The Brown Hotel in the 1950s. The hotel (renamed later the Dudley Hotel) served as Springfield Transient Shelter No. 2 in 1934-35. As a hotel, the Brown/Dudley catered to African-American travelers when other hotels wouldn’t accept Black lodgers. The transient shelter, however, was racially integrated. (Sangamon Valley Collection)
When a jobless migrant – a “hobo” or “tramp” – wandered into Springfield during the Great Depression, he might have been in for a surprise: a well-stocked shelter offering meals, a bed, work opportunities and even recreation.
Springfield’s transient-aid program was part of the Federal Transient Service, set up in 1933 to help communities deal with the hordes of people traveling the country to find work. The program lasted only about two years, until the administration of Franklin D. Roosevelt developed a more extensive welfare system. In the meantime, though, the transient system helped hundreds of people a day in Springfield alone.
Springfield opened its first three shelters in January 1934. They weren’t enough. Five hundred transients overflowed the available beds, and within a month, officials had to seek more beds in downtown rooming houses and residential hotels.
The original three shelters were at 131½ N. Sixth St.; 11th and Adams streets (the former Brown Hotel); and Ninth and Adams streets (in an old Illinois Terminal Railroad freight house).
An Illinois State Journal reporter visited one of the shelters shortly after it opened.
Each shelter station contains a number of army cots on which the unfortunates seek nightly repose. There are showers for bathing, kitchens for preparing food, and dining rooms in which it is served. Eventually there will be recreation rooms where the men can read, relax, or indulge in recreational games and pastimes.
Those who are able are expected to work 18 hours a week in return for their succor.
By May 1935, Springfield had at least five shelters: the original three, plus additional ones at 10th and Adams streets and Eighth and Washington streets.
That may not have been a complete count: the 1934 Springfield city directory also lists a “Transient Home for Women” at 704 E. Monroe St. However, Springfield transient bureau director James Maxwell told the Journal at one point the number of women registered as transients here was “so small as to be neglible.”
Maxwell, a former YMCA official from Detroit, headed a staff of 11 employees. Local social service agencies, including the YMCA, YWCA and Travelers Aid Society, also provided support. But much of the work was done by shelter residents themselves. For instance, the Journal’s January 1934 story reported 42 transients operated the shelters’ combined laundry, which was in Shelter No. 2, the former hotel.
At shelter No. 3 (Ninth and Adams – ed.) is a bakery, (where) experienced bakers, gleaned from the transients seeking aid, prepare 400 loaves of bread daily for the local consumption. At shelter No. 2 is a barber shop, where three experienced barbers keep all the shelter “guests” in trim. Those physically unable to wield a razor are given free shaves.
Residents did finish work, like painting, when the shelter buildings were remodeled, and transients with woodworking skills built 150 chairs, which were distributed among the three shelters. Other skilled, if jobless, migrants sewed their compatriots’ clothes and mended their shoes.
During the summer of 1934, shelter residents raised their own vegetables on a 60-acre truck farm near 18th Street and Ridgely Avenue. Some migrants cut firewood, which was given away to Springfield’s own impoverished residents. The laborers earned 50 cents to $3 a week, plus their room and board.
The Ninth and Adams shelter even boasted a small hospital and dispensary staffed on a part-time basis by local physicians, the Journal story said.
Among the present patients (in January 1934) are three youths who hail from West Virginia. They told Maxwell that they were kicked out of their home by a stepfather, and the only resource they had was to “hit the trail.” At present they are in quarantine, being afflicted with a contagious disease.
Fred Schrader, undated (Courtesy State Journal-Register)
The Springfield shelters worked with a satellite camp, Camp Schrader, which opened on the Sangamon River near Kilbourne in summer 1934. The camp was named after Fred Schrader (1891-1963), who headed the Associated Welfare Agencies of Springfield at the time; he also was president of the Chicago & Illinois Midland Railroad. The 200 campers lived in tents surrounding a mess hall, administration building and washroom/laundry.
Maxwell “has arranged a routine for the campers which should prove invigorating and helpful to the men, most of whom have been unable to find employment for a long period,” the Journal said.
They will arise early and after breakfast will work for six hours, interrupted only by luncheon. The afternoon, so long as weather permits, will be devoted to swimming in the river, where a beach has been laid out, and to sports of various kinds, such as baseball, volleyball and horseshoes.
In the winter … the mess hall will be used for a study hall and as a library, with space also gymnastics and boxing.
Any time a camper desires to leave he will be allowed to go and his place will be taken by an inmate of one of the city’s shelters who wants to enroll at the camp and is physically able to do the work.
Transients who stayed in Springfield didn’t miss out on recreation. The transient bureau had a recreation center in the 100 block of North Eighth Street, and shelter residents competed in YMCA-sponsored sporting events. The transients’ swim team, led by a multisport athlete named Ray Hartenberger – nothing else is known of him – romped over teams from six other organizations in the Y’s 1934 Community Club competition.
A group of transient entertainers (dancers, singers, a contortionist and a “Hill Billy Band” among them) put on a well-attended vaudeville show at Lincoln School in February 1934. In turn, the Illinois State Register said, 70 children living in the transient shelters were treated to a Christmas party, including Santa, that December.
In full operation, the Springfield shelters typically housed 800-900 migrants every night, plus the 200 men at Camp Schrader.
Considering how many homeless men went through the shelters during the two years they operated, they seem to have been relatively trouble-free – less than 1 percent of registered residents had criminal records, Maxwell said. Newspaper stories report a few fights, some thefts, and a couple dozen arrests, often for crimes allegedly committed elsewhere.
In what apparently was the most serious incident, shelter intake manager Kenneth Corley was stabbed by a drunken transient, William Murphy. Corley recovered, and Murphy was sentenced to seven months at the Vandalia state farm.
Overall, Mayor John “Buddy” Kapp told a luncheon club in 1934, “the Springfield transient bureau is regarded with more friendliness by local people than is true in other cities.”
The Transient Bureau operated in about 300 cities nationwide, including Cairo, East St. Louis, Moline, Rockford, Danville and Chicago in Illinois. Camp Schrader was among several hundred similar work camps.
The Federal Transient Service shut down in early 1936, to be replaced by the new Works Progress Administration.
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