The middle of everything: Joplin transportation

Since the city was founded in 1873, Joplin has been a hub for transportation.

The city was originally a mining town; zinc mining and, to a lesser extent, lead mining, were the core of the economy until the mid-20th century.

According to Brad Belk, Joplin Museum Complex executive director, the industry covered a four-county area called the Tri-State Mining District: Jasper and Newton counties in Missouri, Ottawa County in Oklahoma and Cherokee County in Kansas.

The mining communities therein fed into Joplin’s economy through the Intraurban, a small-scale trolley system.

“All the miners would come in from the mining communities on a Saturday night, do their banking and their other business and look for entertainment here,” Belk said. “The rails really transformed Joplin and made it the mercantile center.”

With the mining industry came the need for rail transportation – filled by the Kansas City Southern Railway Co. in 1887, which ran from Kansas City to Port Arthur, Texas.

The commuter rail industry’s presence, in fact, can still be seen in the old Union Depot, built in 1911 and used for commuter traffic until 1969.

The state-owned building was put on the National Register of Historic Places in 1972, according to Joplin City Planner Richard Largent. The state is looking to sell the depot to a private developer.

Kansas City Southern still travels through Joplin as part of its regular shipping routes.

‘Lift Missouri out of the mud’

But rail travel in Joplin, as in most of the country, had been left behind by 1920 in favor of the emerging automobile.

The Hudson Law, passed in 1895, called for the construction of a system of highways in southwest Missouri. John Malang, the superintendent of the Joplin Special Road District, came up with the unique idea of using leftovers from the prevalent mining industry to make concrete to pave the road, giving Joplin the first concrete highway in the state, which connected Joplin to Galena and Webb City.

Malang was later appointed as the first superintendent of the Missouri highway system and brought his notion of paved highways to the state level in an effort to “lift Missouri out of the mud.”

Museum director Belk said Malang also has the ignominious title of being in charge of the highway system when Missouri in 1924 passed its first gasoline sales tax of 2 cents per gallon.

But it was the advent of the U.S. highway system that brought new national importance to Joplin, which was located at the intersection of two major national highways: U.S. Route 71, built in 1926, which follows the same basic route as the old KCSR rail line between Kansas City and Texas; and U.S. Route 66, running from New York to California.

‘World headquarters’

Joplin’s location at the confluence of several major highways has drawn in companies in shipping and distribution.

City Planner Largent points to Frito-Lay Inc., which earlier this year built a regional distribution facility in Joplin after being sold on the strategic location Joplin had to offer. There are five highways that traverse the area: Interstate 44 and U.S. highways 43, 60, 69 and 71.

“The highways are not the only selling point, but it’s a huge part of it,” Largent said. “When we have several (shipping companies) build their world headquarters here, they wouldn’t do that unless they were confident that they could use Joplin as a starting point for their facilities.”

Several trucking companies have headquarters in Joplin – including Contract Freighters Inc., Sitton Motor Lines and Tri-State Motor Transit – while others are located about an hour away, including Prime Inc. in Springfield and J.B. Hunt in Lowell, Ark. The trucking industry as a whole employs some 4,000 workers, according to the Joplin Chamber of Commerce.

CFI, founded in Joplin in 1951, comprises the majority of that work force. It’s grown from a small startup to a 2,400-truck operation employing about 2,700 and shipping to all parts of North America.

Herb Schmidt, CFI president and CEO, said the company’s longevity and success speaks to the area’s advantageous location.

“You’d be hard-pressed to find any other place where you could put a pin in the map, make a 75-mile circle around it and find this much transportation,” Schmidt said.

Looking forward

The highway system continues to be the lifeblood of the area, and the Missouri Department of Transportation has several projects ongoing in its southwest district, which covers 11 counties.

Becky Baltz, district engineer for MoDOT’s southwest district, said four major projects continue:

• construction on the bypass at State Route 249 and Range Line Road;

• widening of Highway 13 to four lanes between Springfield and Clinton;

• $29 million worth of resurfacing work this year; and

• the continued widening of Highway 71 from Joplin to the Arkansas state line.

Baltz added that the department will soon begin work on a preliminary concept plan to convert Highway 71 to an interstate. The roadway, called I-49, would come north out of Shreveport, La., and connect with Kansas City.

While Baltz said no state funding is currently available in Missouri, a multistate coalition has been working for several years to get funding from the various state legislatures and the federal government.

Called the I-49 International Coalition, it is made up of business and community leaders from Kansas City to New Orleans.

Tom Manskey, president of the Fort Smith (Ark.) Regional Chamber of Commerce, was chosen as the coalition’s president in January. He said the coalition wants the change not only for commerce, but also to keep motorists safe.

“In Arkansas, in addition to economic development, there’s a safety issue,” Manskey said. “From Fort Smith to Texarkana, it’s very windy, there’s a lot of two-lane, a lot of hills and mountainous country. There have been a number of accidents and fatalities.”

He added that the shipping traffic from companies such as Wal-Mart and Tyson Foods makes the improvements all the more necessary.

The highway project would spell big business for the areas through which it travels – the Fort Smith chamber estimates that converting the highway to interstate would add 27,000 jobs in the northwest Arkansas region alone in the next 10 years.

Joplin’s Largent said that while it would be premature to project the economic impact the interstate designation would bring to Missouri, the upgrade would be a huge tool for enticing companies to the city.

“In Kansas City, you can pick up I-35 north or I-70 east or west. If you get to Shreveport you can get to New Orleans, which is a very important port,” he said. “Being in a strategic location like this gives us an edge.”[[In-content Ad]]