Category: railroad

In an article under the column “Domestic Intelligence” the Galveston Daily News reported on March 3, 1871 that the Texas Pacific Railway when it was granted a federal charter to operate.  The company was authorized to build a railroad via the most direct and eligible route along the 32nd Parallel from Marshall, Texas to El Paso and on to San Diego, California.  With the railroad grant came a federal land grant of twenty sections of land per mile in California and Texas and forty sections of land in the territories of New Mexico and Arizona.  Why Marshall, Texas?  A Louisiana company, New Oleans, Baton Rouge and Vicksburg Railway Company already had been granted a charter to connect to the line at Marshall.

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(Image credit, ttarchive.com)

The railroad that later became the Houston and Texas Central Railway dates back to 1848.  It was originally called the Galveston and Red River Railroad.  A charter was granted to Ebenezer Allen to build a line from Galveston north to the Red River.  Construction started a few years later and by early 1856 the first two miles of the line had been completed.  The name change to the Houston and Texas Central was effected in the fall of 1856 when the company was reorganized.

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