Remembering the Doodlebug

Sicily Island Depot in the 1940s

Transcribed from recordings made by my father in the 1990s: 

"Each day at 10am and 3pm the Doodlebug made stops in Sicily Island.  The postmaster, Tom Hardin, would whistle for Harry Jenkins.  It was Harry's job to harness an old gray horse to a wagon and head to the depot to pick up the mail.  The old gray horse was named Mag and she belonged to Buck Smith.  Always following along behind Harry and Mag were two old dogs named Blue and Trailer."

Throughout the 1930s and 1940s, a round trip route between Bastrop and Vidalia brought the Doodlebug to Sicily Island in the mornings following stops in Collinston, Oak Ridge, Rayville, Mangham, Baskin and Winnsboro.

After leaving Sicily Island, the Doodlebug would head to its next stop in Ferriday before completing the first leg of the route in Vidalia.  The same stops were made on the return trip to Bastrop in the evenings.

The Doodlebug was a Sykes-built motorcar employed by the Missouri Pacific Railroad on local passenger runs and mail drops.  Originally built as gas-mechanical motorcars, they were rebuilt in the late 1920s as gas-electric.

Doodlebug

The Morehouse Enterprise reported in 1949:

Citizens and elected officials in northeastern Louisiana rallied in an effort to save the Bastrop-Vidalia line following announcement by Missouri Pacific that it planned to discontinue the line due to insufficient revenue, and replace it with a bus line parallel to the railroad. The “Doodlebug” in question was a 1925 model, train cars Nos. 841 and 842.

The LPSC in a split decision ordered the Doodlebug discontinued. The Enterprise reports Nov. 22, 1949 the Doodlebug was slated for removal “within the next couple of weeks.”