Used with permission of Norman Lowell McCarver, Jr. These electronic pages may not be reproduced in any format by other organizations or individuals. Persons or organizations desiring to use this material must obtain the written consent of McCarver family relatives or contact William Kent Brunette, Robertson County TXGenWeb coordinator.
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The
Houston & Texas Central Railroad Company
The
Houston & Texas Central Railroad is known throughout Texas and the whole
United States as the pioneer railroad of Texas.
It was founded by men who took part in the early development of the
state, and they gave to the location of this great line the results of their
knowledge of its agricultural capacities, and the lay of the land affecting the
movement of products toward the proposed line.
They
planted this railroad at the head of the tidewater on Buffalo Bayou, as the city
whose name is linked in song and story with that immortal day at San Jacinto,
when the Lone Star State of Texas rose resplendent over the ever glorious field
of San Jacinto - Houston, Texas.
Here
where the flow of the Gulf of Mexico rests against the alluvial deposits from
the great prairies on the divide between the Brazos and the San Jacinto Rivers,
was started, in 1853, the great railroad which, in every stage of development of
Texas, since its first fifty miles was built, has demonstrated the wisdom of its
route and its hold on the business of the State.
It has the open sea at its base of operations, and the goodly land of
Texas on each side to give it sustenance. The
Trinity River lies about 60 miles to the eastward, and the Colorado River lies
about 100 miles to the westward. It
commands the rich lands of the Brazos for about 160 miles, and thence almost due
North to Denison, making a total distance from Houston of 338 miles.
As it leaves the waters of the Brazos, the Trinity, which has been on a
line almost parallel to the east, now bears westward, and the road is soon among
its tributaries. Then, touching the main stream at Dallas, it continues
through a region thus watered, until it reaches the tributaries of the Red
River, near its terminal point. These
contiguous water courses give the drainage and moisture that insure growth and
constant sustenance to the crops. The
bottoms of the rivers and creeks are subject to occasional overflows, have rich
alluvial land, while the uplands of prairie and timber have a great depth of
fertile soil, varying according to the peculiar features of the region, its
elevation and geophysical formation. The
trade of the prosperous cities on its line from Houston to Denison, and its
close connections with Galveston, have made the cross lines, which have been
built by other interests, feeders to an extent which more than overcomes
competition.
At
Austin, the Houston & Texas Central connects with one of the new lines
working harmoniously with its system. This
line penetrates the great county of Williamson, and thence through Burnet and
Llano counties to its present terminus among the Granite Hills, from whence have
come the thousands of tons of rock for Galveston jetties.
The
lines of the H. & T. C. Railroad cover the richest agricultural region of
Texas, embracing the timbered and rolling prairie region 100 to 700 feet above
the Gulf, resting upon the "Timber Belt" beds of sandstone and
limestone, which already are quarried to a considerable extent.
The soils are red clay, red sand or mulatto, just as they are underlaid
by sands or clays respectively. On
many of the uplands there is a gray sandy soil, grading down into a red subsoil,
which is especially adapted to the growth of fruit. This whole area from Houston to the Red River will compare
favorably with any region of the world in its combination of rich soil.
The
controlling interest of this great railroad is now in the hands of the Southern
Pacific Railroad Company, and although under separate management, it is operated
in harmony with the great Southern Pacific system of railways and steamships.
Since
the H. &- T. C. Railroad was completed in 1876, a number of new and
important lines have been constructed, affecting, in part, the territory from
which main business comes, yet, its advantageous position continues to assert
itself. It carries to the tide
water annually a great amount of the cotton crop of Texas.
The
traveler can not really see Texas without journeying over the line of the H.
& T. C. Railroad. Galveston is
but 50 miles distant upon the Gulf. Houston,
Austin, Plano, McKinney, Corsicana, Ennis, Dallas, Sherman, Denison, Waxahachie,
Fort Worth, San Antonio, and Hearne are directly on its lines.
On every side, as its trains course through the land, are to be seen
fields heavy with the reward of the farmer; town after town evidences the thrift
and progress that has followed its construction and sustains its fortunes.
In
all probability, the promise held by the prolific soil of this Brazos Valley
section, was one of the magnets which drew northward an industry and institution
which has contributed as much as agriculture to the growth and development of
Hearne. This institution is the
Southern Pacific Railroad, still known affectionately by thousands of people in
the Hearne area as the Old Houston & Texas Central or better as the old H.
& T. C.
Where
Hearne now stands was only a nameless spot on the unmapped and uncharted
prairies of Central Texas when the Houston & Texas Central Railroad was
chartered on May 11, 1848. The
early Texas pioneers, among them such well known personages as William Baker,
William H. Rice, Cornelius Ennis, William J. Hutchins, A. S. Ruthven, B. A.
Shepherd, Francis Moore and Paul Bremond, knew not of Hearne when they began the
gigantic venture of building a railroad from Houston & Red River City
(Denison) back in 1853. It was on
January 1, 1853 that actual construction of the line which was to traverse a
distance of 345 miles, began at Houston, Texas with a solemn ceremony held at
about the point where the Southern Pacific passenger depot now stands.
While
these men whose industry and enterprise have played so important a part in the
history of all Texas, and particularly that section through which their pioneer
railroad was built, may not have known Hearne as a point along their projected
route, they were fully aware of the productivity of the soils of this section,
and they doubtless knew that from them would eventually come much of the cargo
to sustain their new railroad company and help justify the millions of dollars
they must spend to complete their dream.
Like
all other early day enterprises the Houston & Texas Central Railroad Company
had been chartered through and to areas which bore promise of one kind or
another and it was the promise of the soils of this section which proved a
magnet to draw the H. & T. C. Railroad through what was later to become
Hearne, Texas.
The
way of the H. &- T. C. Railroad, even from the inception of its construction
northward from Houston, like that of almost all early day railroads, was not an
easy one. It was filled with trials
and tribulations to its builders, standing out among whom was Paul Bremond, who
until his dying day, never lost faith in Texas.
Hardly
had the line started in 1853 than its construction was halted.
The contractor in charge found, upon investigation, that his bid was
too low, and he deserted the project. A
brief delay was occasioned until another contractor could be found.
But another difficulty then arose. Funds
which had been pledged for construction of the line were exhausted and here
again work was stopped.
However,
Paul Bremond was equal to the occasion. A
man of dignity and one whose life's history could bear investigation, he
approached not only the contractor but the men working on the job, and gave them
his personal guarantee that the money would be forthcoming.
So implicit was the faith these men had in Paul Bremond that the work was
resumed, and history reveals that on no other occasion did it cease when funds
ran low, with pay days sometimes being skipped by often as long as three or four
months, and only provisions furnished to keep the hundreds of men working.
These were always furnished by Paul Bremond, the man who had an enduring
faith in his fellowman and always justified it by sticking staunchly to his
promises and commitments.
It
required five years to construct the Houston & Texas Central Railroad from
Houston to Hempstead. Not all of
this was occasioned by lack of money. More
often than not it was brought by the inability to obtain steel via steamer up
Buffalo Bayou to Houston, to where it had been shipped from Belgium, or heavy
rains which made train operation slow and sometime perilous.
By
1860 the H. & T. C. Railroad had been completed as far northward as
Millican and the year following, because of the disturbed condition of national
finances resulting from the Civil War the road was declared bankrupt. In the spring of 1862 its assets were sold at Sheriff's Sale,
being bid in by D. H. Paige and W. J. Hutchins for a few cents on the dollar,
and a brave effort was made to carry the project forward.
However,
the H. & T. C. Railroad rested at Millican until the close of the Civil War,
for money with which to pay the costs could not be obtained, and it was not
until 1867 that it finally reached Bryan. A
year later, in 1868, it had reached Hearne and in 1872 was completed to Dallas,
then the recognized commercial center of the Texas domain.
It
was with the establishment of Hearne that the men who built the H. & T. C.
Railroad first recognized the strategic location of the new Texas town, as was
born out by their later decisions. They
saw in Hearne an important point on their projected railroad and as the years
progressed gave further recognition to this town by investing heavily in funds
in the construction of necessary facilities with which to carry on their
operations.
The Hearne & Brazos Railroad, a line projected in 1891 from Hearne through Glass and Stone City in the general direction of San Antonio, and financed by independent capital, was taken over by the H. & T. C. Railroad Company in 1901. In 1911 an agreement was entered into by the H. & T. C. Railroad with the old San Antonio & Aransas Pass Railroad whereby entrance would be gained to San Antonio over its right-of-way and a short line route afforded from Dallas to San Antonio, a dream which inspired the beginning of this line by its original builders. This line today, known as the Dalsa, is one of the most important links in the great Southern Pacific transcontinental route because it represents the shortcut from the St. Louis Gateway via the Cotton Belt, now a Southern Pacific subsidiary, to Corsicana, thence over the tracks of the H. & T. C. Railroad to Hearne and on to San Antonio, where connection is made with the main line to the Pacific coast.