Concordia ? A dozen historically minded people are racing time to chronicle a chunk of U.S. history.

If enough money can be raised, the National Orphan Train Complex will open in May 2005 at the old Union Pacific Railroad Depot in Concordia.

The depot was among the stopping points for orphans relocated from New York and other eastern cities to the rural West on what became known as Orphan Trains.

The Concordia volunteers are working to commemorate the railroads and the westward movement of orphans.

But that will require a minimum of $200,000 to open the complex for business, and up to $2 million to complete a research center in the depot.

“We’ve got to have something to shoot for,” said Sue Sutton, Concordia, president of the National Orphan Train Complex.

Riders dying off

Time is of the essence, Sutton said, because fewer than 150 of the up to 250,000 children who rode the orphan trains from 1854 through 1929 are living. The youngest would be in their late 70s, but most are in their 90s.

“Every month somebody else drops from the roster,” she said. “We’d like to have it done for the ones who are left.”

About 50 orphans were placed in the Concordia area, including Clara Reed Duckett, now Clara Reed Morgan, 102 1/2. She lives in a Fort Worth nursing home.

She was adopted by the Duckett family in Belleville, arriving on the train June 19, 1909. Clara’s two brothers, James Reed Elliott and Howard Reed Dowell, both deceased, were adopted by other families in the area.

Generally, the effort started by Presbyterian minister Charles Loring Brace in 1853 is said to have improved the lives of thousands of children.

Historic project

The resurrection of the orphan train story was sparked by Mary Ellen Johnson, Springdale, Ark., who happened onto information on four orphan train riders while doing a history project. Her worked started the Orphan Train Heritage Society of America in 1986.

Johnson made it her mission to reconnect family members separated by the orphan movement.

She “started in alerting the world and bringing all of us together,” said Anne Harrison, 95, Lincoln, Neb. Speaking Thursday by phone from her home in Nebraska, Harrison said she rode the train to Colorado Springs, Colo., in 1911, when she was 2 years and 4 months old.

Harrison, who speaks publicly about her experiences, learned she was adopted at 27.

In those days, Darrell Dowell said, adoption wasn’t talked about much.

Effort begins

Beth Carlgren was using the depot for storage for her Wilson’s Furniture business when she got word of the local interest in the orphan train history and donated the depot to Cloud County Community College in 2001, Sutton said.

Sutton conceived of the idea to transform the depot into a museum for the orphan train. The college deeded the depot to the heritage society during the spring of 2003, and renovation efforts began.

“I was, of course, thinking on a small scale,” said Sutton, who is the dean of humanities and head of the theater department at the college.

Sutton e-mailed Johnson in Arkansas to inform her of the work to establish a Kansas orphan train museum in Concordia.

Johnson was supportive and offered her entire orphan train collection to the Concordia group. The national governing body accepted the offer in March of 2003.

Two Concordia High School students are working on a design for the research center in the museum, said Judy Hill, Jamestown, who is secretary of the heritage society.

“We’re trying to document every rider that we possibly can,” she said.

The group is looking to establish an endowment to ensure long-term funding.

“Because we’re a national organization, we can look to all 50 states,” she said, “and hope we find some people out there with big hearts and deep pockets.”