A year or so ago Jim Thurmond called me and said that he had some lanterns (RR) that he would like to donate to the depot. During our conversation he mentioned that he had his dad’s old milk can that they would ship cream from Alderson to the processing plants (Baltimore). The cream would be picked up by the mail carriers, dropped off at the creamery across from the depot, prepared for shipping and then sent to the depot to be shipped. Jim said that he really did not want to donate it because it was so badly damaged and was in terrible condition. He indicated that the brass plate (the plate with the C&O shipping information as well as the Thurmond’s’ account). He also indicated that the lid was intact however as stated in “very bad shape”.

As I recall Wednesday was shipping day (east bound) at about 7pm. I would go to depot and help my dad load the cans from the baggage carts onto the train. Sometimes we would have 3 or 4 carts packed with cans that had to be loaded quickly so the train would not fall behind its schedule.

After we spoke for a while Jim said he would bring it to me and I could make the decision what to do with it. I assured him that we would do our best to keep it etc. After receiving the can I mentally agreed with Jim that the can was in terrible shape but I felt that it could be salvaged. I took it to Joey Wilson’s body shop and talked Joey into taking a “shot” at it to see if he could make the can “live again” Well, today I picked it up and I would like to share with the Aldersonian faithful readers how the can turned out. Joey did a great job and it is my hope that Jim will be pleased with the job that was done.

This treasure will be a permanent part of the depot museum and we are very grateful to Jim and Joey to have this great piece of C&O history as well as Alderson History. Enclosed is a photo of this very important historical piece, and I have not spoken to Jim about it yet but I sincerely hope that he is as pleased as I am.

We hope to have the current renovation of the depot complete soon, and we look forward to having the museum and the entire building with our collection of pieces of history open soon and would invite all of you to stop by to see us when you are in Alderson.