AEF Service Coat, Railway Engineer, J.A. Nixon

[Stahlberg]

I bought this named Railway Engineer tunic today at a local gunshow. It's named to James A. Nixon, and it includes his dogtags and an extra collar disk, which has B on it. I'm not sure what engineer unit he served with, but if anyone can help I'd be very grateful.

[Stahlberg]

Other pictures

[lightningdivision]

nice find.Great collar disc!!

Stijn

[Tennessee]

neat group, and I hope there will be more info soon available from some of the researching whizzes!! It's great to remember there are cool groups still out there in the woodwork to be discovered!! Thanks for sharing this one!

 

David

[RustyCanteen]

Is the coat actually named or is the name from the dog tag? He has a fairly low serial number, but only one service stripe.

 

It is a nice uniform for sure, but this one will need some research to pin it down.

[Stahlberg]

The coat is not named, however it all came as a group, and it adds up. I was able to visit the Butte Archives and browse the obits on microfilm at the library and was able to find pretty much all the info I need to formulate a mock biography except for his service record. Here is a rough draft of that bio:

 

James Allen Nixon was born to … on November 17^th, 1893 in New Brunswick, Charlotte County, Canada. On November 8^th, 1912 arrived at Vanceboro, Maine and travelled from there to Walkerville, MT (a sub-community of Butte). By 1918 he had secured a job as a Motorman (operator) of a street car working for the Butte Electric Railway Co and was living at 119 W. Daly St. In 1918, James was inducted into the U.S. Army and served as a Railway Engineer for 6 to 11 months. After his time in the service, he resumed his job as a Motorman, and married Isabelle Cuthill in 1920. On July 27^th, 1922 they had a son named James A. Nixon Jr. By 1930, they had moved to a house on 1851 Carolina Street, and James continued work as a street car operator. In 1937, Butte Electric Railway Co ceased to exist, as the company merged with Butte City Lines, who James listed as his employer in 1940. By 1950 James became a vendor for Montana State Liquor Store No 137, and by 1960 he was retired. In 1970, his wife passed away, and his son James Allen Nixon Jr., a Master Sergeant in USMC as well as a World War 2 Veteran passed away on October 4^th, 1975. On Feb 9^th, 1979 James Allen Nixon passed away at age 86. His service was held on the following Saturday, and his remains were interred at Mountain View Cemetery in Butte, Montana.

[Stahlberg]

Here is a picture of his grave, I went to Mountainview Cemetery (which is also famous because it has Evil Knievel's grave) and shot a couple photos of his grave.

 

[AustinO]

Is the coat actually named or is the name from the dog tag? He has a fairly low serial number, but only one service stripe.

 

It is a nice uniform for sure, but this one will need some research to pin it down.

 

The 800,000 to 900,000 serial number block was assigned to the Western Depot, San Francisco, CA. My guess would be he did rail work at the Depot until a Rail unit was formed for overseas service, then made it over mid/late 1918. Also possible that he enlisted later and the Western Depot had not burned through the initial 100,000 numbers.