Texas Railroad History - Tower 32, Tower 74 and Mariposa Tower - Beaumont

Tower 32: A Crossing of the Texas & New Orleans Railroad and the Gulf, Beaumont & Kansas City Railway

Tower 74: A Crossing of the Texas & New Orleans Railroad and the Beaumont, Sour Lake and Western Railway

Mariposa Tower: A Santa Fe Tower to Manage Street Crossings


As railroad executive John W. Barriger III surveyed facilities in the late 1930s and early 1940s for the federal Reconstruction Finance Corporation, he snapped these two photos looking out the rear of his business car while traveling eastbound on the Texas & New Orleans (T&NO) Railroad toward downtown Beaumont. Above: Coming into Beaumont from Houston, the first structure of interest that Barriger passed was Tower 74 where the T&NO crossed over Missouri Pacific's (MP) main line between Beaumont and Houston. The view is west-southwest along the T&NO right-of-way, with MP's tracks visible crossing diagonally in front of the tower. Below: Less than a mile farther east, Barriger snapped the Mariposa Street bridge with Tower 32 in the background. In this west-southwest view, the north/south Santa Fe line crosses in front of the tower while the T&NO line to Dallas (north) and Port Arthur (south) passes behind the tower. (John W Barriger National Railroad Library)

"Texas & New Orleans Railroad" was the new name adopted on Christmas Eve, 1859 by the Sabine & Galveston Bay Railroad and Lumber Co. which had been chartered in 1856 to serve southeast Texas lumber interests. By May, 1861, the "T&NO" had connected Houston with Orange using wide (5' 6") gauge construction. In 1863, rails were removed between Orange and Beaumont by Confederate forces to assist in building a fort at Sabine Pass. The complete line between Houston and Beaumont was rebuilt to standard gauge in 1866 and extended to Orange in 1876. Numerous disruptions caused by war, sabotage, flooding, washouts, bankruptcies and corporate restructurings had substantially delayed completion of the original goal of reaching New Orleans, but a train finally made the trip all the way from Houston in 1880. In the course of financial reorganization, the T&NO was sold to Southern Pacific (SP) and soon thereafter, the T&NO's tracks through Beaumont became part of SP's southern transcontinental Sunset Route. The T&NO later became SP's primary operating company in Texas and Louisiana into which other SP railroads were folded in the 1927 - 1934 timeframe. One of the railroads SP acquired well before then was the Sabine & East Texas (S&ET) Railroad. The S&ET had laid 55 miles of rail in 1881 from Sabine Pass on the Gulf to the new town of Kountze. Crossing the T&NO's east/west main line, the S&ET's north/south construction created Beaumont's first rail junction. The S&ET was extended 48 miles farther north to Rockland in 1882 and was acquired by T&NO in October. With additional construction and line acquisitions by SP, a complete line from Beaumont to Dallas was established in 1903.

John H. Kirby founded the next railroad into Beaumont. Having made his fortune in timber land and sawmills, and needing better transportation for his lumber products, Kirby chartered the Gulf, Beaumont and Kansas City (GB&KC) Railway in 1893. Within two years, a 52-mile line between Beaumont and Kirbyville was in operation. In 1897, Kirby and other investors founded the Beaumont Wharf and Terminal (BW&T) Company to lay rails connecting the industries along the Neches River with the railroads in town. One of its lines branched off of the GB&KC on the north side of town where the GB&KC entered Beaumont parallelling the T&NO's Rockland line. The GB&KC was purchased in 1899 by the Atchison, Topeka & Santa Fe (AT&SF) Railway, which was seeking access to a second Gulf port for its Gulf, Colorado & Santa Fe (GC&SF) Railway subsidiary that served Galveston with a main line to Temple and points north. The GC&SF had a branch line east from Somerville (a few miles north of Brenham) that had been built to pursue the growing lumber commerce in east Texas. However, shipping from east Texas back to Galveston via Somerville proved non-competitive with routes of other railroads via Conroe and Cleveland. Since the GC&SF tracks ended at Rayburn only fifty miles west of existing GB&KC tracks at Silsbee, Santa Fe directed the GB&KC to begin building yard and maintenance facilities at Silsbee while the GC&SF closed the 50-mile gap, completed in 1902. Santa Fe leased the GB&KC to the GC&SF in 1903. The BW&T was also acquired by Santa Fe, but it remained separate until it was merged into the GC&SF in 1957.

The next railroad into Beaumont was the Gulf & Inter-State (G&I) Railway, chartered to bring rail service to the town of Port Bolivar on the Bolivar Peninsula across the bay from Galveston. The G&I proposed to build a rail line up the peninsula to the community of High Island and from there northwest to Liberty where a T&NO connection would be made. The route to Liberty never materialized, and instead, rail construction continued northeast at High Island, reaching Beaumont in 1896. The G&I tracks entered Beaumont from the southwest, crossed T&NO's line to Sabine Pass and connected with the GB&KC tracks at a triangle junction, the third leg being Santa Fe's lead into downtown. In 1898, new G&I ownership hired Santa Fe to develop the docks and tracks at Port Bolivar. Santa Fe bought the G&I in 1908 and integrated it into the GC&SF.

About the time the G&I's tracks first reached Beaumont, Arthur Stilwell's idea to construct a route between Kansas City and a new port on the Gulf of Mexico began to materialize. Under his Kansas City, Pittsburg and Gulf (KCP&G) Railway, Stilwell acquired the Texarkana & Fort Smith (T&FS) Railway to build and operate the Texas portion of his enterprise. In 1896, the T&FS built 24 miles south from Texarkana to the Louisiana state line, crossing the Texas & Pacific along the way, and also built 19 miles of track north from Stilwell's eponymous new port, Port Arthur, into Beaumont. In between, the line ran south to Shreveport, Louisiana and farther south to DeQuincy, where it turned southwest and crossed back into Texas at the Sabine River. In 1897, the T&FS completed the remaining Texas construction between the state line and Beaumont, bridging the Neches River near downtown and connecting with the tracks from Port Arthur. Service between Kansas City and Port Arthur commenced on November 1, 1897 and remains in operation today.

In 1899, Stilwell lost financial control of the KCP&G and it was acquired in 1900 by the newly chartered Kansas City Southern (KCS) Railway. Because KCS was not headquartered in Texas (it was chartered in Missouri), Texas law required it to lease, rather than own, the T&FS. In 1933, the State of Texas appealed an Interstate Commerce Commission ruling that granted KCS permission to acquire the T&FS, notwithstanding Texas law to the contrary. The Supreme Court upheld the ruling in 1934. Formally merging the T&FS was delayed until the existing lease expired in 1943. Stilwell's founding of Port Arthur was also a boon to the T&NO. Its tracks from Sabine Pass to Beaumont ran along the west side of Port Arthur, an area that quickly became the site of numerous industrial facilities. The T&NO abandoned the tracks south of Port Arthur to Sabine Pass in 1932, but the Beaumont - Port Arthur line remains in operation by Union Pacific, the T&NO's successor.

On January 28, 1904, Tower 32 was authorized for operation by the Railroad Commission of Texas (RCT), officially recorded as a GB&KC/T&NO crossing. The electrical interlocking plant controlled 37 functions, exceeded at the time only by a 45-function interlocker at Tower 21 and a 54-function interlocker at Tower 26. The tower had tracks on three sides: the T&NO's Sunset Route on the south side, the GB&KC tracks on the east side (leased to the GC&SF), and the T&NO's Sabine Pass / Rockland line on the west side.

The last railroad into Beaumont was the Beaumont, Sour Lake and Western (BSL&W) Railway. It was chartered in 1903 to build west from Beaumont to the newly developed oil field at Sour Lake. In 1905, it was sold to B. F. Yoakum, who added it to his collection of railroads known as the Gulf Coast Lines (GCL). To reach the Port of Beaumont, the BSL&W tracks crossed the T&NO main line about a mile west of Tower 32, a crossing that became interlocked with a 12-function mechanical plant commissioned as Tower 74 on May 15, 1908. As the BSL&W built west from Grayburg, near Sour Lake, to Houston in 1908, Yoakum negotiated trackage rights on the KCS from Beaumont to DeQuincy, where another GCL railroad had tracks that ran to New Orleans. The BSL&W connection with the KCS in Beaumont became known as "GCL Junction", a term that remains in use today. In 1925, the GCL collection of railroads was acquired by Missouri Pacific (MP).

Below: This annotated Sanborn Fire Insurance Index Map of Beaumont from 1911 shows the major rail routes. In addition to Towers 32 and 74, there was one other tower operating in the Beaumont area in 1911. Tower 31 was located at the KCS / T&NO crossing off the map to the right. There was never an RCT-numbered interlocker at GCL Junction. The crossings of three rail lines a short distance south of Tower 32 might have been controlled by the Tower 32 interlocker, but this has not been determined.

  
Above Left: Tower 32 appears in this cropped image of a photo taken by R. D. Evans, March 8, 1956. (Texas & New Orleans Color Pictorial by Steve Allen Goen, Four Ways West Publications, 2004; used with permission.) Above Right: Eastbound SP train #2 passes along the south side of Tower 32 in early 1950 and has already crossed the T&NO line that ran immediately beside (and west of) the tower. The locomotive is about to cross the Santa Fe track that was a few yards east of the tower. (Raymond Mueller photo)

Below: This annotated image derives from a 1954 aerial photo of Beaumont (Don Johnson collection, hat tip, Mark St. Aubin) that is facing generally east-southeast. The T&NO Sunset Route and yards are on an east-northeast heading into downtown to the left. Tower 32 is visible west of the Mariposa St. bridge. The T&NO Dallas/Port Arthur line is visible passing this side (west) of the tower while the Santa Fe tracks pass on the opposite side of the tower, curve to the southeast toward downtown, and split. The left branch continues toward the Santa Fe depot downtown while the right branch curves back to the southwest and proceeds to High Island on the former G&I route. Mariposa Tower was located in the yellow circle, just past Santa Fe's Orange Ave (Mariposa St.) grade crossing, but is hard to detect because it consisted of a small cabin on an open 3-story structure. Mariposa Tower is referenced in a Santa Fe letter to RCT in 1961 regarding its closure. It was a watchman's tower with an operator responsible for controlling signals at street grade crossings to help expedite the movement of trains in the vicinity (see discussion and photo further below.)


Above: 1953 photos of Tower 74 taken by Steve Bartlett. Steve adds:
"I can't tell from the photo but I think the operator was Mr. Cormier. Another would have been Mr. Dennis...inside the tower at his desk. I never learned their first names. As I recall, Cormier was first trick, Dennis second trick. There was a third regular operator, plus varying reliefs on weekends. The MP dispatched trains over the company telephone but the telegraph still worked and and was occasionally used. The telegraph and telephone call for Tower 74 was 'WY'. I regret that I never took pictures of the interlocking levers. They controlled the moving point crossing, the switch to WY siding which began just west of the tower and paralleled the main track to just west of 23d St."

Additional Photos and Captions from Steve Bartlett
"The Old Main (my name for it) swung sharply north just about at the WY siding switch and paralleled 11th St north, turning west again just south of Calder Ave. It rejoined the west end of WY siding just west of 23rd St. I think it may have had a spring switch at that end. I remember it had a spring frog. The tower was pipe-connected to the crossing, the WY siding switch, the Old Main Switch, and the SP Long lead switch, plus facing point locks on each. The original signals were pipe-connected semaphores but had been converted to lighted, electrical signals."

Above Left:
"No. 3, The Orleanean, day train between New Orleans and Houston, picking up clearance and orders, if any. Note beyond the train, on the SP, two tracks. The left is the main track and to the right is the Long Lead, frequently used by freights entering and leaving the SP yard farther east. The Long Lead switch was controlled by Tower 74."  Above Right: "A view from the cab of a westward freight, doing setouts and pickups in the yard, just east of Tower 74. The track to the far right is the interchange track used by MP and SP. The second signal arm is cleared, showing the route was lined for WY Siding. The lower signal arm cleared to Lunar White for the Old Main Track."  Below Left: "No. 3 on the main, WY Siding beside it, and the Old Main on the left of the water tower. This track was used once in a while, at least once a year, to keep it legally in service. I saw one of the freights on it one afternoon. The west end switch for WY siding was controlled from the small GRS control box over the operator's desk."  Below Right: "The train on the left is a freight with two F3 units, the usual freight power, on the siding, waiting for the passage of No. 3, on the main track, with a GP7. Freights occasionally had two Alco FA units and No. 3 and No. 4 usually had an F7, occasionally a GP7, and once in a while, an Alco PA."

In the early 1960s, a major cooperative effort among Beaumont's railroads led to many changes in rail traffic flow. SP and Santa Fe built a connection between their parallel tracks at the Broadway St. grade crossing about one-third of a mile north of Tower 32. This moved northbound SP trains onto Santa Fe's tracks at Broadway St. From there, SP trains continued north past Santa Fe's freight yard all the way to Loeb Jct. (near Lumberton) where they returned to SP rails. This allowed SP to abandon 9.5 miles of track between Broadway St. and Loeb in 1961. Santa Fe's line that passed Mariposa Tower from downtown was re-directed to connect to SP's tracks on the north side of Tower 32. This allowed Santa Fe to abandon its tracks south of Broadway St. and begin using SP rails to Tower 32 to reach the downtown connector. As Santa Fe dismantled their downtown operations (and requested RCT permission to close Mariposa Tower in 1961 as discussed further below), a new connection to reach Santa Fe's line to High Island was needed. This was accomplished with a branch off of SP's Port Arthur line which Santa Fe reached using SP's tracks south of Tower 32. Burlington Northern Santa Fe (BNSF) is the successor to Santa Fe and continues to operate the former Santa Fe lines in Beaumont.

A much bigger change affecting Beaumont rail traffic occurred in the latter half of the 1960s motivated by several factors. On the railroad side, SP desired to expand its yard which was not feasible at its downtown location. On the civic side, city officials and the Port of Beaumont had issues with SP's route through town. Steve Goen explains:

Beaumont was not happy with the fact that the SP main line sliced right through downtown and incredibly close to several multi-story buildings. Whenever an SP train passed through downtown, it literally brought everything to a standstill. Secondly the Port of Beaumont likewise didn't like the location of SP's bridge across the Neches as it was right next to their turning basin. The port was wanting to expand capacity and simply could not do it with the SP's bridge being where it was. So a plan was proposed in which SP would abandon its line through Mariposa Yard and would pass through town via the KCS (MP) route several blocks to the south. This allowed SP to abandon all trackage downtown, past the SP station, and through Mariposa Yard. At almost the same time, KCS discontinued the FLYING CROW which in turn allowed them to abandon the old KCS-GCL station. This left SP free to construct a new station well west of downtown. This is the station that Amtrak originally used and where a new replacement station is today. With all three lines (SP-KCS-MP) routed through downtown on the KCS route, that cleared out SP through the main downtown business district. The new yard was constructed, the SP station razed, and SP's bridge removed. It was a drastic overhaul of the railroad scene in Beaumont

SP built a new yard west of Tower 74 and eliminated its yard and tracks in downtown (except for an industry spur remaining in place east from Tower 32.) Removing its downtown tracks required SP to begin using MP's route east from Tower 74 to GCL Junction. At GCL Jct., SP trains moved onto KCS rails, crossed the KCS bridge over the Neches River, and continued a mile farther east to Tower 31 where they rejoined the Sunset Route. With this operation in place, SP abandoned its main line between Tower 32 and Tower 31 in 1967. SP's Neches River bridge was dismantled two years later. SP also revised their Port Arthur line; instead of continuing north to Tower 32, it was curved west onto the MP tracks toward Tower 74 to reach SP's new yard. With SP no longer accessing Port Arthur via Tower 32, the rails south of Tower 32 were curved directly onto Santa Fe's High Island line. All of these changes meant that Tower 32's complex interlocking plant was no longer needed. Most of the traffic it saw was infrequent north/south Santa Fe movements accessing the High Island line. The interlocker was removed and replaced with a gate to guard access to SP's industry spur toward downtown. When this spur was rerouted to become a connection south of the diamond, the diamond was removed. The date and fate of the ultimate demise of the Tower 32 structure is undetermined.

For its part, MP obtained trackage rights from SP west from Tower 74 to Langham Road, where it built a new 1-mile connecting track that angled northwest to rejoin the MP main line. This allowed MP to abandon 3.6 miles of track west of Tower 74 in 1962; a short section of track was retained near the tower as an industry spur. By the late 1960s, the Sunset Route through Beaumont had become a four mile double-tracked main line corridor used by both MP and SP from the MP connector near Langham Road all the way to GCL Junction. Union Pacific (UP) became the successor to both MP and SP, and continues to operate substantial traffic through Beaumont. Although Tower 74 was no longer a manually interlocked crossing, it was retained for traffic management purposes. Bob Currie explains what happened to it...

"The story I got from MP Tower 74 operator RD Strong is that the tower was destroyed in a derailment. Strong was in the tower when it happened. The engineer on the MP train that destroyed the tower was John Brown, who was the father of SP Tower 74 operator John “Bo” Brown. Bo told me the same story as RD Strong."

The tower structure could not be repaired, so the railroads built a "new Tower 74" -- just a small, single story pre-fab building -- to house the equipment and tower operators, which also doubled as an Amtrak station. Bob continues...

"During the 20 years I operated through Beaumont, the new Tower 74 had 2 operators on duty, 24/7. One operator controlled the CTC board, and the other operator copied both SP and MP train orders. The CTC operator’s job was split between SP and MP operators, while the train order operator was always an SP employee. Bo Brown, an SP operator, usually worked the third shift CTC job."


Above: Annotated map of Beaumont showing numbered towers and other locations. (G = GCL Junction, M = Mariposa Tower, K = KCS Tower at the Neches River Bridge) Below: GCL Junction is largely unchanged since the days of B F Yoakum. The double track along the upper side of the triangle is the Sunset Route, which narrows to single track at KCS Tower (off image to the right) to cross the Neches River. The south leg is KCS' route to Port Arthur, but it also provides access to extensive industrial activity along the banks of the river. KCS continues today to operate its route through Beaumont, which has changed little since 1900.

Below: Two photos provided by Ted Ferkenhoff, who supplies these captions:

Below Left: This view is looking east, with the Amtrak station/Tower 74 (new version) to our back. The alignment veering to the right is that of the MoPac toward GCL Jct. The track diverging to the lower left is a remnant of the old MoPac main used to serve a gravel company. The track diverging to the upper left is remains of the former SP main, referred to as the "NO Main" (i.e. "T&NO" Main.) The yard in the distance on the right is the MoPac downtown yard, and the track running on the far right is known as the "Roy Jones" connection, and connects to SP's yard which lies west (behind the photographer). The site of the original Tower 74 building is to the right just out of the photo. Below Right: This was the "new" Tower 74, which shared a building with the Amtrak waiting room at Beaumont until it closed in April 2000. It was replaced by dispatcher control at Spring, TX. The windows to the far left are the waiting room, and the windows to the right are the operator's office where the CTC board was located. The remainder of the building to the right of the windows was a room full of relays and other electrical gear.
 

Below: interior photo of the "new" Tower 74 c.1998 (Mark St. Aubin photo)
Update from Howard Bingham (Oct. 5, 2006): "The 'new' Tower 74 building...no longer exists. The building was leveled by the UP about 2 1/2 years ago after the City of Beaumont condemned the building due to damage caused by vagrants. All that remains today is a concrete pad where the building once stood in addition to the boarding platform which continues to serve any Amtrak passengers boarding at Beaumont."

Below: November, 2022 satellite view of the former Tower 74 crossing (Google Earth)

 

Left: This Google simulated 3D view combining satellite imagery with ground elevation data shows that a new Amtrak shelter has been built to replace the "boarding platform" referenced above. The building at the bottom is a Police Substation. The view is east along UP's double-tracked main line toward GCL Jct. The former site of Tower 74 is in the trees across the tracks to the right. The spur that branches to the left is the former SP main line to Tower 32 and downtown, and is where Barriger's car was traveling as he snapped the photo of Tower 74 (top of this page) looking out the rear of his eastbound business car. In those days, SP's main line right-of-way had three tracks while only a single MP track crossed at the tower toward GCL Jct.

Below: Tower 74, c.1957 ((c)historicaerials.com)




Above: This 2011 Google Street View image is essentially the same view as Barriger's shot of the Mariposa St. bridge at the top of the page. When the T&NO's downtown tracks and yards were removed, the Mariposa Street bridge was dismantled and replaced by a surface roadway, from which this image was captured. Patches are visible where industry spurs were removed. Below: An elevated 3D view from approximately the same location and direction as Barriger's photo of Tower 32 shows tracks remain in place west of the crossing, retaining north and south connections to the crossing track on the original T&NO alignment. The angled "gap" in the trees just below the middle left edge of the image is the Santa Fe right-of-way which curved toward downtown (lower left direction) after crossing the T&NO. Note that Mariposa Street, which replaced the bridge visible in Barriger's photo, has been renamed North M L King Jr. Parkway. An actual parkway by that name carrying substantial traffic is behind the camera, but this original surface street remains intact and becomes Orange Ave. as Mariposa St. once did. (Google Street View)

 
Above Left: This 2004 photo taken by Jim King faces west at the Tower 32 crossing. Although a gate is visible, Gary Williams reports that the Tower 32 diamond "was removed December 14, 1998." Satellite imagery from November, 2022 might show a hint of a shadow cast by the gate, apparently still intact and guarding nothing. Rails are no longer buried in the weeds; by 2008, (image above right facing north) the entire area had been cleared. The spur track across Mariposa St. survived the original abandonment east of Tower 32 and was served from the west across the diamond until the lead was added from the northbound track. (Microsoft Virtual Earth image)  Below: This May, 2018 Google Street View looks south from Calder Ave. down the original SP alignment towards the site of Tower 32. The track angling in from the left brings southbound trains off the original Santa Fe alignment onto the former SP tracks at Broadway St., the next grade crossing south of Calder. The abandoned Santa Fe right-of-way runs south through the gravel parking area behind the equipment cabinet at left of center, which is marked "U.P.R.R." A similar one at the Calder Ave. grade crossing (behind the camera) is marked "BNSF Railway", reflecting the track ownership transition that still persists from 1961.

Mariposa Tower
Mariposa Tower was a watchman's tower two tenths of a mile from Tower 32 that was used by Santa Fe to control street grade crossing signals. Watchman's towers were common in urban areas and were never numbered or managed by RCT since they had no interlocking plants or similar controls. In this case, however, RCT did have a file folder for Mariposa in its records archived at DeGolyer Library. Mariposa Tower was located at the intersection of Orange St. (S. Mariposa Ave.) and Cement (also known as Ellison Court, but no longer existing) within the triangular junction of three Santa Fe lines. The northwest line was the GB&KC tracks to Silsbee. The southwest line was the G&I tracks to Port Bolivar via High Island. The third line went generally east toward downtown and terminated at the Santa Fe depot. RCT's Mariposa file contains only one item, a letter written by Santa Fe to RCT on February 2, 1961 discussing plans to close the tower and requesting RCT approval to do so, even though they recognized that approval might not have been required. The fact that Santa Fe bothered to write RCT regarding this tower suggests that it had played an important role in managing train movements. The letter explained that the grade crossing signals operated by the towerman were being converted to automatic operation, and that discontinuance of passenger and freight service to Santa Fe's downtown depot would eliminate most of the train movements through this area, leaving "only one freight train in and out every other day between Silsbee and High Island."


Left and Below: An article about Mariposa Tower in the April 21, 1928 issue of Railway Age explains that Santa Fe worked with Beaumont city officials to install typical traffic light signals at ten street grade crossings that carried "80 to 100 train movements" daily. The city had previously ordered "all trains to stop for each street and a brakeman to proceed ahead to flag the crossing." The result was that "trains moved so slowly through this area that the street traffic was delayed unnecessarily." Santa Fe designed a system to allow the tower operator to control each traffic signal separately. Some crossings were not visible from the tower so "an illuminated track diagram...was placed over the switches in the tower, the lights in the diagram being controlled by track circuits so that the towerman knows the location of each train." Installed in July, 1927, the system allowed train speeds to increase "...to about 15 m.p.h. over these crossings, which...reduces the delay to street traffic."

 


Above: Mariposa Tower is the small square building highlighted in the center of this image taken from the 1941 update to the 1929 Sanborn Fire Insurance map of Beaumont (rotated so that due north is up). The tower is just below the Santa Fe main line that slants across the image, within a large triangle of Santa Fe tracks. One triangle lead is the GB&KC at upper left; off the map, this line curves due north past Tower 32. The triangle lead at the right edge goes into downtown Beaumont to reach the Santa Fe depot. The third lead is at the bottom of the image where the two tracks merge (off the map) to proceed southeast on the G&I tracks to High Island.


Above: In this annotated 1957 aerial image ((c)historicaerials.com), note that the two conjoined buildings along Orange St. south of the tower are also visible in the image below. Below: Mariposa Tower was located where a line parallel to and extending from the northwest wall of the two buildings on Orange St. intersects the former Santa Fe right-of-way near the center of this image, perhaps the visible "gray spot". The angled dark patch in Orange St. is the Santa Fe right-of-way. (Microsoft Virtual Earth)

 
Last Revised: 1/28/2023 JGK - Contact the Texas Interlocking Towers Page.