Steam locomotive 1501 was one of thirty engines on the Frisco Railway system, built in 1923 by the Baldwin Locomotive Works in Eddystone, Pennsylvania as part of an initial order for fifteen oil-burning "Mountain" type locomotives acquired to address passenger service delays in the difficult Ozark territory west of St. Louis. With a 4-8-2 wheel arrangement, engine weight of around 350,000 pounds, 70-inch driving wheels, tenders carrying 4,500 gallons of oil and 12,000 gallons of water, and a cost of about $70,000 each, the 1500s served as dual-purpose engines for both passenger and freight service and could make longer runs with fewer defects than their predecessors when carefully maintained en route. Assigned initially to the run from Union Station in St. Louis to Oklahoma City, a route of more than seven hundred miles over the system's worst terrain, 1501 was serviced at Newburg, Monett, Springfield, and points in Oklahoma and powered named passenger trains including The Texas Special, Oilfield Special, Meteor, Blue Bonnet, and Sunnyland. After World War II, the class was gradually replaced by diesel locomotives, and the last of the 1500s left service in 1951. Communities along the line soon sought retired locomotives for display, and after a campaign led by Dr. Clair V. Mann and Mr. Floyd Snelson of the Phelps County Historical Society, Frisco President Clark Hungerford granted the county's request on January 25, 1955, donating engine 1501 for display at Schuman Park, former site of the Frisco water tank. A coach arrived in early August, and the locomotive came from Lindenwood Roundhouse soon afterward with fresh paint and 1,792,964 miles behind it, its parts labeled with metal plates identifying their functions. On the morning of August 17, 1955, the engine, oil tender, and passenger car were rolled into position in Rolla, where they remained as reminders of the steam locomotive era and early railroad passenger service. Around 1980, George Carney and his employees at Memoryville USA first painted the engine, oil tender, and passenger car in Rolla, and in the late 1990s Richard Allison repainted them in a five-year effort to preserve the legacy of steam locomotives, after which the City of Rolla built a shelter over the train to protect it from sun and rain.
