Railroad History Boards Sleepy Cat

From 'A Cuppa Joe' in the Dec. 18th, 2003 Roanoke Times - Joe Kennedy

The last thing I expected to find on a recent visit to Clifton Forge was a railroad historical society with a full-color catalog of souvenirs, its own building and an executive director who is not only an archivist but also an entrepreneur.

With about 2,500 members from 50 states and 13 foreign countries, the Chesapeake & Ohio Historical Society is the largest historical society devoted to a single railroad in America, Executive Director Margaret Whittington says.

The society's budget comes to $500,000 annually. Its best selling items bear an illustration of Chessie, the sleeping cat that starred in a 1930s ad campaign.

"People love that cat," Whittington says.

Chessie first appeared in the September 1933 issue of Fortune magazine. She was tucked into bed with a paw extended. The campaign's slogan was "Sleep Like a Kitten and Wake Up Fresh as a Daisy in Air-Conditioned Comfort."

The "Sleep Like a Kitten" part caught on. Chessie - the name the cat acquired after the ad debuted - turned up in national magazines and became one of the most recognizable symbols of its day.

In time she acquired kittens named Nip and Tuck and a mate named Peake. Later, she was in a profile on C&O rail cars. Now she is considered the mascot of the CSX Transportation juggernaut.


'A Culture Change'

Chessie is still famous among railroad buffs, cat buffs, and other people who just cant get enough of her.

With permission from CSX, the nonprofit society markets her likeness on calendars, books, pillows, comforters, wall hangings, T-shirts, socks, caps, tote bags, key chains, playing cards, Christmas ornaments, umbrellas, windbreakers, mouse pads and, of course, cat dishes.

She is not the only star of the C&O Society.

Whittington also gets some of the spotlight. A native of western New York State, she earned her library science degree from the University of Pittsburgh in midlife and nine years ago followed a professor's suggestion to check out the job in Clifton Forge, a rail-historyladen town of 4,500 in the Alleghany Mountains about an hour's drive from Roanoke.

"This was such a culture change," she says.

Now she and a full-time staff of three collect, conserve, restore, archive and make available all kinds of C&O information and materials.

Among recent recipients of the wealth: the A&E Network, the British Broadcasting System, the History Channel, the "Today" show, National Geographic Magazine, National Public Radio, Sony Music and the Smithsonian Institution.


200,000-plus Photos

When Disney needed a picture of a steam drill to guide its artists during the production of an animated short about the legend of John Henry, Whittington found a shot of a tunneling engine from the 1800s.

Organized in 1969 and incorporated in 1975, the society has more than 200,000 rail photos dating from about 1870, more than 200,000 engineering drawings, some 60,000 mechanical drawings, 7,000-plus books and periodicals, and corporate minutes and records from 132 companies that preceded the C&O.

It also owns a freight station, leases two tracks and owns several rail cars.

Copies of railroad maps showing switches and such, stapled together and priced for $8 apiece, have brought in as much as $11,000 per year from model railroaders bent on getting everything in their layouts just right.

Whittington retains her Northern accent (coffee becomes CAAW-fee when she speaks) and maintains that she is no obsessive, detail-spouting rail buff. When people ask if she knows this or that, she tells them, "No - but I know where to look it up."