Route 66 in the News
Museum to Acquire Unique Artifact
2008-01-23 08:01:37
VICTORVILLE, Calif. - A plaque marking the grave of “Brownie,” a stray dog who greeted World War II troops as they passed through Victorville, will be moved to the California Route 66 Museum as Forrest Park is torn down.
“I remember the dog well,” says Shirley Davisson, whose father worked for the railroad. “He was just a mongrel. A smaller-type, little tan dog.”
Davisson played with the dog when he came by to visit his father or deliver a message.
“Everybody stopped and played with him. He was real friendly.”
Brownie was adopted by the railroad station master and other employees.
“He just showed up one day at the depot,” Davisson said. “The employees started feeding him and he never left.”
Brownie was at the station 24 hours a day, Davisson says, until he was run over by a train and killed in 1945.
The employees who had taken care of the dog then took up a collection for a stone to mark his grave.
The gray, concrete marker now sits under a tree near the railroad tracks in the northwest corner of the park. It reads: “Brownie ‘A railroad dog.’ A friend and a pal. 1945.”
~Brooke Edwards, Victorville Daily Press
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