McComb's Rail Legacy Reborn: Museum Rises from Ashes with Community Resolve

You can't keep the McComb railroad people down. They operate with the busyness of a locomotive's smokestack, blasting exhaust, grit and grime away from the train engineer's footplate.

Soon after a young arsonist burned down the city's sparkling Railroad Museum in May 2021, a corps of volunteers quickly plotted a rebuild.

Five years later, the museum has reopened, proving that tragedy can become the starting point for something spectacular.

You'll know it as soon as you enter the new doors of what essentially is a shrine to McComb itself.

After all, McComb City exists for only one reason: the railroad.

That enterprise founded the city, built it up and nourished its existence for more than 150 years.

In the meantime, thousands of people toiled to make it work. Then, the city's backbone, the rail car and engine maintenance shops, disappeared about as quickly as the famed City of New Orleans train races south overnight from Chicago along the "Mainline of Mid-America" route connecting the cities.

Such history had to be preserved in what inarguably was Mississippi's premier rail town for most of its being. Several state railroad centers shared with McComb the museum's superb collection of artifacts.

They're ready for viewing again. The fire cost the museum myriad coveted items, but railroad enthusiasts and citizens have been generous in replenishing history.

Digital ingenuity is a welcomed addition, including a video of Col. H.S. McComb telling museum visitors why he moved his rail shops from New Orleans to McComb in 1872 (so workers could escape alcohol and sinning).

He praised volunteers like Sam and Ganeath Daniel who have dedicated a large portion of their recent lives to overseeing the museum and putting together educational programs extolling McComb and the railroad. As George and Martha Washington, they spearheaded the recent America250 commemoration of the Declaration of Independence.

"Representing a 1700's character was Dr. Robbie Decoux, who shared some unusual facts about Benjamin Franklin. Annette Byrd shared how Harriet Tubman masterminded the slaves' underground railroad during the 1800's. The story of McComb Enterprise-Journal editor Oliver Emmerich was told by current editor Jack Ryan, who brought the career of Emmerich in the 1960's era of controversy to light," said Ganeath Daniel.

It was a production for the ages, seeing DeCoux and the Daniel duo dressed in period costumes. DeCoux, a retired physician who wrote a splendid biography ("Bob") of his dad's railroading career, has a head full of memories of engineers and conductors, brakemen, firemen, porters, call boys, train numbers, arrival-departure schedules and the roundhouse, where elite master mechanics kept it all running.

Said McComb Main Street director Brandon Andrews: "The story is not just about a building. It's about the people who refused to let an important piece of our community's history be forgotten. It's about faithfulness. It's about heart. It's about showing up again and again because you believe something matters.

"Few people embody that more than Sam and Ganeath Daniel," he added.

The "Meet Your Patriots" program was the first in a series "designed to promote patriotism, education and appreciation of the work done by those who came before us," said Ganeath Daniel.

McComb has a grand opportunity to capitalize on the rail museum's return. A grant of $400,000 through the Mississippi Main Street program will strengthen public safety in the downtown area.

A music museum project is also being studied. Bringing the "Noon Tunes" entertainment project back to the environs of the Palace Theater and the railroad museum was another smart move, giving rise to improved times in the old hometown.