The other day we went searching for the birthplace of a man who rose to a high place in the railroad building world -- and found it.

It came about this way: Mrs. Florence Parker Luckenbeal of Chicago and Florida, was in the east and was most anxious to know the spot where her father, the late Hilon A. Parker, was born. Offhand it seemed like the hunting for the proverbial needle in the haystack, but in no time at all the place was located in spite of the fact that the spot is now just pasture land, the buildings having been removed years ago.

Hilon A. Parker was born in the Plessis area and when the Civil war came on he enlisted and became an officer in the army, going in as a captain. After the war he went west, was an expert surveyor and soon became connected with the Rock Island railroad. He was not long in working up towards the top in the official ranks of the road and in time became the general manager of the entire system. He was also first vice president, and acting president. It was under his directions that hundreds of miles of the railroad were built in the new lands of the west. This was especially true of the lines extending into what was at the time Indian territory, and many of the stations along the line were named by Mr. Parker himself. Sometimes he had this daughter, Florence, go out with him in their private railroad car and she would suggest names for the villages yet to be.

Mr. Parker had always intended to bring his daughter to the east to see the spot where he was born, but a busy life prevented. And now, after quite a few years after the sudden death of her father she was in the east and wanted to visit the exact location, if possible.

When consulted an old Jefferson county atlas, turning to the map of the town of Alexandria. But there were three places in and about Plessis that were marked “A. Parker,” who would be the father of her father. By the simple process of elimination we ruled out the property opposite the Plessis cemetery, as not likely to be the place where her grandfather resided when her father was born. Next to be considered as unfavorable was the farm on the Plessis-Redwood road that the map said belonged to him. The farm about two miles out towards Tanner Corners we thought the most likely one of the three and it was to that place we drove, watching the pasture lands on the right for signs of a former cellar wall.

At a bend in the road we espied what seemed like some foundation stones and there we began our investigation, entering the pasture fence by a gate-way which might have been used, when a dwelling stood there. Mrs. Luckenbeal stood at the spot, gave a look to the south, turned and took a long look to the north, and said, “This is the place.”

It seems that years before Mr. Parker, on a hurried trip east, had visited the spot. The house was gone, but the barn still stood there. He took the ends of two wide boards from the barn door and carried them to his home in Chicago. There he employed a noted artist, told him about the house and barn of his boyhood, described the background of the woods, and from the exact word picture, the artist painted the view, wooded background and all.

“That picture,” she said, “painted on the boards from the homestead, was treasured by my father and shown to many a distinguished person in Chicago. The picture was for years in our living room in Chicago and as a young lady I drank in every outline every day of that homestead. When I stood here and looked off towards the woods, and saw the lay of the land, it fitted into my member perfectly. Yes, this is the place where father was born. There stood the barn, here the house, there the cistern in the cellar. This trip east has been well worth the while.”