edition is available
online at Google Books--which was the last year it was published by its founder, Edwin W. Bullinger. That year, at the age of 79, he transferred ownership to the New England Railway Publishing Co., the publisher of the
ABC Pathfinder Shipping and Mailing Guides--which, if possible, have an even more explicit subtitle than Bullinger's:
Containing All Railroads and Railroad Stations, Water Routes, Express Offices, Telegraph Offices, Post Offices, and Places That Are Not Post Offices, in the United States And Canada, Together with the Location of Every Place, Whether or Not Upon a Railroad or Water Route; If Not, the Nearest Point from which It Can Be Reached. Freight, Express, Postal, and Telegraph Information, Court-Houses, List of Places Where Records, Mortgages, and Deeds Are Filed, Etc., Etc. Does that sound handy or what?
Now, why am I excited enough about this to write one of my increasingly rare blog posts about it? Well, if you've ever tried to track down an ancestral stomping ground that apparently no-one has stomped for these many moons, your trials are over. This guide lists just about every mud puddle that existed in the year of its publication. Of course, now
hometownlocator.com seems to do that as well....but still. Hometownlocator.com does not tell you that La Platte, Nebraska, was a railway stop, as Bullinger's does, or what a town's nearest railway station or post office was. You can see that La Platte was not really a boom city.....
One handy aspect of these guides is that the towns (or mud puddles) are all listed alphabetically together, regardless of what county or state they were in, so if you are looking for a place called Peach Bottom but have no idea of its location, you can easily discover that, at least in 1922, there were two Peach Bottoms, one in Lancaster Co., PA, and one in Grayson Co., VA, and that the one in Pennsylvania was a money order post office. You can also see what railway lines these places were on. The
ABC Pathfinder even tells you where to look for county and town records.
As a bit of trivia--Agatha Christie used the British version of the ABC Pathfinder to plot one of her mysteries, which was, of course, entitled
The ABC Murders (get it at Omaha Public Library! You can even
download it instantly to your Nook, Sony, or Kindle).
And, of course, it goes without saying that if you are a railroad buff, you will have a BALL with these guides!
