USA > Texas > A history of central and western Texas > Part 25
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Vol. I-17
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HISTORY OF CENTRAL AND WESTERN TEXAS.
A typical North Texas railroad, which recently became part of the Colorado & Southern group, is the Wichita Valley Railroad, which was incorporated February 4, 1890, Morgan Jones being its first president. During the year 1890 it built its line of railroad from Wichita Falls to Seymour, a distance of 52 miles. October 21, 1903, was organized the Wichita Falls & Oklahoma Railway, Mr. Jones being likewise president of this allied company. During the same year this company built the twenty-three miles of railroad from Wichita Falls to Byers on the Red river. Under charter of October 4, 1905, the Wichita Valley Railroad Company was authorized to build from Seymour southwest, while another company, the Abilene & Northern, built from Abilene to Stamford. These lines were connected in 1907, and about the same- time were absorbed by the Colorado & Southern company.
Some important additions have been made to the Santa Fe and the Southern Pacific systems in Texas during the last two decades. These new lines, some of which were originally independent railroads and since consolidated with the larger systems, have been of special benefit to the development of East Texas.
The Gulf, Beaumont & Kansas City Railroad Company was or- ganized March 21, 1893. John H. Kirby originated the plan of this line to develop the long-leaf pine area of East Texas, and in spite of the financial panic that followed the beginning of the enterprise he succeeded in constructing sixty-two miles during the next two or three years. It ex- tended from Beaumont through Jasper county to Rogan. In the late 'gos the Gulf, Beaumont & Great Northern Railway Co. was organized. In 1901 fifteen miles were constructed by this company from Rogan north through the town of Jasper, and on June 30, 1902, the company had 38 miles in operation. By the act of March 30, 1903, the Santa Fe company was authorized to purchase these two lines, the northern terminus of which was then at Center. In April, 1907, the consolidation of the Texas & Gulf Railroad with the Santa Fe was authorized. The Texas & Gulf at that time extended from Longview to Waterman, and has recently been completed to Grigsby. In 1910 the connection between this line and the Santa Fe road at Center was completed by a branch of the T. & G. from Zuber to Center. This gives the Santa Fe a line from Longview, in northeast Texas, to Beaumont. From Beaumont the Santa Fe has an outlet to Galveston by way of the Gulf & Interstate, which is con- trolled and operated under a lease by the Santa Fe. The Gulf & Inter- state was built from Beaumont down the peninsula to Bolivar Point,
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HISTORY OF CENTRAL AND WESTERN TEXAS.
opposite Galveston, in 1896, the charter for the road having been granted in 1894. In the storm of September, 1900, the line from High Island to Bolivar was destroyed. The rebuilding of this section of twenty-seven miles was completed in 1903. From Bolivar the cars are ferried across the harbor to Galveston.
The branch of the Santa Fe from Somerville to Conroe, completed in 1885, has been previously mentioned. The Texas, Louisiana & Eastern Railroad Company undertook the building of a road east from Conroe, but had built only thirty-one miles, to the Trinity river, by 1897, the company having gone into receivership in July, 1895. The purchase by the Santa Fe was authorized in March, 1897, and by 1901 the line was completed to Kountze and soon afterward to Silsbee, where connection is made with the East Texas line of the Santa Fe above described.
In July, 1905, the Santa Fe acquired by lease the Cane Belt Rail- road. This road was chartered in 1898, and by the end of that year it was constructed from Eagle Lake to Bonus, was finished from Sealy to Bay City in 1901 and extended to Matagorda in 1903.
In East Texas, the Southern Pacific has a line between Dallas and Sabine Pass. This was formed by the consolidation and extension of two detached lines. The Sabine & East Texas Railway was built in 1882 from Sabine Pass through Beaumont to Rockland, a distance of 103 miles. This line was then purchased by the T. & N. O. In 1897 the Texas Trunk Railroad was chartered, and was opened from Dallas to Kaufman in 1881 and to Cedar in 1883. In 1899 the ownership of the Sabine & East Texas by the T. & N. O. was confirmed by the legislature, which granted the latter road the right to purchase and consolidate the Texas Trunk on conditions that the gap between Cedar and Rockland be closed by a line connecting the two roads. This connection was opened for traffic in May, 1903.
The Southern Pacific connection between Houston and Galveston is the result of a consolidation of several short lines. The North Galveston, Houston & Kansas City Railroad was built in 1892 from Virginia Point to the peninsula north of Dickinson bayou. The Laporte, Houston & Northern Railway was constructed in 1893 from Laporte to within four miles of Houston, where it connected with the Houston Belt & Magnolia Park Railway. These lines were consolidated in 1895 as the Galveston, Laporte & Houston Railway, and the connecting link from Strang to Edgewater built so as to make a continuous line from Houston to Vir-
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HISTORY OF CENTRAL AND WESTERN TEXAS.
ginia Point. In 1899 the road was sold to the Galveston, Houston & Northern Company, and in 1905 was absorbed by the G. H. & S. A.
In 1901 a branch of the N. Y., Tex. & Mex. Railroad was built from Wharton to Van Vleck, was extended to Bay City in 1902, and to Tres Palacios on Matagorda bay in June, 1903. This, with the main line from Rosenberg to Victoria, was consolidated with the G. H. & S. A. division of the Southern Pacific in 1905.
The San Antonio & Gulf Railroad was begun in 1893 and con- structed from San Antonio as far as Sutherland Springs in the same year ; in 1898 it was extended a few miles further to Stockdale. The Gulf, Western Texas & Pacific, from Lavaca to Cuero, mentioned on a pre- vious page, was acquired by the G. H. & S. A. in 1905, together with the S. A. & G. These two links were then connected by building a road from Stockdale to Cuero.
Some changes and additions have also been made to the H. & T. C. lines during the last two decades. In August, 1901, this company absorbed the Austin & Northwestern, which was chartered in 1881, was constructed as a narrow-gauge to Burnet and Granite Mountain by 1882, the stone for the state capitol being brought over this road. In 1889 it was extended to Marble Falls and in 1892 to Llano.
In 1906 was completed the Mexia-Navasota "cut-off," a line of the H. & T. C., between the stations named, which materially shortens the main line.
In 1903 the Fort Worth branch of the I. & G. N. was completed. This was chartered as the Calvert, Waco & Brazos Valley Railroad in 1899 and was consolidated with the I. & G. N. in 1901, at which time fifty-one miles had been built, from Marlin to Bryan. In 1902 it was opened from Waco to Spring, and the following year was extended ninety-five miles from Waco to Fort Worth. The Madisonville branch to Navasota was completed in 1903.
The Southern Kansas Railway of Texas began construction of its line across the Texas Panhandle in 1887. The road was completed to Washburn on the F. W. & D. C. In 1898 the Pecos & Northern Texas was commenced and completed from Amarillo to the New Mexico line by December of the same year. About the same time the Pecos River line was built from Pecos to the New Mexico boundary. All these are now operated as integral parts of the Santa Fe system. In 1907 a branch of the Pecos & Northern from Canyon City was completed as far
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HISTORY OF CENTRAL AND WESTERN TEXAS.
as Plainview, and in the spring of 1910 trains began operating from Plainview south to Lubbock and east to Floydada.
The Kansas City, Mexico & Orient Railway was organized in 1900. A. E. Stilwell, the builder of the Kansas City Southern, has been the president and enterprising promoter of this line. It is planned to connect Kansas City by a road across Kansas, Oklahoma, Texas and Mexico with the Pacific coast at Topolabampo, a route which is claimed to be several hundred miles shorter than other roads to the Pacific. In Texas this road has been completed from the Red river to San Angelo. Con- struction work began at Sweetwater.
TARRANT COUNTY
Tarrant county was created by act of the legislature, December 20, 1849, about a year after the establishment of the military garrison at Fort Worth. The act directed that the first election of county officials should be held in August, 1850, and Vincent J. Hutton, Walling R. Rodgers, Little, Col. M. T. Johnson and Sanders Elliott were named as commissioners to lay off sites for a county seat. Later an election was to be held to choose one of the sites proposed. "The place receiving the highest number of votes shall be the place established as the county seat of said county of Tarrant and shall be called Birdville."
The county was organized according to law and the county offices located at Birdville, an old settlement now marked by a few weather- beaten buildings that hardly tell the story of the ambitious struggles to make this place a metropolis. The rivalry between Fort Worth and Birdville over the county seat was an important chapter in the early history of the county. The act of the legislature, August 26, 1856, ordered an election to be held in the following November, to decide among the proposed sites for the county seat, and at that election Fort Worth won by a bare plurality. The election was contested, and finally the legislature directed that the citizens of the county should again vote to determine the matter. That election occurred in April, 1860, when Fort Worth received 548 votes, over 301 cast in favor of the location at the center of the county, while Birdville received only four votes out of the total.
At the census of 1850 the white population of Tarrant county was 599, and 65 slaves. In 1858 the estimated population was 4,362, including 581 slaves. The population in 1870 was 5.788; in 1880, 24,671 (2,160 negroes) ; in 1890, 41, 142 ; in 1900, 52,376 (5.756 negroes).
The material progress of the county is best illustrated in some com- parative figures of property assessments. The taxable wealth of the county in 1870 was valued at $1,392,877; in 1882 it was $7,300,686; in 1903, $24,515,220; and in 1909, $84,413,490.
THE CITY OF FORT WORTH
During the last decade Fort Worth has taken its place among the largest Texas cities. Official recognition of this fact has recently been afforded by the publication of the last federal census. Though popula- tion figures are popularly taken to estimate a community's greatness, a more convincing standard consists of the aggregate of material and
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HISTORY OF CENTRAL AND WESTERN TEXAS.
civic resources. On the latter basis Fort Worth has for several years presented a varied array of commercial and industrial enterprise that justifies the showing that this is one of the largest cities of the Southwest.
When Fort Worth was first enumerated as a corporation apart from Tarrant county, in the census of 1880, its population was 6,663. During the following ten years there was a gain of nearly 250 per cent, the city having 23,076 inhabitants in 1890. In 1900 the population was 26,668, or a gain of about 16 percent. Now in 1910 the population is 73.312. The increase, 177 percent, is greater than that shown by any other large city of Texas, and in population Fort Worth ranks in the same class with San Antonio, Dallas and Houston.
Fort Worth was founded as a military post, as a barracks pushed out against barbarism, at a time when the valleys of the Trinity were yet the western frontier of American civilization. The post was gar- risoned in the spring of 1849, and about the same time Fort Graliam was established in Hill county. The latter has long since disappeared except as a historical landmark, but the site of Fort Worth had a per- manent destiny.
Four years measured the existence of Fort Worth as a garrisoned outpost. When the soldiers left there remained only the nucleus of citizens and the eligible location. There was only a meager country population in the vicinity; barring a few supply trains, no currents of trade had yet begun to flow through this part of Texas: there was no cattle trail; nothing to inspire enthusiasm for this straggling settlement on Trinity bluff or assurance that it would not experience the blight which befell similar posts to the west, such as Phantom Hill or Belknap.
Such a fate might have overtaken Fort Worth, had the little village not possessed some citizens endowed with unusual qualities of enterprise. Men of such stamp as E. M. Daggett, K. M. Van Zandt, C. M. Peak, J. Peter Smith and their associates would soon have given distinction and prestige to any hamlet of which they happened to be residents. It was not long after the "fort" was deserted when these enterprising men found a common cause to work for, serving as another cornerstone in the foundation of Fort Worth as a city.
Deprived of its military post, Fort Worth people wanted the county seat. Captain Daggett, who had come to the town in 1854, was a leader in the agitation for a re-location of the county seat. Finally the legis- lature consented to allow the citizens of the county again to vote on the subject. Birdville was then the larger place, and had the will of the majority been expressed untrammeled, it is probable that Birdville would have retained the court house, at least for some years. Old citizens of Birdville to this day charge that the election was carried for Fort Worth by means of fraud, and the evidence proves that this is one of the cases where theoretical right has yielded to superior enterprise and in which the event has been justified by the march of progress. The Fort Worth citizens were wild with joy over the outcome of the election, and it is related that the records were placed in a wagon, three fiddlers mounted
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HISTORY OF CENTRAL AND WESTERN TEXAS.
on top, and surrounded by a reveling crowd, the official seat was trans- ferred in triumph to the little village on the bluffs of the Trinity, where a subsequent election confirmed its permanent location.
Around the court house on the bluff there arose the commonplace village of that period, frame store buildings and little one-story structures with dirt floors. The town was built around the public square, and the court house was the hub of interest and business activity. Even at this day the old-time citizens refer to the "public square" with a meaning inherited from early days when the square was really the scene of all the business activity of the place. What now constitutes the banking and commercial and hotel center, between Fourth and Ninth streets, was for twenty years an unoccupied common, on which the transient immigrants pitched their camps for night, across which the cattlemen drove their herds from the west, while still further south, in the vicinity of the union depot, Captain Daggett had his farm buildings.
Outside of the individual character of its citizens, Fort Worth, forty years ago, was only a typically ordinary town, a center for the small trading activity of the country, and rising above its neighbors mainly as a seat of justice for the county. There were regular sessions of county and district court, at which times attorneys from all this part of the state convened to transact the routine and special legal business and, aside from this, to enjoy themselves in the social manner common to groups of old-time lawyers. When business and court affairs ceased to interest, there was the ever-absorbing theme of politics. The Civil war almost depopulated the village, the best citizens left to fight the battles of their southland, and the population before the decade of the seventies never was a thousand.
The growth of Fort Worth begins to assume some distinction about 1872. In 1873 it was incorporated as a town. At that time an effort was made to drop the word "Fort" from the name, as no longer having sig- nificance. But this proposition was defeated by those whose early asso- ciations were with the fort and who clung to the name out of respect to the pioneer phase of history.
Already Fort Worth was gaining an importance as a station on the great cattle trail, leading from the west and southwest to the northern markets, but it was the railroad prospects, in the first instance, and the actual building of railroads, that were at the foundation of Fort Worth's prosperity and growth. During 1873, when it seemed that the railroad would be built immediately, the town passed through a regular boom, its population reaching two thousand. Then followed three years of depression, when only the more courageous and far-sighted remained to work out a great future for their adopted home.
Finally, in July, 1876, the first railroad train entered the town. Rather, it entered the town limits, for the land donated for the depot yards was a mile from the public square, and seemed a long way out of town. However, since the railroad, on account of topographical diffi- culties, could not come to the town, the town at once commenced its slow
HISTORY OF CENTRAL AND WESTERN TEXAS. 265
and steady march south to the railroad. "For two years, 1876-78," says a writer in the Gazette in 1887, "everybody prospered in the place. The town was typical of western life-rushing business, noisy, boisterous existence, in which the cowboy and his twin companion the six-shooter figured conspicuously. Cattlemen-those pioneers of western life-made the town their headquarters and drew their supplies therefrom, and a few of the wiser men, with prophetic eye, saw a great future for the place and commenced to work to that end.'
Progress and development have been so swift in obliterating the primitive order of things and introducing all the accompaniments of modern life that even old-time citizens have almost forgotten the "wild and woolly" aspects of Fort Worth during the latter seventies. The rail- road brought its evils as well as its benefits. For several years Fort Worth was the clearing house between the regulated customs of the east and the free and untrammeled life of the west. Here the currents of humanity met, and in the vortex could be found every class of mankind. The citizens worked under a high pressure of mental and physical excite- ment, and energy and action were not without that share of evil which in human affairs can never be entirely dissociated from the good.
Early in 1877 Fort Worth began reaching out for the trade of the great Panhandle district, which had formerly gone to Wichita and other Kansas points. The merchants sent out thousands of pounds of supplies and in return obtained the buffalo hides, tongues and meat that formed such an important product of that region during these years. While such trade was temporary, it is worthy of consideration because it was one of the influences that even at that time made Fort Worth a com- mercial focus for Northwest Texas. By the middle of the year 1877 the commercial interests had expanded much beyond local demands and the foundations of a wholesale trade were already laid. By that time a new cotton compress had been built, and by the spring of 1878 it was estimated that fifty thousand bales of cotton had been received at Fort Worth mar- kets. A steam grain elevator had been established, marking the beginning of business which now equals that of any other city in the state. There were several commission houses, and a large trade in lumber. A branch wool and hide house received over two hundred thousand buffalo hides during the season, and the warehouses being unable to contain them, the vacant ground was covered for hundreds of square yards with high piles of hides. Summarizing the progress of the past eighteen months, the Fort Worth Democrat of January, 1878, states that in this brief time had been constructed street railways, gas works, steam elevators, planing mills, cotton compress, flour mills, fine hotel (the El Paso), court house, four banking houses, and a portion of the streets had been macadamized. All these things attest the progressive attitude and enterprise of the citizens, who utilized all the means at hand, built up factories, secured railroads, extended the scope of trade, and in this way advanced step by step to the results manifest in the modern city.
When the Texas & Pacific Railroad was extended to the west, Fort
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HISTORY OF CENTRAL AND WESTERN TEXAS.
Worth suffered a temporary depression, but confidence was soon restored, especially when other railroads began building to this point. The Mis- souri Pacific (M., K. & T.) entered the city from the north. The com- pletion of the Gulf, Colorado & Santa Fe from Galveston and the beginning of construction on the Fort Worth & Denver were the great events of the year 1881, these two roads costing the city and citizens about one hundred thousand dollars in donations. Line after line of railroad was built, until at the present time there are seventeen railroad outlets. The development of Fort Worth as a railroad center is treated at greater length in the history of railroad construction in the state, on other pages.
Fort Worth's free public school system began in 1882. In the early days private schools furnished the greater part of the educational advan- tages to the young. In 1877 the city voted to assume control of the public schools, but certain legal and other causes prevented the city from taking control until 1882, when a tax was voted to supplement the revenue derived from the general school fund, and the public schools were opened October 1, 1882, with seventeen teachers and about 650 scholars.
In the history of municipal progress the year 1882 is especially notable. In that year the late John Peter Smith was elected mayor, and to assist him was a public-spirited council, and through their co-operation the city inaugurated internal improvements which have proved the foun- dation for all subsequent work along that line. In May, 1882, a franchise was granted to the Fort Worth Water Works Company, and in the fol- lowing year the Holly system was completed and put in operation. Previous to 1876 the drinking water for the city had come from the Clear Fork or from a spring two miles northeast of town. In that year the first artesian well was sunk, in the southwest part of town, and by 1887 there were a hundred wells, so that Fort Worth was sometimes referred to as the "city of artesian wells." Before the water works were built, water was drawn from wells and peddled about the streets at twelve and a half cents a barrel, and the water carts have only recently quite disappeared. In 1884 the city purchased one-half interest in the water works plant, and came into complete possession the next year.
Besides the water works, Mayor Smith and his associates directed their attention to the paving of Main and Houston streets; to the con- struction of a sewer system, of bridges and roads, the installation of a fire department, building of schools, and many other improvements. The year 1883 was noted as the most prosperous in the history of the city. May 31, 1882, was organized the Fort Worth Board of Trade, an organi- zation that has accomplished some remarkable results in upbuilding and promoting the best interests of the city.
The depression in the cattle industry during 1884-85 had its effects on the growth of Fort Worth, and the revival of prosperity did not come until 1887. In that year the first definite attempt was made to utilize Fort Worth's advantages as a live-stock market. Next to the railroads, the greatest factor in Fort Worth's progress are the stock yards and pack- ing interests. It was in the latter eighties when the general development
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of the Southwest had reached that point where the selection of a central market for its livestock became important. There were three factors that gave Fort Worth first place in consideration of a proper site. First, its location as the only large town on the eastern border of the cattle country, where it had enjoyed prestige as a stock center from the days of the trail. Second, its numerous railroads, radiating in all directions, tapping the sources of supply in the west and connecting easily with the eastern cities and the gulf coast. And third, the alert enterprise of the citizens, who put forth every effort to secure such a market. These citizens laid the foundation for the packing industry of Fort Worth, for although the initial enterprise was not fully successful, it served as a base from which greater things have developed. The Fort Worth Dressed Meat & Packing Company was organized in February, 1890, stock yards and packing plant were built, and the business started with an encouraging degree of success, although its scope was that of local industry rather than of the capacity possessed by the present large plants.
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