Right on track
Model train made from scrap materials makes long trip from Oregon to Gravette
GRAVETTE — Youngsters walking to school or being driven to school down El Paso Street S.E. in Gravette now have a new attraction to catch their eye. Belva Hughes, who moved to town from Medford, Ore., in the middle of 2019, recently had the last vestige of her life in Oregon delivered to Gravette. Her son Christopher brought the memento last week, a model train built by his father entirely from scrap materials.
The miniature locomotive has an interesting history. Visitors are surprised to learn that it served a useful purpose; it started life as a wood heating stove. Belva explains that she and her husband John lived in an old farmhouse for several years. The old structure, built in 1901, was poorly insulated and very cold in the winter. The Hughes went shopping for wood stoves but found they cost about $600 or $700. John told his wife that he could build a stove much cheaper than that.
“I’ll just do that instead of going elk hunting this year,” he decided. And he asked her what she wanted it to look like.
Belva’s mother had an old cookie jar she liked. It was shaped like a train. So, since he asked, she told her husband, “I want it to look like Mom’s train.”
John promptly went to work scouring salvage yards and buying materials. He built the train in only a week during the mid-’70s. Sticks of wood were placed in the front of the train and a window on the side allowed one to see the flickering flames.
The train engine is cleverly constructed, with side plates off a Best brand motor, a cast-iron water tank, and a brass bell that reads “Old Texas.” Pistons are old fire extinguisher canisters, and the gears are from an old granite pit. The wheels are off an old luggage cart from the railway station, and gracefully curved rebar makes up the cowcatcher and trim around the engine.
The train sits on a short piece of track constructed of rails that once fed rocks into a crusher at an old rock quarry. Behind it is a coal car John made in 2014. The flat part of the coal car is the top of a table saw he made in 1966 out of scraps from his grandmother’s home in California. It sits on a piece of track that came from inside a mine.
Belva was only 16 when she and John married. He was 17. They had to go to court to get permission since both were underage. California law specified the groom should be at least 18 and the bride 16. She speaks admiringly of her husband’s talents and creativity, saying he was always very selfsufficient. His family moved often when he was a youngster and he worked to help support his family. He quit school in the eighth grade but always had a strong work ethic.
The Hughes’ son, Christopher, was born about a year after their marriage and, four years later, they had another son, Brian. The Hughes family used the train wood stove for about 15 years but it was very heavy and, when they moved to another house, it was too big and was no longer used.
John Hughes operated his own auto repair and machine shop for more than 30 years. When he retired in 2011, he took up new hobbies and expressed his creativity through woodworking, stained glass work and various home remodeling and repair jobs. He gave handmade crafts as gifts to friends, family members and fellow church members. Belva proudly shows off a hand-carved wooden candleholder he made for their 25th anniversary, a matching clock on the wall nearby and a stained glass panel that was once the bathroom window in the Hughes home. She relates that, at his funeral, a friend remarked that “he was a jack of all trades and,” unlike the old folk saying, “master of them all.”
After John’s death in 2018, Belva moved to Gravette to be near two of her sisters, Laura Kinney and Christie Price. (Another sister, Lynn Langley, lives in Denver.) She bought the house on El Paso Street in May 2019 and lived with Christie for about six months while it was being remodeled. Major changes included a new roof, new floors, new windows and new kitchen cabinets. Being creative themselves, she and her sister did several of the interior projects.
Belva was delighted last week when her son Christopher and his wife Debby, who still live in Medford, visited and brought the train. Her son Brian lives in Eagle Point, Ore., and she has three grandsons, a granddaughter and a great-granddaughter. She enjoys living near the schools and watching the students go by.
The intriguing little train, after making the long journey from Oregon, now rests on a gravel-lined display area in the Hughes front yard. Nearby are a replica of a water tower constructed by Belva and Christie and an old red hand pump. The train is surrounded by various pieces of memorabilia from the Philpott family farm near Gentry. (Belva is the daughter of Kenneth Philpott and Roberta Wilkins of Gentry. She was born in Colorado where her parents went to do seasonal work in the broom cornfields.)
The 884 on the side of the train is Belva’s house number from her home in Oregon but she is having a new sign made which will show her current house number. The train display is now lighted at night and provides a charming attraction around the clock. It is a nostalgic reminder of Belva’s husband and their years together, one she is happy to share with passersby on her street.