Texas Railroad History - Tower 34 - Taylor

A Crossing of the Missouri, Kansas & Texas Railway and the International & Great Northern Railroad

Above: Railroad executive John W. Barriger III snapped this photo of Tower 34 from the rear platform of his business car sometime in the 1930s. Barriger was facing north as his train headed south on tracks of the Missouri - Kansas - Texas ("Katy") Railroad. Moments before, Barriger's car had crossed over the diamond at the Katy's intersection with the International - Great Northern (I-GN) Railroad that went east / west through Taylor. The Katy's passenger depot is visible to the left of the tracks. From this angle, the front dormer aligns with the depot's far wall to present the illusion of another building beyond the depot. The Katy freight depot is just off the left edge of the image, reached by a spur, with an exchange track behind it.

Below: On a different trip eastbound on the I-GN, Barriger took this photo looking west toward downtown Taylor with the tower sitting in the northeast quadrant of the diamond. To the immediate right of the tower, the large, light-colored I-GN passenger depot looms in the background, vaguely discernable behind numerous signal and utility poles. The south end of the Katy passenger depot is visible trackside to the right, and the Katy freight depot sits to the left behind it, partially obscuring a cooling tower and smokestack of the Southland Ice Company (long before it morphed into the convenience store giant of 7-Eleven fame.) (photos courtesy John W Barriger III National Railroad Library)

The International & Great Northern (I&GN) Railroad was the combination of two unaffiliated companies, the International Railroad and the Houston & Great Northern (H&GN) Railroad. The earliest to be chartered was the H&GN founded in 1866 by Houston interests with a plan to build north to the Red River. Construction was delayed for several years; major New York banks were reluctant to lend money to Texas railroads during the initial Reconstruction period after the Civil War. Work finally began in Houston in December, 1870. In May, 1873 when the H&GN's track gang reached Palestine 151 miles north of Houston, it marked the third construction team to enter the town in less than a year! The other two had been crews of the International Railroad arriving into Palestine from opposite directions. The International had been chartered in 1870 to build a line from Texarkana to the southern border at Laredo via Austin and San Antonio. It would essentially be an extension of the St. Louis, Iron Mountain & Southern (SLIM&S) Railway which was building from St. Louis to Texarkana. The International's construction had commenced in 1871 at two locations, northeast from Hearne and southwest from Longview. Friendly tracks of the Texas & Pacific (T&P) Railway would fill the gap between Longview and Texarkana.

Before the H&GN had reached Palestine, the management of the International had recognized the value in a combined railroad that would add Houston -- with favorable connections to Galveston -- to the International's destinations. An agreement was reached to merge the two companies to become the International and Great Northern Railroad (I&GN) Railroad. In December, 1872, the railroads began operating under a combined management structure led by Herbert Melville "Hub" Hoxie as General Superintendent of both railroads. The International's offices were moved from Hearne to Houston so that Hoxie could run both railroads while awaiting permission from the Legislature to merge. Having completed its line from Longview to Hearne, the International resumed construction toward Austin. A sale of town lots at Rockdale was held on September 3, 1873, several months before the rails reached there on January 28, 1874. Construction was halted at Rockdale for more than two years as politicians and journalists debated the issue of railroad subsidies which had suddenly engulfed the International and its management.

The International had submitted a claim for construction bonds to be issued by the State in accordance with the railroad's charter. Claiming corruption, the Texas Comptroller refused to countersign and register the bonds despite the State Engineer reporting that the work covered by the bonds was of high quality and met the requirements of the railroad's charter. As legal proceedings moved slowly, a lengthy debate raged statewide for more than two years. Much ink was spilled as to whether the bond issuance was in accordance with state law, or instead constituted a demand by the International for an unconstitutional subsidy. Legislators are usually responsive to their constituents, and those constituents wanted railroads now. This was certainly true in Austin, which only had one rail line (to Houston), and it was definitely true in San Antonio, which had no railroads at all. A compromise was ultimately found, and the I&GN charter was granted by state law in 1875. By then, the I&GN name had been appearing in newspapers for a couple of years, even though it legally remained two separate railroads. It was not uncommon to see all three names -- the International, the H&GN and the I&GN -- mentioned in a newspaper on the same day.

 
Above: Construction finally resumed out of Rockdale on May 22, 1876, and the I&GN rails reached Taylor in late June. Anticipating its arrival, the sale of town lots at Taylor was scheduled for June 1 and was announced in the Galveston Daily News of May 16, 1876. The results of the sale were reported beneath a "Williamson County" subhead in the "State News" column of the Galveston Daily News of June 8, 1876. Note that this single paragraph (third from left) uses two different names for the town: Taylor Station and Taylor. This would become a common theme. The Denison Daily News of June 24, 1876 noted that the "railroad reached Taylor Friday", which was the prior day, June 23.

The town of Taylor was named for Moses Taylor, a New York banker and one of the wealthiest men in the U.S. He was a major investor in both the H&GN and the International, and through them became the leader of a financial syndicate backing the I&GN. Both Taylor and Taylor Station were names initially used for the town, but Taylorsville was ultimately adopted. Texas' largest newspaper, the Galveston Daily News, began using Taylorsville in March, 1877, yet Taylor continued to be referenced frequently in newspapers across the state. Whether this widespread usage contributed to the decision to shorten the town's official name to Taylor is undetermined. The change reportedly occurred in 1892, but postal records pertaining to the revision have not been found in the National Archives. Left: A column editor of the Brenham Daily Banner of July 7, 1877 cleverly noted that the recent establishment of the Taylorsville Reflector newspaper would help to ensure that "Williamson county should be well lighted." Six months after the tracks had entered Taylor, they reached Austin on December 16, 1876. The I&GN did not continue onward to San Antonio because the construction from Hearne to Austin coupled with the lengthy delay at Rockdale had stretched the company's finances to the breaking point. It badly needed operating revenue with which to pay expenses and bond interest. On April 1, 1878, the company was forced into receivership. After a year and a half in bankruptcy, it was sold at foreclosure on November 1, 1879 to buyers who formed a new I&GN company under the original charter and management team. The I&GN restarted construction south from Austin in June, 1880. Routing via San Marcos and New Braunfels, the tracks reached San Antonio on February 16, 1881, and were extended to Laredo later that year.

The 1872 announcement of the plan to create the I&GN had immediately caught the attention of notorious rail magnate Jay Gould. Gould viewed the merger with alarm as the I&GN would have operations from Longview through east and central Texas to the Gulf coast and Mexico. Gould controlled Midwest railroads, but to maximize their potential, he needed his own outlet to Mexico and ports on the Gulf. The I&GN would be a large and powerful competitor, so Gould began to develop a long term plan to take it over. Gould decided that the Missouri, Kansas & Texas (MK&T, "Katy") Railroad could be a potentially valuable property to support his quest. The Katy had bridged the Red River into Texas in late 1872 and helped establish the town of Denison, named for a Katy executive. The Houston & Texas Central (H&TC) Railway had reached Denison in March, 1872, providing a connection to Houston and Galveston for Midwest passengers and freight. In a story of corporate intrigue worthy of a movie script, Gould successfully infiltrated Katy management with his loyalists over a period of several years during the remainder of the 1870s. In late 1879 through the efforts of his henchmen, Gould was elected President of the Katy though he had negligible ownership of Katy stock.

Within a year, Gould had leased the Katy to the Missouri Pacific (MP) Railroad, a large Missouri-based enterprise that he controlled and in which he had a large ownership position. MP extended the Katy's tracks south from the Red River bridge to Fort Worth (1880) and Hillsboro (1881), then farther south to Waco, Temple and Taylor in 1882. MP's route into Taylor came south along the east side of town, placing its crossing of the I&GN southeast of downtown. To this day, the heart of Taylor remains north and east of the diamond. All of this work was presented to the public as MP activity; the Katy became invisible though it held title to the tracks MP was building. Right: Dallas Daily Herald, February 2, 1882, one of the few newspaper reports to associate the track construction with the Katy

By the time the I&GN reached San Antonio, Gould had already begun negotiations to buy a controlling interest. He had successfully "hemmed in" the I&GN by acquiring control of both of the aforementioned railroads -- the T&P and the SMIL&S -- that combined to provide the I&GN's only direct connection to St. Louis from Longview. On June 1, 1881, it was announced that Gould had acquired all of the I&GN common stock in a two-for-one swap for Katy stock. Gould became President of the I&GN and leased it to the Katy for 99 years while allowing the I&GN to continue using its own name.

Left: Since the Katy was leased to MP, the I&GN being under lease to the Katy made it a major component of MP's routes in Texas. A shared division headquarters for both railroads was planned for Taylor. (Galveston Daily News, March 3, 1882) Right: MP reached Taylor on May 1, 1882 and connected with the I&GN. (Waco Daily Examiner, May 3, 1882) Note that neither article uses the correct name of the town (Taylorsville) nor the correct name of the owing railroad (Missouri, Kansas & Texas, "Katy").

Neither the Katy nor MP was headquartered in Texas and neither had a Texas charter, yet Gould was somehow extending the Katy's tracks southward, albeit with MP getting the publicity. An 1870 Texas law had allowed the Katy to enter Texas across its planned Red River bridge under its Kansas charter to facilitate connection at Denison with the H&TC. But the Kansas charter had called for construction south through Waco and Austin to reach the Rio Grande River, so Gould was capitalizing on this loophole. Ostensibly he was merely following the charter (not that he considered himself bound by it), but more significantly, he recognized that Texas politicians always wanted more railroad service. It was hard for Legislators to question the legality of MP's southward expansion while they were making speeches to their constituents at each town's celebration of new MP service.

For several years, the southern terminus of the MP / Katy tracks remained at Taylor. This was mostly due to the political climate in the Texas Legislature which in 1882 had repealed the land grant law and lowered authorized passenger fares while pondering additional railroad regulation. Gould was wary of additional investment at the time, but he still wanted to extend the Katy tracks from Taylor to Houston. The urgency, however, was reduced now that he owned the I&GN which served Houston. Five months after MP reached Taylor, Gould bought the Galveston, Houston & Henderson (GH&H) Railroad which at the time owned the only tracks between Houston and Galveston. Gould assigned its ownership to the Katy which then leased it to the I&GN.

In 1886, Gould directed MP to resume construction out of Taylor heading for Houston via Smithville. At the end of 1887, construction stopped eleven miles east of La Grange at a location that MP called Boggy Tank. There was no progress for several years as the Gould railroads entered a period of financial turmoil, primarily related to the bankruptcy of the Wabash, St. Louis & Pacific Railway which Gould had acquired in the early 1880s. The problems spilled over to MP because Gould had leased the Wabash to the SLIM&S, part of the MP family.

Gould's more immediate problem, however, was the election of James S. "Jim" Hogg in November, 1886 as Texas Attorney General. The focus of Hogg's campaign had been his claim that Texas railroads were guilty of poor service, poor facilities, price-fixing and other violations of their charters and other state laws. Hogg began filing lawsuits against various railroads including the I&GN and the Katy. Gould had allowed the I&GN to deteriorate, leading to poor service and routine accidents, and he got away with it because most travelers had no other choice. Railroad charters required companies to maintain good facilities and good service, so Hogg wasted no time going after the I&GN. Right: Galveston Evening Tribune, May 10, 1888 In addition to Hogg, Katy stockholders were after Gould but they were having difficulty summoning a quorum for an official meeting. Gould tried to prevent a meeting by resorting to judicial intervention, but the stockholders prevailed in May, 1888. They fired Gould for malfeasance associated with the terms of MP's lease, and then promptly sought bankruptcy protection and a declaration that MP's lease was void. Eventually, the Texas Supreme Court terminated MP's lease of the Katy while also declaring the Katy to be a "foreign" railroad because it lacked a Texas charter and headquarters.

The Katy would continue to operate in Texas under a Receiver until it could be reorganized pursuant to a new Texas charter to be enacted by the Legislature. Ironically, Gould remained President of the I&GN, ostensibly owned by the Katy. Gould fought to ensure that the Katy could not retain the I&GN by pointing out to Hogg that the Katy's ownership of the I&GN was illegal since the Katy was a "foreign" railroad. Up to that point, the precise ownership of the I&GN had been finessed by Gould, but he admitted it to Hogg to try to keep the Katy from owning the I&GN going forward. The Legislature passed a new Katy charter law on October 28, 1891 granting rights to a newly created Texas subsidiary of the parent Katy corporation. The subsidiary would be headquartered in Denison and would own most of the Katy's current Texas rail lines, but not the I&GN. Gould's delaying tactics had provided time for the Legislature to sour on the idea of allowing the Katy to own Texas' largest railroad. The Katy had little choice but to sell the I&GN back to Gould.

The Katy's Texas charter was signed into law by ... Governor Jim Hogg! He had been elected to that office in 1890 under a campaign to establish a Railroad Commission of Texas (RCT). The end result was that Gould had financial control of both the I&GN and the T&P but he had no involvement with the Katy. Though MP was a Gould railroad, it was also a "foreign" railroad and thus it no longer had any assets -- leased or owned --  in Texas. MP exchanged traffic with the T&P at Texarkana, and along with the I&GN, the three railroads cooperated on passenger trains between St. Louis and Houston. Unfortunately, Gould did not have much time to navigate this new reality; he died in New York in December, 1892. His son George replaced Jay as the President of both the T&P and the I&GN.

As for Jim Hogg ... he spent much of his public life working to force the I&GN to improve its service and safety record, but unfortunately, he learned the hard way that his efforts were insufficient. In January, 1905, long after he had left office, Hogg suffered a head injury when the I&GN train he was riding to Houston collided with a string of freight cars. Though he believed his injury was minor, he ultimately needed multiple surgeries over the next year to relieve brain swelling, and he eventually succumbed to his injury in March, 1906.

Right: In addition to the I&GN and Katy in Central Texas, three other large railroads operated in the area. Southern Pacific The H&TC main line out of Houston reached Denison in 1872, crossing the I&GN en route at Hearne. A year earlier, the H&TC had completed a branch line into Austin off the main line at Hempstead. By the end of 1883, Southern Pacific (SP) had gained control of the H&TC. Northwest out of Austin, a narrow gauge line was built by the Austin & North Western in 1882. It was reorganized as the Austin & Northwestern in 1888 and acquired by SP in 1891, which promptly converted it to standard gauge. It crossed the I&GN at McNeil and terminated at Llano, 82 rail miles farther west. East of Austin, the Katy's 1886 extension south from Taylor crossed SP's tracks at Elgin. In 1901-02, the I&GN would build a line (not shown) between Fort Worth and the northern outskirts of Houston. It passed very close to Hearne, helping to make the town one of the major rural rail junctions in Texas. Hearne would become even more important when SP built the "Dalsa Cutoff" (not shown) between Giddings and Hearne in 1914. Santa Fe The Gulf, Colorado & Santa Fe (GC&SF) main line out of Galveston crossed the I&GN at Milano and reached Temple in 1881. Within a year, MP had crossed the GC&SF at Temple as it built Katy tracks toward Taylor. In 1887, the GC&SF became part of the much larger Atchison, Topeka & Santa Fe. San Antonio & Aransas Pass The San Antonio & Aransas Pass (SA&AP) had begun with construction of a line between San Antonio and Corpus Christi in 1884. A lengthy branch from Yoakum to Waco was completed in 1891. It crossed the Katy at West Point, the SP at Giddings, the I&GN at Rockdale, and the GC&SF at Cameron. SP acquired the SA&AP in 1893, lost control in 1903, and then reacquired it in 1925.

As a newly independent railroad on solid financial footing, the Katy began a 25-year period of successful operations. It resumed construction in 1892, building from Boggy Tank to the Brazos River, seven miles east of Sealy. The remaining 42 miles from the Brazos River to Houston was completed the following year. With tracks into Houston, the Katy wanted to operate to Galveston, but the GH&H was still leased to the I&GN which the Katy no longer owned. The Katy claimed in a Federal lawsuit that it had a continuing right to operate over the GH&H. A settlement was negotiated by George Gould in which the I&GN and the Katy each owned 50% of the GH&H with unlimited rights to operate over it. In 1904, the Katy opened a branch line to Austin. It departed the main line at Granger, eleven miles north of Taylor, and went west to Georgetown and south to Austin via Round Rock. The Katy negotiated trackage rights on the I&GN between Austin and San Marcos, enabling it to connect with a branch line it had finished between Smithville and San Marcos in 1892, a project Jay Gould had initiated. In 1901, the Katy built from San Marcos to San Antonio, a requirement levied by the Legislature (ostensibly to provide north / south route competition to the I&GN) in exchange for some unrelated charter revisions the Katy had requested.

The Katy entered bankruptcy in 1915 and was operated by a Receiver under court supervision until 1923. During that period, the railroad came under the control of the U. S. Railroad Administration (USRA) exercising powers granted by Congress in response to the Great War in Europe. The post-war Transportation Act of 1920 terminated USRA's management of the railroads and returned them to private ownership. It also granted substantial control over the railroads to the Interstate Commerce Commission (ICC). When the Katy's receivership ended in 1923, it had a new name: the Missouri - Kansas - Texas Railroad ("M-K-T" or "MKT", but mostly just "the Katy".)

Purchased from the Katy in 1892, the I&GN had remained controlled by the Gould family but things did not go smoothly. It continued to be notorious for accidents, particularly on its poorly constructed, poorly signaled main line between Fort Worth and Houston that opened in 1902. It was under constant orders from RCT to correct various issues and improve service with the acquisition of additional locomotives and passenger cars. When the nation went into a depression caused by the Panic of 1907, the I&GN was unable to make bond payments and it went into voluntary receivership in February, 1908. To add to the misery, the I&GN shops and roundhouse at Taylor were destroyed by fire that same year.

Left: The Railway & Engineering Review, September 26, 1908 Right: Southern Machinery, February, 1910

The I&GN receivership lasted three years under the appointed Receiver, Judge Thomas Freeman, a former T&P attorney. Freeman rehabilitated much of the I&GN's roadbed and its signaling systems using $11 million in short term Receiver Certificates authorized for sale by the Court. In June, 1911, the Gould family bought the I&GN out of bankruptcy and named Judge Freeman to be the new President. Yet, revenues were insufficient to retire the short term notes issued during the receivership, so the I&GN went back into bankruptcy in 1914. At that point, the Gould family connection to the I&GN ended forever. It was not until July 28, 1922 that the I&GN emerged from bankruptcy as a newly reorganized company under the name International - Great Northern Railroad, hence both I&GN and I-GN have been used as abbreviations for the railroad.

As for MP, the Gould family was no longer involved after a financial reorganization in 1917. In 1924, MP tried to buy the newly independent I-GN as a means of reentering the Texas market but the ICC refused to approve the sale. To keep the I-GN away from other competitors, MP helped the New Orleans, Texas & Mexico (NOT&M) Railway buy the I-GN. That sale was approved by the ICC in June, 1924 and six months later, MP was allowed to buy the entire NOT&M on January 1, 1925. Thus it acquired the target I-GN plus the other assets of the NOT&M, which operated in Texas and Louisiana under the moniker Gulf Coast Lines.

Pursuant to new a state law in 1901, RCT began regulating the safety of crossings of two or more railroads. Their plan was to have railroads deploy interlocker technology widely used elsewhere, subject to RCT authorization and inspection. RCT commissioned Tower 34 at Taylor on March 5, 1904 with a 28-function mechanical interlocking plant built by Union Switch & Signal. This was more than double the typical minimum plant size indicating that additional signals and switches for connecting tracks were controlled through the interlocker. Left: The Austin Statesman of January 22, 1904 carried this news item regarding the construction of the interlocking tower at Taylor. Right: Only a few months later on May 9, the Austin Statesman reported that heavy rains had damaged the tower.

Since the I&GN / Katy crossing at Taylor existed prior to 1901, RCT's rules specified that the capital expense for the tower and interlocking plant would be shared equally by the railroads. The recurring expense for tower operations and maintenance would be split based on the ratio of interlocking functions assigned to each railroad compared to the total function count. One railroad would take the lead for staffing and maintaining the tower and it would bill the other railroad monthly for half of the expenses incurred. In 1916, RCT reported that the Katy was currently assigned the operations and maintenance responsibility for Tower 34. Whether the Katy had been tasked with that effort at the initial commissioning of the tower is unknown. In most cases, the railroad with staffing and maintenance responsibility was also the railroad that had managed the design and construction of the tower. However, the architecture of Tower 34 does not resemble the typical Katy tower design, e.g. Tower 53, Tower 64, Tower 93, all of which used concrete construction. It is unlikely that the Katy altered its basic tower architecture after Tower 34 because Tower 53 -- a completely different design -- opened only four months later. Tower 34's design could have been led by the I&GN, and if so, perhaps the staffing responsibility had been transferred to the Katy during the I&GN's bankruptcies in the 1907 - 1914 timeframe. Unfortunately, there are insufficient photos of known I&GN towers to be able to ascertain any particular architecture for comparison to Tower 34.

Historic aerial imagery shows that Tower 34 was removed sometime between 1958 and 1963. The fate of the structure is undetermined.

Left: This image snippet from the 1931 Sanborn Fire Insurance map of Taylor shows the tower located in the northeast quadrant of the diamond. The track south of the I-GN main line is an industry spur that connected to the I-GN off the map to the west. The Katy passenger station was trackside a hundred yards north of the diamond while the I-GN passenger station was on the north side of the tracks about 500 yards west of the diamond (off the map.) RCT frequently issued orders requiring railroads to build joint stations to support passenger connecting traffic. No record of such an order for Taylor has been found nor has any evidence surfaced of a "union station" at any earlier point in Taylor's history. Below: This magnification of the Sanborn Map shows that the tower's staircase was on the east side of the building, consistent with both photos at the top of the page.

The I-GN continued to operate under its own name within the MP family of railroads. In 1933, MP and all of its subsidiaries went into a lengthy receivership largely caused by the Great Depression. The receivership ended in 1956 when a new Missouri Pacific Railroad Company was formed merging its separate railroads; they no longer carried separate identities. The T&P, however, was not merged, even though MP owned 75% of T&P's stock (an ownership position that dated back to 1930.) The T&P continued to operate independently but cooperatively with MP until it was merged in 1976. MP was acquired by Union Pacific (UP) in 1982 but kept its separate identity. The Katy remained independent until 1988 when it was acquired by UP and merged into MP, one hundred years after MP's lease of the Katy had been terminated by the Texas Supreme Court. Several years later, UP merged with SP and the entire railroad now operates under the UP name.

MKT / MP, Taylor, Texas, 1965
Track crew puts finishing touches on Missouri-Kansas-Texas Railroad crossing as eastbound Missouri Pacific Railroad freight train waits in July, 1965. Photograph by J. Parker Lamb (c) 2016 Center for Railroad Photography and Art. Lamb-02-062-10


MKT/MP, Taylor, Texas, 1981
Northbound Missouri-Kansas-Texas Railroad empty coal train with Burlington Northern power passes waiting eastbound Missouri Pacific Railroad freight train at Taylor, Texas, in April, 1981. Photograph by J. Parker Lamb, (c) 2016 Center for Railroad Photography and Art. Lamb-02-046-09

 

Above Left: This Google Street View from 2022 faces west from the Robinson St. grade crossing toward the former Katy / I&GN diamond, now a crossing of two UP tracks. In the distance, the Main Street Overpass carrying Texas Highway 95 is visible.


Above Right: Google Street View captured this 2022 image of the Main St. grade crossing of UP's former I-GN tracks. A grade separation project c.1965 built the overpass that carries the vast majority of the traffic. After acquiring the I-GN, MP had expanded this crossing to a total of six tracks by 1933. A watchman's tower was used to raise and lower gates manually, but gate crashes and other problems persisted.


Left: (Railway Signaling, April, 1935) On December 13, 1933, MP activated a new warning system for the Main Street grade crossing that used bells and red lights to warn drivers of approaching trains. The system did not employ gates, but the watchman's tower remained in use so the signals could be overridden when being triggered by nearby switching movements that would not pass over the grade crossing (otherwise, due to the proximity of the I-GN yard, the system would be ON for significant periods of time during the day and drivers would soon learn to ignore the signals since they rarely indicated an actual train.) The watchman could reactivate the signals by removing his override if he determined that a train was approaching the crossing while switching activities were underway. When a watchman was not on duty between 11:00 pm and 6:00 am, the system was fully automatic.

 
Above Left: This Google Maps 2022 satellite image of the Tower 34 crossing shows connectors in the northwest and southwest quadrants. No evidence has been found to indicate that connecting tracks ever existed in either of the east quadrants. Above Right: This Microsoft Virtual Earth bird's eye view of the crossing from c.2008 has south at the top. An interlocker cabinet sits in the northeast quadrant of the diamond where the tower once stood. The cabinet remains intact, barely visible on the 2022 imagery, but whether it still houses active electronics is undetermined.

Below: R. J. McKay took these two photos of the Taylor passenger depots in 1973 and 1975, respectively.
 

 
Last Revised: 7/13/2024 JGK - Contact the Texas Interlocking Towers Page.