A twentieth century history and biographical record of north and west Texas, Volume I, Part 44

Author: Paddock, B. B. (Buckley B.), 1844-1922; Lewis Publishing Co., Chicago, pub
Publication date: 1906
Publisher: Chicago, New York, The Lewis publishing co.
Number of Pages: 968

USA > Texas > A twentieth century history and biographical record of north and west Texas, Volume I > Part 44

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In 1886 the Gulf, Colorado & Santa Fe, having suffered severe financial straits, was bought by the Atchison, Topeka & Santa Fe interests, this giving the great Atchison System a Gulf con- nection and allowing for an extension of its lines over the Southwest country. With the aid of forty-five thousand dollars subscribed by the people of Fort Worth the line was constructed between Fort Worth and Gainesville and put in operation by January, 1887. From Purcell, In- dian Territory, construction work was also be- ing pushed, and Gainesville was reached, and the Texas lines became an integral part of the en- tire Santa Fe system. About the same time Chi- cago became a terminal of these lines, and North Texas was permanently linked with one of the largest railroad systems of the entire country.

The Fort Worth & New Orleans Railroad should always be remembered as another of the home institutions of Fort Worth. To build this line as far as Waxahachie, a bonus of seventy- five thousand dollars was raised in the city, and home capital and home enterprise were mainly responsible for its building. By this line Fort Worth was given railroad communication with a rich and fertile country whose trade was by this means directed to Fort Worth, and, by sub- sequent developments, found a place upon an- other of the great trunk lines of Texas. The work of construction was commenced in Septem- ber, 1885, and in a few months was completed to Waxahachie. In January, 1887, the Fort Worth & New Orleans was absorbed by purchase in the Southern Pacific group and has since been operated as part of the Houston & Texas Cen- tral, which had also held it under lease for sev- eral months before the purchase was made.

In May, 1887, after the projection of various tentative routes and after much rivalry between various towns along the route, it was decided to construct a branch of the St. Louis, Arkansas

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and Texas to Fort Worth. This railroad, better known as the Cotton Belt system, was originally a narrow-gauge line, beginning at Bird's Point, opposite Cairo, Illinois. After undergoing a re- ceivership, it was reorganized as the St. Louis, Arkansas and Texas, the gauge was widened, and some important extensions projected. The Kansas & Gulf Short-Line was acquired by pur- chase, and four branches projected: From the main line north of Pine Bluff to Little Rock; from Texarkana to Shreveport; from Sherman to Fort Worth; from Corsicana to Hillsboro. The line to Fort Worth through Plano, Car- rollton and other towns, was built, and the Cot- ton Belt -- now the St. Louis Southwestern- has Fort Worth as a terminal of its many im- portant lines.

Within the past ten years three other railroads have come to Fort Worth from the east :- The International and Great Northern, one of the oldest Texas railroads, the first grading and track-laying on which began in 1854; this line runs in from the southeast, from Waco and points intermediate in Hill and Ellis counties. The Frisco System operates its principal Texas road through Fort Worth, running in over the Cotton Belt tracks from Carrollton-thirty miles -and furnishing one of the logical routes to the Mississippi valley and the east. The third road that might be mentioned is the Rock Island line between Dallas and Fort Worth.

The three railroad lines radiating from Fort Worth that have been the most important factors in the development of that city and the North and West Texas country conjointly, may be named, in order of building, the Texas & Pacific, the Fort Worth & Denver City, and the Fort Worth & Rio Grande. A glance at a railroad map will indicate the regions traversed by these lines and also how immensely valuable they are in opening up the vast regions which till their advent were useless except for limited industrial development. The history of the Texas & Pacific has already been described.

A railroad line to the northwest, tapping the fertile Wichita Valley and connecting the great Panhandle country with the farming and com-

mercial centers of North Texas, had been a fond dream of promoters and enthusiastic citizens long before any railroads had been constructed west of Dallas. The old Dallas & Wichita line was begun with the intention of penetrating that district, but was never completed further than Denton, and has since become a branch of the M. K. & T. The actual charter for the line that was finally constructed was issued under the laws of Colorado, May 26, 1873, at which time the Fort Worth & Denver City Railroad came into existence on paper and officially.

But more than eight years passed before the work of construction began. The Texas and Colorado Railway Improvement Co., of which Morgan Jones, of Fort Worth, later president of the road, was the leading spirit, began grading at the place called Hodge, several miles north of Fort Worth, on November 27, 1881. The first rails were laid on February 27, 1882, and Wichi- ta Falls was reached on September 27 of the same year.

From the first Fort Worth citizens had real- ized the benefit which would accrue to the city and to all Northwest Texas from the construction of this railroad, and requests for financial assist- ance from the company met with the same gen- erous responses as were given similar previous undertakings, twelve thousand dollars being sub- scribed to purchase the right of way through the county. As a local paper said, it "was essential- ly a Fort Worth road. It was inaugurated in 1873, being the conception of Col. W. W. H. Lawrence, who drafted and procured the char- ter from the state, and had charge of the original survey. The failure of Jay Cooke and the con- sequent panic caused a suspension of work on this enterprise. During the years that followed, and when others forgot or abandoned the idea of building the road, Col. Lawrence kept the records intact, and when the time came for Jay Gould and associates to take hold of the construction of this road, the books and papers, thanks to Col. Lawrence's forethought, were found in proper shape and condition." Other well known men connected with this enterprise as directors were J. M. Eddy, J. P. Smith, C. L. Frost, Max Elser, R. E. Montgomery, W. A.

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HISTORY OF NORTH AND WEST TEXAS.

Ross, W. A. Huffman, Morgan Jones, of local note; and Jay Gould and General G. M. Dodge, familiar names in all railroad circles.

This was the first line to penetrate the country to the northwest of Fort Worth, and its results in the upbuilding of towns along the way were remarkable, not to mention the really wonderful transformation caused in the line of agricultural improvement and settlement. To quote from the Tribune, of Decatur, which had been connected with Fort Worth by the driving of the last spike on April 15, 1882, -- "Decatur is on a regular boom. At present (May, 1882) six large stone, iron front store houses are being erected on the square by Col. Lang and the Terrell heirs; Par- tridge and Cartwright are beginning the erection of a stone block on Main street; Watson and Peters another building on Main street ; and new residences are springing up all over town." The building of the railroad five miles east of the old town of Aurora caused that town to mi- grate bodily and concentrate its two schools, four churches, twelve merchandising houses, three gins, and other enterprises around the rail- road station. The genesis of several towns in Wise and Montague counties dates from the laying of track for the F. W. & D. C. A traveler over the road in June, 1882, describes the village of Herman as consisting of a side track and several box' cars; Cowen (named for E. P. Cowen, railroad contractor), distinguished by a side track without any cars; Sunset, containing several business houses; and Bowie, now the metropolis of Montague county, had just come into nominal being, but was as yet without a business · house. Such are typical origins for towns and communities. It would be a fascinat- ing study to search for the source of every North and West Texas town's history, the circum- stances under which it came into being and the men who were first connected with it; but such an investigation is beyond the limits of this work, which can only indicate some of these beginnings and classify as far as possible the various towns as originating either before or during the rail- road era.

According to the terms of the charter, the Fort Worth & Denver City should have been

completed by Christmas Day, 1882. But exten- sion west from Wichita Falls was not resumed until May, 1885. By April, 1887, Quanah was the western terminus, while the Denver, Texas and Fort Worth, as the Colorado division of the road was known, had been built 138 miles from Pueblo. The two lines met at Texline and were connected March 14, 1888, and on that date the shortest rail line between the Gulf and Colorado and the northwestern states was opened.

The building of this line worked nothing short of a revolution in the Panhandle cattle industry. It struck the final blow to the great trail move- ment, cattlemen henceforth finding the rail route the shortest, most expeditious and the most eco- nomical for taking their stock to market. Even the T. & P. line across the state to El Paso was not followed by such general upbuilding and growth in the country traversed as resulted from the building of the F. W. & D. C. All the now flourishing towns west of Henrietta, including Wichita Falls, Iowa Park, Vernon, Quanah, Clarendon, Amarillo, begin their history practi- cally with the building of this railroad.

Typical is the history of Quanah. November I, 1885, one box house, that of J. V. Johnson, was on the site. R. S. Simmons lived one mile south ; W. J. Jones, one and one-half miles west ; Z. Hooper, four miles southeast. In 1886 a corps of engineers located the town; in the spring of 1887 the railroad came, the court house was moved up from the place called Margaret, and by the beginning of 1890 the town was able to claim 1,500 population, many of whom were farmers. A historian of that time continues : "The man with the hoe, written of so eloquent- ly by J. D. Ballard, editor of the Quanah Quirt, has entered the county and where a few years ago the Kiowa and Comanche chased and killed the buffalo, are now wheat fields lovely to look upon. But men make cities, and Quanah has men devoted to her upbuilding. The Golstons, Knotts, Goods, Smiths, Elberts, Johnsons, Swearingens, Sherwins, Combs, Faulkners, Bal- lards, Pardues, Carters, Reeds, McDonalds, are all men after Fort Worth's own heart, and are city builders."

"Many are called, but few are chosen." Mo-

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beetie, the county seat of the first county organ- ized in the great Panhandle, on grounds justifia- ble, aspired to be the metropolis of that region, and while the Denver road was being graded to- ward Decatur we learn that the "town is building fast through expectation of the railroad being constructed through this point." The railroad went many miles to the south, the Choctaw, Rock Island and Gulf built along the southern edge of Wheeler county, and Mobeetie has a present population of about 200.

Other places were more fortunate. Clarendon, in Donley county, was laid out about 1878, as al- ready mentioned, there being no railroad within three hundred miles at the time. Until the rail- road came the place hardly deserved a name, but within a few months after that event a re- vival of business and influx of settlers gave the town (on a new site-see sketch of I. W. Car- hart) a substantial and increasing prosperity, which it still retains. Childress, Lipscomb, Pot- ter and Hemphill counties were organized in 1887 as a result of settlement. The town of Claude in Armstrong county, where eighteen months before not a house was to be seen, was a busy little village in 1890, and the same story was repeated again and again of these Panhandle centers during the late eighties and early nine- ties.

Until the opening of the F. W. & D. C., the Panhandle cattlemen had hauled all their sup- plies from Trinidad on the north or from Colo- rado City on the T. & P. line. Close settled com- munities were impossible under such a condition, with the source of necessary supplies several hundred miles away, and in sketching the his- tory of the Panhandle one is again brought back to the aphorism previously stated that, Transpor- tation is the key to population. Without the railroad the Panhandle would still be cattle range country, and Tascosa, of by-gone romance, with its Boot Hill adjunct, might be the cattle- men's metropolis instead of the little hamlet of two hundred people. From no point of view can the changes in a country wrought by the railroad be regarded otherwise than beneficial, for though its coming may doom one village to ob-

livion, it raises up another with better facilities to serve the purposes of social existence.

The land law which went into effect in July, 1887, did more to put the settlement of the Pan- handle on a substantial basis than any other cause except the railroad. Although the people complained of the delay in classification of the lands and what they considered the arbitrary powers given to the land commissioner, no seri- ous troubles arose that time could not adjust. The history of the settlement and upbuilding of the Panhandle is left to be told in the biogra- phies of some of the representative citizens of this portion of the state, and at this point it is necessary to give only a brief outline of the gen- eral progress of the district. The several years following the building of the Denver road wit- nessed an almost remarkable immigration. Many towns sprang up, instances of which have already been given, and the liberal terms on which school and state lands could be obtained -forty years' time and five per cent interest in- duced thousands to come, many of whom were without money or means to make homes and car- ry on a successful enterprise in a new and dry country. In consequence, when the dry years and the financial stringency of the nineties followed, there was a general exodus from the Panhandle, and only those who had means and were of the true pioneer stock remained to reap the rewards that surely came. Since then the limitations as well as the possibilities of the Panhandle have been realized; instead of subjecting the country to the sort of farming pursued in the well wa- tered regions of other states, agriculture has been conformed to suit the country, crops adapt- ed to the soil and climate have been planted, and the settlers have sought to understand the real nature of the country which they would make produce and have been, in later years, rewarded accordingly.

In recent years, the climax seemingly having been reached during this present year of 1905, population has flowed into the Panhandle at a faster rate than ever before. The statement was made in November of this year that 3,000 land-seekers a month visited the "Amarillo.

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country" and that sales were made to a third of these. This would mean a phenomenal de- velopment within the next few years, and there is reason to believe that this growth will be per- manent. "This is a better class of population than the Kansas and Oklahoma boomers of the eighties and nineties," is the judgment of a man whose opinion carries weight. "The land-seekers of those days were a drifting population, with- out the anchor of property or provident industry, and a single crop failure or any difficulty that could not be overcome by shiftless labor caused them to pull away from their temporary moor- ings and drift, oftentimes in a starving condition, back to the more settled communities from which they had come. I think it is a true observation," continued the speaker, "that the first wave of population is speculative, and therefore less sta- ble than those that succeed. . The people who are now going into the Panhandle are of a better class, they ' have some money, most of them are buying land out- right, they understand the conditions on which farming must be conducted, and are in a position to withstand a year of drouth without being dis- couraged and leaving the country."

The following newspaper item, appearing in 1890, is worthy of attention: "Lipscomb county was organized, two years ago, but the uncer- tainty about the opening of the Cherokee and Neutral strips (in Indian Territory) affect the settlement of this county as all other portions of the Panhandle. The railroads stop on the southern Kansas border because they fear to cross the lawless and unorganized country." Thus again the interposition of the Indian Ter- ritory between Texas and the states to the north and east deters settlement and development. But in recent years these obstacles have been re- moved, and no part of Texas is isolated by lack of communication. The Fort Worth and Denver as the pioneer road has been followed by sev- eral other railroads that cross the Panhandle in various directions. From Kiowa, in south- ern Kansas, the Santa Fe extended a branch across Oklahoma (the grading of which had been done as early as 1887) and into the Pan- handle to intersect the Denver road at Washburn

and thence running over the Denver track to the terminal at Amarillo (see sketch of J. C. Paul). Later the Pecos Valley & Northeast Railroad was completed from Amarillo to Pecos on the Texas and Pacific. This made Amarillo a junc- tion point, and also the metropolis of the Pan- handle and a city of growing size and impor- tance in the Panhandle. (For the founding of Amarillo and much of its subsequent history, see the interesting sketch of H. B. Sanborn.) Amar- illo is also the terminus of the Choctaw, Okla- homa and Gulf (now the Choctaw, Rock Island and Gulf, a part of the Rock Island System), forming an extension from the network of Rock Island and Frisco lines over Kansas and Okla- homa.

As told in the sketch of W. D. Wagner, of Dalhart, the Rock Island has also built a line across the northwest corner of the Panhandle, now the main line of that system from Kansas City to El Paso, and since the date of writing Mr. Wagner's sketch all the connections have been made and this line is in operation from Dalhart through Tucumcari to El Paso. Texas towns have sprung up along this line, the most important of which is the junction point of Dal- hart, the history of which is given in the above mentioned sketch.

The railroad history of Northwest Texas has probably only begun to be told. The experience of the past suggests that it is easy to project rail- roads on paper, and yet the fact that many such lines have been built gives some of these forecasts actual worth in this historical investigation. Most notable of all such logical forecasting of railroad lines was the railroad map, exhibited on the court house square at Fort Worth and published in the Democrat in 1876, as elsewhere mentioned, and in giving a brief history of the third railroad radius from Fort Worth which we have spoken of as a chief factor in the develop- ment of West Texas and of Fort Worth, at the same time we describe the railroad which ful- filled the prediction made on the map. This ful- fillment of the prophecy is best told by quoting from the Fort Worth Gazette of May 25, 1887: "In 1876 Capt. B. B. Paddock, then editor of the Fort Worth Democrat, published a map of

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the future great railroad center of Texas. It was laughingly alluded to by the state press as 'Pad- dock's tarantula map.' At that time the T. & P. was the only road touching the town, but the map had on it all the roads now entering the city, and by strange coincidence, the man who conceived the map is president of the last road that completes the 'tarantula.' Capt. Pad- dock saw leg after leg added to the body (Fort Worth), and under difficulties that would have disheartened most men he undertook the building of the Fort Worth & Rio Grande. A popular subscription of $40,000 was obtained from the citizens of Fort Worth, and on November 23, 1886, construction began with Brownwood as the objective point, 130 miles away. At this time the road has been graded to Granbury and the track laid for twenty-eight miles." The first division to Granbury was completed August 25, 1887, and Granbury remained the terminus until the fall of 1889. It was extended to Stephen- ville by October, 1890, to Dublin in November, and Brownwood was reached July 16, 1891. Since then Brady has become the terminus, and the Fort Worth & Rio Grande is now a part of the great Frisco System. The first effort to build this road was made in 1881 by twenty-six men of Fort Worth, who organized with the following board of directors: J. H. Brown, W. J. Boaz, Sidney Martin, S. W. Lomax, T. A. Tidball, W. F. Lake, J. P. Smith, L. N. Bruns- wig, W. H. Davis. Much time and money were expended to secure sufficient capital, but the en- terprise lay dormant until 1885, when a new charter was obtained and the work shortly after- ward begun. The value of this road to Fort Worth can be readily understood. It traverses a vast and productive country that without this railroad would not be tributary to Fort Worth ; Hood, Erath, Comanche and Brown counties are among the richest of North Texas counties, and this railroad furnishes the most direct route for the shipment of their products to the northern markets. With the Fort Worth & Denver City tapping the region of the Panhandle, the Texas and Pacific the central artery of traffic for West Texas, the Fort Worth & Rio Grande was the

third transportation arm, reaching out into the Southwest Texas, by means of which Fort Worth became the gateway for practically all the commerce that West Texas pours from its productive area.

Other railroads, built or building, are pentrat- ing every portion of North and West Texas, bringing hitherto isolated communities into daily communication with the world, revealing un- thought-of possibilities of production, and devel- oping all the resources .of the country. The Frisco System-which had its nucleus in the Southwest branch of the Pacific Railroad from Pacific to Rolla, Mo., built in 1861, which was purchased by J. C. Fremont and associates and went under the name of the Southwest Pacific until 1868, which under the Pierce syndicate was extended to Springfield, Mo., and named the South Pacific, in 1870 merged with the Atlantic & Pacific, in 1876 went into hands of receivers, and in 1878 reorganized as the St. Louis and San Francisco-has pushed its lines across Red river at two other points beside Denison, Vernon and Quanah both being terminal points for this road.

A typically North Texas railroad, with the building of which men of prominence both past and present were connected, is the Wichita Val- ley Railroad, the following account of which has been furnished by Mr. D. T. Bomar :

The Wichita Valley Railway Company was incorporated on the 4th day of February, 1890, by E. W. Taylor, WV. F. Somerville, W. A. Adams, J. G. Jones, J. T. Granger, Morgan Jones, G. P. Meade, J. P. Smith, G. M. Dodge and L. Tillman. The first board of directors was composed of E. W. Taylor, Morgan Jones, W. F. Somerville, G. P. Meade, J. P. Smith, J. G. Jones, G. M. Dodge, J. T. Granger and L. Tillman. It was organized soon after its incor- poration by the election of Morgan Jones as president and he has remained president of the company ever since. During the year 1890 it built its line of railroad from Wichita Falls to Seymour, a distance of fifty-two miles.

On the 21st of October, 1903, it organized the Wichita Falls & Oklahoma Railway. The

HISTORY OF NORTH AND WEST TEXAS.

names of the persons organizing this company were Morgan Jones, W. E. Kaufman, Frank Kell, N. Harding, J. G. Wilkinson, E. W. Tay- lor, A. M. Young, Ben W. Fouts, H. C. Edring- ton and D. T. Bomar. The names of the direc- tors of this company were Frank Kell, Otis T. Bacon, J. G. Jones, of Wichita county, George W. Byers of Kansas City, Missouri, Morgan Jones, G. M. Dodge, N. Harding, W. E. Kauf- man and D. T. Bomar. Morgan Jones was elect- ed president of the company and has since remained the president. During the same year it built from Wichita Falls to Byers on Red river in Clay county a line twenty-three miles long, which has since been operated by the Wich- ita Valley Railway.

On the 4th of October, 1905, this company caused to be incorporated the Wichita Valley Railroad Company to build from Seymour southwest. This company was incorporated by J. G. Wilkinson, Ben W .. Fouts, N. Harding, K. M. Van Zandt, D. B. Keeler, W. C. Stripling, W. E. Kaufman, C. A. Sanford, Morgan Jones and D. T. Bomar. The names of the first board of directors were G. M. Dodge, H. Walters, B. F. Yoakum, Edwin Hawley, Frank Trumbull, Morgan Jones, W. E. Kaufman, D. T. Bomar, R. V. Colbert, L. M. Buie, F. G. Alexander, H. G. McConnell, and J. H. Glasgow. Under this charter the line is now being constructed from Seymour through the towns of Munday and Haskell to Stamford in Jones county.

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A twentieth century history and biographical record of north and west Texas, Volume I, Part 44

Author: Paddock, B. B. (Buckley B.), 1844-1922; Lewis Publishing Co., Chicago, pub Publication date: 1906 Publisher: Chicago, New York, The Lewis publishing co. Number of Pages: 968

Author: Paddock, B. B. (Buckley B.), 1844-1922; Lewis Publishing Co., Chicago, pub
Publication date: 1906
Publisher: Chicago, New York, The Lewis publishing co.
Number of Pages: 968