A history-making train is now on the tracks at the Saint Louis Zoo.
The new locomotive is the zoo’s first electric train, and it will join the six others currently running on the Emerson Zooline Railroad.
Furthermore, the newest train is the first to be named after a woman: Mary Meachum, a St. Louis abolitionist who was a conductor on the Underground Railroad. Meachum used her home as a safe house and helped to ferry enslaved people to freedom across the Mississippi River from St. Louis to Illinois.
Meachum also worked to educate Black children in the mid-1800s. Her husband, the Rev. John Berry Meachum, founded the First African Baptist Church in St. Louis, the oldest Black church west of the Mississippi. At the church, the Meachums established the “Candle Tallow School” for Black children. When the state of Missouri made it illegal in 1847 for Blacks to receive education, the couple moved the school aboard a steamboat on the Mississippi River where the law could not be enforced. The “Floating Freedom School” had a library, desks and chairs, and helped educate free and enslaved Black students.
After her husband’s death in 1854, Meachum continued the couple’s work, despite the significant risk to her own safety following the passage of the Fugitive Slave Act of 1850 that authorized the hunting and capture of enslaved people to return them to their owners. In 1855, Meachum attempted to help a small group cross the Mississippi to Illinois, but at least five of the enslaved persons were caught. Meachum was arrested and charged for her role in the attempt. Undeterred, Meachum would continue to advocate for the freedom of enslaved people, as well as for the importance of education, until her death in 1869.
“We don’t know how many people she helped free, but she left a legacy and an imprint,” said Angela da Silva, a retired university professor, cultural preservationist and author who spoke during Tuesday’s unveiling ceremony.
The announcement about the new train came during Women’s History Month and one month after Black History Month. In addition, the zoo is also celebrating the 60th anniversary of the Zooline Railroad. Since it opened to the public on Aug. 30, 1963, more than 41 million people have ridden on the trains.
By using less gas emission and utilizing more sustainable resources, the new Mary Meachum train brings a positive, long-term environmental impact, according to Michael Macek, director of the Saint Louis Zoo.
“We’re actually completing a full sustainability plan for the zoo,” Macek said. “There are lots of bits and pieces involved in going green and using fewer, non-renewable resources. So, this first electric locomotive is a very big deal for us.”
Macek notes as the zoo’s current diesel fleet ages, the locomotives will be replaced with electric trains for a much greener approach.
As for the newest member of the fleet, just before the Mary Meachum embarked on its inaugural trip around the zoo, Saint Louis Zoo chief financial officer Cassandra Ray peeled off the adhesive covering on the side of the train to reveal its name – a gesture that was not lost on her as the organization’s first-ever female CFO.
“I always cry when I think about what was happening back in the time of Mary Meachum, and the courageous, brave, incredible work she was doing, trying to right wrongs,” Ray said. “It’s inspiring, motivating and it makes you think … Yeah, I am the hope and dream of the slave and living a life now that they never could have imagined. I just want to do it well and do it to the best of my ability.”
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