When the level-headed surveyor heard his employer wanted to reward him for saving the company thousands of dollars by renaming a train stop after him, he countered.

Edward Gillette asked the chief engineer of surveyors on the Burlington & Missouri River Railroad if the company would consider giving him a percentage of the savings that he accomplished in finding a new and better route to what was then called Donkey Creek.

In exchange, as an employee he would pay for all the surveying costs on that part of the rail line.

His boss’s answer, as recorded in the 1925 book Locating the Iron Trail, was like a loving pat on the head.

“He replied that we would get rich too fast,” Gillette wrote. “However, it was not so much a question of pay with us as to do good work and the company had our bes

See Full Page