Franco-Texan Land Company

The Franco-Texan Land Company was formed in 1876 in connection with the State of Texas’ desire to provide incentives for rail lines to develop railroads in Texas. The Memphis, El Paso and Pacific Railroad (MEP&PRR) had received a grant from the State of Texas in 1856 for it to create a railroad across the entire state from east to west, from a point on the Red River to El Paso. In all, the State made grants to five railroad companies around this time. MEP&PRR had been chartered about three years earlier. The original arrangement was for the railroad company to receive 640 acres of land for each mile of road and eight sections of land per mile for grading the roadbed, subject to certain conditions. The company had begun to complete its initial work by surveying land from the east to the Brazos River and had graded fifty-five to sixty-five miles of roadbed when the Civil War broke out in 1861, bringing the process to a stop. No track had been laid. Numerous deed records across North Texas refer to the MEP&PRR Survey.

After the war ended, interest resumed and after one false start, John C. Fremont (1813 – 1890), nationally known as an explorer, military officer during the Mexican-American War and Civil War, military governor of California and United States Senator, was engaged to head up the effort to resume the railroad project. The original charter was set to expire, but the State of Texas granted an extension for another ten years. Fremont was of French-Canadian ancestry and had grand plans to build part of a national transcontinental rail system. He began to raise borrowed capital in France and executed two mortgages on land grant property, but his relationship was terminated before work could resume. It is generally thought that very little of the money raised found its way to Texas. The investors are sometimes referred to as ranging from “French peasants” to “sophisticated Parisian invesors.” MEP&PRR was ultimately deemed to be financially insolvent and placed into receivership before being conveyed to Texas and Pacific Railroad. Creditors of MEP&PRR received land and capital stock of a new company called Franco-Texan Land Company, chartered in the late 1870s. This entity established its headquarters in Parker County and began to sell land, located primarily in Parker, Palo Pinto, Stephens, Shackelford, Jones, Fisher, Callahan, Taylor, Nolan Mitchell, Denton and Scurry counties.

The corporate life of the company seems to be characterized by almost constant leadership conflicts and continuously mounting debts. Some affairs of the company made the news at the time. In one, the company had pledged $10,000 toward the construction of what was to be the first courthouse in Nolan County, only to later reneg on its pledge. Among other things, Franco-Texan Land Company had promised potential settlers public buildings and land if they would move three miles to the west to property owned by the land company.

A related scandal occurred when President of the company, one V. G. Frost, disappeared in the spring of 1881 from the Weatherford headquarters taking with him cash, including some $4,500 that had been subscribed toward the building of the above referenced courthouse in Sweetwater. A short paragraph in the Chicago Tribune issue of May 7, 1881 under the heading “ABSCONDED” reported that Frost had suddenly left the offices on horseback armed with two loaded revolvers and an Evans repeating rifle. Frost was suspected of having fled to New Mexico or Arizona. Frost was later apprehended. He appears to have been indicted on two counts of embezzlement in 1887. The last mention of him in newspapers seems to have been in 1888 when it was stated that one charge of embezzlement had been dismissed and the other set for trial at the “next session of the court.” Frost was released on bond. However, no record of a trial is found, nor is any record easily found of what ever became of V. G. Frost.

The Nolan County courthouse was later built, but though it had been designed by a noted architect, it was finished with gypsum-based building materials, said to have been essentially similar to plaster of paris, rather than cement or concrete. The structure was completed in 1883 without the promised funds from Franco-Texan Land Company. Shortly afterward, the building began to deteriorate and had to be abandoned only two years later in 1885 after a wall collapsed. The county’s second courthouse was completed seven years later. and remained in service for a number of years until it too had to be replaced, not because of construction defects this time, but because the county had outgrown the other building. Of course, the gypsum deposits nearby have since become a great source of revenue for companies and local residents since that time, but not for Franco-Texan Land Company nor its shareholders.

The company consummated sales transactions of its land for a number of years. Numerous deed records include the Franco-Texan Land Company name. The company was also a party to various litigation over the years. Its charter was set to expire by limitation in 1896, but the Texas legislature allowed the company three more years to wind up its affairs. A news article in the Abilene Reporter News from August 17, 1967 commented that at the end the corporation’s existence, a Weatherford banker named Eddleman owed the majority of the shares and received the remaining unsold land. Although large sums of money were raised and and there were millions of dollars of transactions over the years, it is doubtful that the original shareholders ever received any significant return on their investment.

One of its last corporate offices was housed in a two story building located at 118 North Houston Street in Weatherford, about one block to the southwest of the Parker County courthouse. It was originally built in 1870 by a partnership that included James Robertson Couts, father of Mary Sue Couts (the second wife of Samuel Burk Burnett). Over the years, it had been occupied by various businesses (a Western Union telegraph office, a bank, storage for a local funeral home, law offices) until around 1890 when local attorney and officer of the land company named A. J. Hood established it as the headquarters of Franco-Texan Land Company. After the land company ceased operations, the building changed hands several more times but is still known as the Franco-Texan Land Company Building. It bears a 2013 historical marker that tells its history.

Despite the lofty initial plans of MEP&PRR and Franco-Texan Land Company, the rail line across north Texas was by and large completed by the Texas and Pacific Railway which reached Hudspeth County in 1881. There at Sierra Blanca, T&P linked up with Southern Pacific which completed the rail line across the entire state.

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