Carl J. Turpin was the general manager of the Beaver, Mead and Englewood Railroad. In 1918, two farmers from Hardtner, Kansas, Jacob Achenbach and Ira B. Blackstock, requested his assistance. Messrs. Achenbach and Blackstock had been asked by farmers in Beaver County and the surrounding areas to build a railroad through the Panhandle so that their wheat crops could be shipped to outlying markets. Achenbach and Blackstock knew how to build the railroad, but they needed someone to manage it. That is where Carl Julian Turpin came in. Mr. Turpin had ample experience as a railroad man, his career beginning in 1888.