Among towers for which photos have not yet been found, this photo's history and the tower's appearance fits well with the limited details known about Tower 43, but it's only an educated guess until a verified photo of Tower 43 is located.
A Crossing of the Gulf, Colorado & Santa Fe Railway and the Trinity & Brazos Valley Railroad
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|
Left:
Might this be Tower 43 near Cleburne? This photo of an unidentified
interlocking tower (courtesy, Dillon Mcadams) is from a collection of
railroad items that belonged to an employee of the Trinity & Brazos Valley (T&BV)
Railway (and / or its immediate successor, the Burlington - Rock
Island.) The acute angle of the diamond fits what's known of Tower 43, but also fits
Tower 63 at Mexia (below
right,
courtesy Tom Kline) and Tower 44 at
Hillsboro, other towers where the T&BV operated. Photos of Tower 63 show
features that do not appear in the photo at left, e.g. its staircase
rose parallel to the tower wall to reach the initial
landing at the corner of the building whereas the
staircase at left rises perpendicular to the tower wall to reach the
initial landing in front of the building. The rooflines are substantially different,
more easily seen in a higher resolution photo of Tower 63. The tower at left is similar to
Tower 44 but wider and with different
surroundings. It can't be Towers 45,
46, or 70, where
the T&BV also operated, all of which crossed nearly at right-angles. Among towers for which photos have not yet been found, this photo's history and the tower's appearance fits well with the limited details known about Tower 43, but it's only an educated guess until a verified photo of Tower 43 is located. |
Soon after the Republic of Texas was admitted to the
United States in 1845, the U.S. Army began constructing a series of forts along
the Texas frontier. Fort Graham opened in the spring of 1849 along the east bank
of the Brazos River at the confluence of Little Bear Creek (the site is now
submerged by Lake Whitney.) In 1851, Fort Belknap opened north and west of Fort
Graham, more than a hundred miles distant. There was regular military traffic
between the two forts, and a frequent bivouac for troops was located about
twenty miles north of Fort Graham along Buffalo Creek, a site in Johnson County that had long been a crossing of trails and wagon roads. During
the Civil War, this crossroads became known as Camp Henderson. After Hood County
was created in 1866 from parts of western Johnson County, the community of
Buchanan, seat of Johnson County, no longer complied with state law requiring
seats to be within six miles of the geographic center of the county. Camp
Henderson was selected as the new seat and its name was changed to Cleburne to
honor Confederate General Patrick R. Cleburne.
The new county seat had a reputation as a
historic crossroads of commerce, so it is unsurprising that Cleburne's population tripled in the 1870s.
Investors became motivated to reach it by rail, and the first to do so was ... a
more complicated answer than might be expected! The principal treatise on Texas railroad history is S. G.
Reed's 800-page reference tome, A History of the Texas
Railroads (St. Clair Publishing, 1941). Reed describes the initial effort
to build a railroad to Cleburne. It was...
...chartered November 23, 1876, as the Dallas & Cleburne Railroad Co. to build a narrow gauge between those cities but local capital could not be raised nor foreign capital interested. Three years later, on July 11, 1879, they reorganized and changed the name to the Dallas, Cleburne & Rio Grande Railway Co., intending like nearly all railroad projects at that time to go to the Mexican border. They finally built the 53 miles to Cleburne and ran a freight and a passenger train over the track to collect a promised bonus. After one each of these was run, service was abandoned. Finally Alex Sanger, J. B. Simpson and A. F. Hardle got behind the enterprise, interested northern capital, and got Dallas to give a bonus of $50,000 for a standard gauge road to Cleburne. A new charter was taken out on September 16, 1880, under the name of the Chicago, Texas &or Mexican Central Railway Co. As the Santa Fe, Fort Worth Branch passed through Cleburne, it was decided to buy this road which was done on July 6, 1882..."
There is much to unpack in Reed's paragraph. His primary
assertion is that finally a 53-mile line was built by the Dallas, Cleburne & Rio Grande
(DC&RG) Railway from Dallas to Cleburne and that two trains were run over it, after
which service was suspended. Reed never says
that the line was actually built as narrow gauge (nor does he state that it was built in
1879, a mistake the Handbook of Texas
makes.) Reed's other assertion is that finally new investors got behind
the enterprise, a $50,000 bonus was offered, and a new charter was taken out in
September, 1880 under a new name, the Chicago, Texas & Mexican Central (CT&MC)
Railway.
Reed says that Alex Sanger, et. al. finally...got behind the enterprise,
but this statement appears
after the 53-mile line had finally been built,
implying it was later in time.
But if that's true, why would a $50,000 bonus be offered for a standard
gauge road to Cleburne that either already existed as standard gauge, or
merely needed a conversion from narrow gauge? Reed doesn't explain, and he abruptly
fast forwards into the summer of 1882 when the Gulf, Colorado & Santa Fe
(GC&SF, "Santa Fe") Railway bought the CT&MC. Reed's use of the word
"finally" in neighboring
sentences seems like an oddity that may imply something other than poor
drafting.
Railroad news was always of major interest in newspapers of that era, yet
not a single 1879 newspaper in Texas discusses any construction of any kind on a
Dallas - Cleburne rail line, let alone actually finishing it and running two
trains. The Fort Worth Daily Democrat of June 24,
1879 reported on a meeting held in Dallas that discussed forming a company to
build the DC&RG rail line. There was an article in early September stating that
teams surveying the planned route of the DC&RG were within fifteen miles of Cleburne (Brenham Weekly Banner,
September 5, 1879), but articles describing any sort of actual construction
progress on
a Dallas - Cleburne rail line simply do not exist in 1879. There are numerous
newspaper articles in 1880 regarding the effort to build a Dallas - Cleburne
rail line, but other than a groundbreaking ceremony, no actual construction
work was reported. Newspaper evidence from 1881 and 1882 combined
with a careful analysis of Reed's paragraph suggest that some
of his sentences may have been typeset out of
order, or perhaps a simple editing mistake resulted in sentences being misplaced in the paragraph.
Putting all of Reed's sentences in a slightly
different order, the entire paragraph most likely should read
...
...chartered November 23, 1876, as the Dallas & Cleburne Railroad Co. to build a narrow gauge between those cities but local capital could not be raised nor foreign capital interested. Three years later, on July 11, 1879, they reorganized and changed the name to the Dallas, Cleburne & Rio Grande Railway Co., intending like nearly all railroad projects at that time to go to the Mexican border. Finally Alex Sanger, J. B. Simpson and A. F. Hardle got behind the enterprise, interested northern capital, and got Dallas to give a bonus of $50,000 for a standard gauge road to Cleburne. A new charter was taken out on September 16, 1880, under the name of the Chicago, Texas & Mexican Central Railway Co. They finally built the 53 miles to Cleburne and ran a freight and a passenger train over the track to collect a promised bonus. After one each of these was run, service was abandoned. As the Santa Fe, Fort Worth Branch passed through Cleburne, it was decided to buy this road which was done on July 6, 1882..."
Newspaper articles from 1879-1882 establish
conclusively that there was only one construction effort from Dallas to
Cleburne, and that it was executed and completed by the CT&MC well before
that railroad was purchased
by the GC&SF in the summer of 1882. The effort began
in the summer of 1879 when new investors changed the
original 1876 Dallas & Cleburne name to add Rio Grande and
began surveying the proposed right-of-way (ROW.) During the survey, management changed the
plan to standard gauge, deeming a narrow gauge line inadequate for the expected commerce and
connections (as reported by the
Dallas Daily Herald, January 5, 1882, in an article looking back on the
ordeal of the DC&RG's construction.) As the calendar turned to 1880, the DC&RG had yet to move
any dirt at all, and DC&RG management soon became focused on joining forces with
the newly formed Texas Trunk Railroad which had been chartered to build southeast from Dallas
to Sabine Pass. A story in the Dallas Daily Herald
of May 8, 1880, reported an agreement between the two railroads and announced...
"Hereafter,
we are informed, there is to be an identity of interests and management of the
Texas Trunk and the Dallas, Cleburne & Rio Grande roads." The story also
claimed the railroads would put "three hundred men, with the necessary
teams, grading apparatus, camp outfits, etc. on the line next Wednesday, May
12th. Work on this first ten miles, and, in fact, the balance of the fifty miles
between Dallas and Cleburne, is to be rushed through as fast as men and means
can do it." To no one's real surprise, the "three hundred men" never materialized
and the joint management scheme was apparently never consummated.
Above: Newspapers statewide
had varying opinions about the efforts of Dallas investors to build to Cleburne ... except for the
Fort Worth
newspapers, which universally derided Dallas' efforts to build any railroad
anywhere,
especially to Cleburne. Left to right:
Fort Worth Daily Democrat, March 25, 1876,
responding to an editorial by the Dallas Herald
("the leading newspaper of Northwest Texas") which had accused a Cleburne
correspondent of falsely claiming that Dallas was denigrating Fort Worth's
efforts to seek additional railroads (a significant aspect of this report is
that it clearly cites the existence of the Cleburne
Chronicle
newspaper in 1876, a newspaper that was strangely silent if a
rail line was actually built into its town in 1879); Fort Worth Daily Democrat,
June 18, 1879, explaining the real purpose of a "railroad meeting" in Dallas;
Austin
Democratic Statesman, July 31, 1879, wondering why Dallas is having
difficulty raising funds for the rail line to Cleburne;
Fort Worth Daily Democrat, December 21, 1879,
quoting the Cleburne Chronicle
wondering if the
railroad to Cleburne will ever be built.
Below: More newspaper opinions...
Left to right:
Galveston Daily News, December 21, 1879,
reporting disgust among Cleburne citizens regarding the DC&RG;
Fort Worth Daily Democrat, January 30, 1880,
advising Cleburne to forget Dallas and focus on Fort Worth as a rail partner;
Fort Worth Daily Democrat, September 29, 1880,
upping the snark in response to an editorial in the
Dallas Times; Fort Worth Daily Democrat,
October 3, 1880, derisively commenting on the price of iron while mocking the
proclivity of the CT&MC (as the "CTRG&MC") to announce grand plans.
A review of the DC&RG's history published by the Dallas Daily Herald on January 5, 1882 explained that DC&RG management next approached Dallas investor Dr. F. A. Williams in the summer of 1880 with a proposition that if he could secure funding from his "Northern capitalists" friends, the DC&RG investors would transfer all of their rights to a new company capable of building a "first-class standard gauge road". Williams traveled to Washington and New York, and was able to bring in the Anglo-American Land & Claim Association as a major investor. It was "a corporation that was handling large amounts of Scottish and European capital". Later that summer, the new CT&MC railroad was chartered and it secured a promissory bonus from Dallas if fifty miles of track was completed toward Cleburne by the end of 1881. Besides the new name, a new charter was needed because the CT&MC wanted to include both Paris and Mexico City as authorized end points.
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Top Left:
(Dallas Daily Herald, July 15,
1880) Although the CT&MC had not yet been chartered, the company that would
back it was being legally organized in July.
The company needed to be established to be able to accept the transfer
of assets from the DC&RG, mostly easements and rights-of-way already
negotiated. Top Right: (Dallas Daily Herald, September 10, 1880) Although the new CT&MC charter was granted in September, the groundbreaking ceremony held in downtown Dallas used only the DC&RG name. This was because the vision of the CT&MC -- to create a rail line between Chicago and Mexico City -- necessarily included acquisition of existing railroads, not just new construction. To distant investors in Chicago and Europe, the CT&MC was promoting the idea that the DC&RG was one of the existing railroads that was nearly complete and ready to be incorporated into the grand plan. In reality, the DC&RG had no rail lines at all, having yet to begin construction. Bottom Left: On October 1, 1880, the Dallas Daily Herald continued its regular cheerleading for Dallas railroads, hailing the CT&MC's effort to build from Chicago to Mexico City as equally important to that of the Texas & Pacific (T&P), which it described as "rapidly pushing through...toward the Pacific coast." At the time, the T&P tracks had only recently crossed the Brazos River west of Fort Worth. Bottom Right: (Dallas Daily Herald, March 27, 1881) It was another six months before the CT&MC began to advertise for contractors to do actual grading and track-laying. A new survey for the entire route was the primary reason for the delay. The bonus for fifty miles of track required completion by the end of 1881, only nine months away. |
  |
Reed's passage on the Dallas - Cleburne construction is
located in his chapter about Santa Fe because Cleburne became a key stop on the
GC&SF's long-planned Northern Branch. The GC&SF had started in Galveston;
its leaders
wanted a second railroad off the Island, preferably one that did not
pass through Houston (for reasons best explained
elsewhere.) To effect its plan, the GC&SF built its own bridge over Galveston Bay to
Virginia Point and continued northwest remaining well south of Houston,
ostensibly heading for Colorado. Tracks reached Brenham
in April, 1880, Caldwell in early July, and Milano
in November. On January 14,
1881, tracks entered the railroad's Temple Junction construction camp
(named for GC&SF Chief Engineer Bernard Temple) eight miles east of Belton. It
was considered a "junction" because the GC&SF had chosen the camp to be the
departure point for the Northern
Branch. As the population in
the vicinity of the Temple Junction grew, the Post Office decided the name would
simply be
Temple. GC&SF service was extended
west to
Belton on March 18, 1881, and "main line" construction beyond Belton continued northwest,
albeit very slowly. Management attention was focused elsewhere; the real
main line would be the Northern Branch, for which construction had been initiated in
November, 1880.
The Northern Branch was cited in the GC&SF's Texas
railroad charter, hence the assumption that the GC&SF would build in that
direction resulted in significant lobbying by towns (particularly
Waco) seeking the
railroad. Fort Worth was selected as the
destination for the Northern Branch; this surprised many (including Reed) who thought Dallas would get
the nod. It makes sense, though, that
savvy GC&SF management saw factors that gave Fort Worth the edge. Being west of Dallas,
Fort Worth was positioned to (and in fact did) become the state's west and
northwest rail gateway, directions to which the GC&SF ("Colorado", "Santa
Fe") still aspired. The Temple - Fort Worth routing was slightly
shorter via Cleburne than via Waco, and Cleburne was a town experiencing rapid
growth that had no railroad (whereas Waco already had rail service to
Houston.) The long-rumored Dallas - Cleburne line would
(probably) exist by the time the Northern Branch reached Cleburne.
The GC&SF wanted to serve Dallas; it could easily presume that a friendly agreement (if not outright acquisition) for
use of the Dallas
- Cleburne line could be arranged.
Most critically, bypassing Waco
avoided the need to build a Waco - Fort Worth
segment. Although that market did not yet have a rail line, rail baron Jay Gould's
election as President of the Missouri, Kansas & Texas ("Katy") Railroad
in December, 1879 portended an aggressive move to build from the Katy's
Red River bridge near Denison south to Laredo. The
Katy's path south was almost certain to include Fort Worth and Waco. The GC&SF was a small railroad; it had
no interest in competing side-by-side with Gould on Fort Worth - Waco traffic,
and it especially wanted to avoid becoming an unfriendly takeover target. Under Gould, the
Katy would soon build Fort Worth - Temple tracks via Waco, precisely the route
that
many had been urging upon the GC&SF. As the GC&SF was building the Northern Branch,
Gould acquired the International & Great Northern (I&GN) Railroad,
Texas' largest. Gould completed the I&GN line between Longview and Laredo in December,
1881, just as the GC&SF was reaching Fort Worth. Only five months later, Gould owned
a complete route from Denison to Laredo via Fort Worth, Waco, Temple,
Austin and San Antonio
when Katy tracks south from Temple were completed to
Taylor, the I&GN junction point. Although the GC&SF competed with Gould
in the Temple - Fort Worth market, Gould's preference to build through Waco kept
the GC&SF out of his unwelcome focus.
  |
Left, Top:
GC&SF construction of its line between Temple and Fort Worth began with
grading south from Fort Worth.
(La Grange Journal,
November 24, 1880) Right, Top: By the spring of 1881, northward construction from Temple had resulted in the founding of the towns of Moody and Banks. Banks was absorbed into the new town of Morgan which was founded where the St. Louis Southwestern Railway crossed the GC&SF in June, 1882. Left, Bottom: The GC&SF bridge over the Brazos River opened for construction trains in September, 1881. (Austin Weekly Statesman, September 15, 1881) Right, Bottom: Although grading had been performed in both directions, track-laying was conducted only in a northward direction. Tracklayers finally entered Fort Worth from the south at the beginning of December, 1881. (Brenham Daily Banner, September 20, 1881) |
  |
Above: Fortunately, the
GC&SF's engineers
learned how vicious the floodwaters of the Brazos River could be
before
passenger trains began
operating over the new bridges. As reported by the
Fort Worth Daily Democrat
on October 11, 1881 (quoting the Cleburne Chronicle), an
early October storm resulted in massive flooding that severely damaged
the bridge over the Brazos and wiped out the temporary bridges over the
Nolan River. There were
three Nolan bridges due to the twists and turns of the
river north of
its confluence with the Brazos.
A GC&SF timetable
advertisement in the
Galveston Daily News of October 23,
1881 listed Kopperl, two miles south of the Brazos bridge, as the farthest station north. The November 1, 1881
ad listed Cleburne as the farthest station
north, with a note that the timetable was "In Effect October 30, 1881".
By Thanksgiving, the GC&SF was "within six miles" of
Fort Worth and "...will
reach this place by December 1st." (Fort Worth
Daily Democrat, November 25, 1881.) It was not, however, ready to
commence regular trains between Cleburne and Fort Worth: "The Santa Fe road has so far
failed to run a regular train to Ft. Worth. Perhaps it is waiting for completion
of Chicago, Texas & Mexican Central to Cleburne (which will be done this week)
so that passenger trains to a city can be put on." (Fort Worth Daily
Democrat, January 1, 1882, in a strangely worded statement.)
The
CT&MC completed its required fifty miles of track on the last day of 1881 and
earned its bonus, either $40,000 (one newspaper account) or $50,000 (Reed, and
another newspaper report.) Though the CT&MC had reached Cleburne, work on the
GC&SF track connection did not finish until January 7. GC&SF service through Cleburne was underway by January 8, 1882 when
its timetable advertising in the Fort Worth Daily Democrat
began to list a connection "At CLEBURNE, with C. T. & M. C. Ry. for
Alvarado, Dallas and all points on that line." There were also reports that
the two railroads had agreed on railcar interchanges, mail routes and other elements of
railroad cooperation.
 |
Left:
The GC&SF was headquartered in
Galveston, home of the
Galveston Daily News, the statewide newspaper of record. New Year's
Day, 1882 saw a typical multi-font GC&SF ad although the "In Effect" date was blank. The ad also failed to
list arrival / departure times at Fort Worth, perhaps because the
railroad
had yet to begin running to Fort Worth! That didn't deter the marketing
people who were already crowing loudly about their
"Solid Trains" between Galveston and Fort Worth "Without Change". They
also listed a connection with the CT&MC at Cleburne, though it would not
exist for another week. (No worries! Ticket agents would give travelers
the honest truth by the fares they were willing to sell.) Of note, the
new tag line for the GC&SF was "The Picturesque Route of Texas". It
replaced "Texas Midland Route" (below,
from three days earlier) which had been in use for at least a year (and
was unrelated to the future Texas Midland Railroad.) |
No evidence has been found to support Reed's claim that
precisely two trains were run from Dallas to Cleburne and then service was suspended
(although "suspended" could simply mean "stopped until the Santa Fe connection was
completed.")
With a dateline of Dallas, January 14, 1882, the Fort
Worth Democrat - Advocate of January 15 reported that "The
passenger train of the Chicago, Texas & Mexican Central railroad has arrived and
will be immediately put on the road between this point and Cleburne."
The article also reported that a group of railroad men were
leaving that night for the east coast "...to try and perfect arrangements
for a consolidation of the interests of the Texas Trunk, the Chicago, Texas &
Mexican Central, and the new project known as the Gulf and Pacific railroad."
Nothing ever came of the Gulf & Pacific, and Reed does not mention it. With a
new passenger train intact, the Dallas Weekly Herald of January 19, 1882
reported that the first CT&MC revenue passenger train from Dallas to Cleburne had
occurred the previous day and that it "....was
hailed by a crowd of Cleburnites, who had gathered at the terminus to welcome
it." The Dallas Daily Herald of
February 28, 1882 reported that "Tomorrow, passenger trains on the Chicago,
Texas & Mexican Central railroad will commence carrying the mails to and fro,
between this city and Cleburne." Mail being a newsworthy item tends to imply
that the trains were already carrying people, at least on a somewhat regular
basis.
There is plenty of evidence indicating that the
CT&MC was having severe financial, physical and operational problems. The
animosity of Fort Worth newspapers toward Dallas was evident when the
Fort Worth Daily Democrat of March 11, 1882
happily reported... "The Chicago, Texas and Mexican railroad, which
has one end about two miles from Dallas and the other in the vicinity of
Cleburne, is not a railroad after all. The state inspector has passed over the
line twice, and each time he has declined to accept the road as completed."
The same newspaper had a more objective report on March
3rd ..."A force employed by the Western Union Telegraph Company, putting up
a line for the Chicago, Texas and Mexican Central Railroad Company between
Dallas and Cleburne, quit work and refused to allow any more wire to be strung
because they cannot get pay from the railroad company for work. The employees in
other capacities refuse to work for the same reason."
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Far Left: Because of its state charter, the CT&MC's
construction had to be
certified by a state inspector, but his approval was not forthcoming. (Galveston Daily News, March 9, 1882) Left: The CT&MC was in deep financial difficulty. Deputy sheriffs seized the rolling stock and were running the trains to ensure assets did not disappear. (Fort Worth Daily Democrat, March 28, 1882) |
  |
Left: A correspondent of the Fort Worth Daily Democrat met with a CT&MC executive to discuss the situation with the railroad. Notwithstanding flimsy excuses about the roadbed and the weather, the most significant comment was the certainty that the railroad would "...soon be relieved of its present embarrassment...", perhaps alluding to the rumors of its acquisition by the GC&SF. (Fort Worth Daily Democrat, April 6, 1882) |
The Fort Worth Daily Democrat
of March 3, 1882 reported a well-spread rumor "...in railroad circles that the company proposes to clear
the road of debt, and that negotiations on that basis are going on with the
Gulf, Colorado and Santa Fe for the Chicago, Texas and Mexican Central."
Rumors about the GC&SF and the CT&MC (but with much greater intrigue) had
been around since mid-January. The
Dallas Weekly Herald of January 12, 1882 commented on a lengthy article
that had appeared in the
Ennis Review weaving a modicum of facts
with some rank speculation to allege a conspiracy among the GC&SF, the
Houston & Texas Central (H&TC), and the CT&MC to "out-flank"
Jay Gould by building a joint line to Paris from Dallas.
Gould controlled
the two major Texas gateways to the Midwest,
Denison and Texarkana,
through his presidency of two key railroads. One was the T&P, which had two
routes between Texarkana and Fort Worth. The northern route via Sherman
was completed when the final leg, Sherman to Fort Worth via Whitesboro, opened
in May, 1881. The T&P's southern route to Fort Worth via Marshall and Dallas had
been completed in 1876. Gould was also President of the Katy, which had tracks from
its Red River bridge near Denison to Fort Worth
that were shared with the T&P south of Whitesboro. The rumored plot centered on the GC&SF and
others building
a joint line to Paris to meet the St. Louis & San Francisco ("Frisco") Railway.
In 1880, the Frisco had begun a southwest extension of its Missouri network that
would eventually run through Fort Smith, Arkansas and Hugo, Oklahoma to cross
the Red River on a new bridge into Paris. This would provide an alternate gateway to the
Midwest and a shorter route to St. Louis from Dallas compared to the Katy's route through Denison
or the T&P's route via Texarkana. The H&TC line from
Houston to Denison passed through Dallas,
so a line from Dallas to Paris would allow H&TC's Houston / Dallas - St. Louis
/ Kansas
City traffic to prefer Paris over Denison, a possibility that alarmed the Gould
syndicate. The GC&SF
didn't serve Dallas, a problem easily solved if it acquired the CT&MC. The
CT&MC charter specifically included authorization
to build between Cleburne and Paris, which was the only detail that made the
CT&MC a player in this intrigue. Gould understood the stakes, and he began
to examine the possibility of taking over the Frisco so he could control the
Paris gateway.
By the time the CT&MC was reaching Cleburne, it
reportedly had begun surveying "...between
Dallas and Paris for the location of depots." (Dallas
Weekly Herald, December 29, 1881.) Although this seems suspicious since the CT&MC
was nearly bankrupt, a report in the
San Marcos Free Press of January 26, 1882
discussing the CT&MC added an even bigger
claim, that... "Five miles of grading from Dallas toward Paris are
completed, and the line is located as far as Farmersville -- forty-two miles.
Two hundred men are now employed on the the line northeast of Dallas, and in a
few days the company expects to have 1,200 men at work, and the road will be
rapidly pushed through to Paris where it is to form a junction with the St.
Louis & San Francisco road which will be extended south through the Choctaw
nation next summer." Attributing construction of this magnitude to the
nearly-bankrupt CT&MC was utterly implausible, but despite the
exaggeration, there could have been a morsel of truth. Perhaps work
was underway, but with the GC&SF funding the effort, knowing that
it would soon acquire the CT&MC? The
Ennis Review had claimed a secret agreement between those railroads
dating from the spring of 1881 in which they had agreed to split the cost of
building a joint line from Dallas to Paris. The agreement was apparently never
finalized, most likely because it was obvious that the CT&MC lacked the finances
to sustain itself much longer. Why negotiate a long-term agreement with the
CT&MC when it could be acquired instead?
Meanwhile, H&TC decided it should
start its own branch to Paris from its main line
south of Dallas near Ennis. It had already chartered the
Texas Central (TC) Railway in 1879 for the main purpose of building a northwest
branch into the Texas Panhandle. With foresight of the Frisco's intention to
build to Paris, the TC charter included
rights to build a northeast branch to Paris.
Construction on this branch began in
1882 and reached Kaufman and
Terrell before the TC went into a lengthy
receivership. The TC's reorganization resulted in the branch toward Paris being
sold to H&TC investor Hetty Green, who used it as the basis of her Texas Midland (TM) Railroad
in 1893. The TM finally reached Paris in 1896.
 |
The GC&SF did, indeed, buy the CT&MC to gain access to Dallas and the
right to build to Paris. The property officially transferred on
August 1, 1882. While this was a good, strategic move for the GC&SF, it did
nothing to solve its biggest problem: it was entirely dependent on local
traffic. Unless the GC&SF could find a partner to stimulate traffic from
out-of-state markets, it was destined to become subservient to the big
railroads in Texas. The obvious suitor was the much larger Atchison, Topeka & Santa Fe (AT&SF) Railway. The AT&SF viewed Galveston as an attractive port for agriculture exports from the high plains. The GC&SF's main line from Fort Worth to Galveston would be a boon to AT&SF's network if the two railroads could establish an appropriate interchange point. Negotiations resulted in an 1886 agreement under which the AT&SF would acquire the GC&SF on favorable terms if the GC&SF completed three specific construction projects within a year: Fort Worth to Purcell, Oklahoma (to meet the AT&SF building south); Dallas to Paris (to meet the Frisco); and Cleburne to Weatherford (for a shortcut to west Texas via the T&P, enabling Gulf coast traffic to bypass Fort Worth.) The GC&SF was able to lay 300 miles of track in one year to complete all of these projects, a substantial amount by any measure. The acquisition proceeded as planned in 1887 and the GC&SF began operating as a wholly-owned subsidiary of AT&SF. Left: This map shows north Texas railroads c.1900, not all railroads shown. Interlocking tower installations would begin in 1902; future tower numbers are in blue circles (except numerous interlockers in Dallas and Fort Worth are omitted.) In addition to previously identified railroads, the St. Louis Southwestern (SSW, "Cotton Belt"), the Texas & New Orleans (T&NO) and the Louisiana & Arkansas (L&A) also appear on this map. The T&NO and H&TC were subsidiaries of Southern Pacific (SP), and the SSW became an SP subsidiary in 1933. The L&A became part of Kansas City Southern. |
Having acquired the CT&MC,
railroad operations through Cleburne for the next twenty years were the
exclusive province of Santa Fe. Other roads passed nearby -- the Katy, building south from
Fort Worth, had passed 13 miles east of Cleburne near Alvarado
in the spring of 1881 and had been crossed there in the fall by the CT&MC. Santa
Fe, building its branch from Cleburne to Weatherford, and the Fort Worth & Rio
Grande (FW&RG) building from Fort Worth to Brownwood, had crossed in Cresson, 20 miles
west of Cleburne, in 1887. The FW&RG would later become a Frisco property. Although the TC's northwest branch had reached
Whitney in 1879, a projected 30-mile tap line to Whitney from
Cleburne was never built (contrary to the
assertion
by the Handbook of Texas.) And consistent
rumors that the Waxahachie Tap Railroad would build from
Waxahachie to Weatherford via Cleburne
proved unfounded.
In the early 1890s, Santa Fe began to consider Cleburne
for the site of its Central Machine Shops. Temple and other Texas cities were also in the running, and
the decision-making process became highly politicized. It did not help that
citizens of Cleburne were beginning to perceive the disadvantage of being a
one-railroad town. "So low were the freight rates of the Missouri, Kansas &
Texas Railroad to Alvarado, that Cleburne merchants bought goods and had them
shipped to Alvarado, then paid for having them hauled to Cleburne from Alvarado."
Citizens of Cleburne were also "...unable to understand why the Santa Fe
could deliver coal in Dallas at the rate of one dollar per ton freight, while
Cleburne people were charged one dollar and seventy-five cents freight on each
ton delivered in Cleburne. The fact that the coal hauled into Dallas had to pass
through Cleburne first made the Cleburne people wonder why the company could
charge less for a longer haul than it could for a shorter one."
(G. H. Gay, The Early Development of Cleburne,
Masters Thesis, North Texas State College, August, 1950)
In 1897, Santa
Fe signed a contract with a committee representing Cleburne and agreed to locate
its machine shops there in exchange for land. G. H. Gay's Masters Thesis does
not state that Cleburne offered cash, whereas it does report sizable land and
cash donation offers from Dallas ($100,000), Fort Worth ($75,000) and Temple
($60,000). Notwithstanding the cash offers, the
critical factor appears to have been the free flowing artesian
wells drilled in Cleburne in the early 1890s. Cleburne had by far the best water
supply of all of the competitors, and this was critically
important to a mechanical shop focused on steam engines. (During a drought in
the mid-1890s, Cleburne had emphasized the point by sending a tank car
full of water to Santa Fe's offices in Fort Worth.) The Cleburne shops became operational in 1899
and remained a major contributor to
the local economy until they closed on September 29, 1989. The clamor for rail competition
at Cleburne did not subside, however, and
it was heard by the Katy. In 1902, the Dallas, Cleburne & Southwestern
(DC&S) Railway
built a 10-mile spur to Cleburne from the Katy main line at Egan.
 |
Left: The
Houston Daily Post of October 30, 1902 reported the tracks of the
DC&S had nearly reached Cleburne. Right: The Weatherford Weekly Herald of November 20, 1902 reported the first train into Cleburne on the DC&S. The article speculates on additional DC&S construction, but nothing further was ever built. Reed explains that the DC&S was "...financed by the parent Katy and was leased to the Texas Katy..." The spur was abandoned in 1924. |
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| Right: the Katy
depot in downtown Cleburne (from Images of
America, Cleburne by Mollie Mims) The Katy's timetable in the 1908 Official Railway Guide listed four round-trip trains daily between Egan and Cleburne as of June 23, 1907. There was an intermediate stop in both directions at Keene. Much of the DC&S right-of-way between Egan and Cleburne is now beneath or beside Farm Road 2280, known as Old Betsy Road. "Old Betsy" is reported to have been the local nickname for the first DC&S steam engine. |
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The last steam railroad to reach Cleburne was the Trinity & Brazos Valley (T&BV) Railway in 1904. It had been chartered in 1902 by two Houston men interested in connecting Cleburne with Beaumont. The initial effort was to build between Cleburne and Mexia, a southeasterly route across a major farming region. This would produce an east / west agriculture-oriented line that connected with three major north / south railroads: at Cleburne (Santa Fe), Hillsboro (the Katy) and Mexia (the H&TC.) Construction began with a segment between Hillsboro and Hubbard in 1903, followed by extensions west to Cleburne and east to Mexia that were completed in early 1904. Revenue quickly proved to be inadequate, and the financial backers on the east coast were unwilling to provide more funding. Just as the situation was turning dire, the T&BV was acquired by the Colorado & Southern (C&S) Railway as part of a massive and unusual plan conceived by a member of the C&S Board of Directors, B. F. Yoakum.
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Left: North
Central Texas railroads c.1907 (not all railroads shown) Benjamin Franklin Yoakum was a native Texan with vast experience in Texas railroading. He was born in 1859 in Tehuacana, a tiny community close to Mexia (only a mile from the new T&BV tracks.) Yoakum had been elected to the C&S Board of Directors because, at age 46, he controlled two major Midwest railroads. He was the CEO of the Frisco, and the Chairman of the Executive Committee of the Chicago, Rock Island and Pacific Railroad, effectively its CEO. He had left his previous executive position with the GC&SF in the mid-1890s when AT&SF refused to promote him to its Chicago headquarters. Early in his career, Yoakum had worked for the I&GN and the San Antonio & Aransas Pass Railway. After moving to the Frisco, Yoakum built or acquired several railroad properties known collectively as the Gulf Coast Lines (GCL.) He wanted to combine them into a railroad that could compete with SP in the coastal regions of Texas and Louisiana. To be successful, Yoakum needed to own a route from Houston, where his GCL lines along the Gulf were centered, to Dallas / Fort Worth, where his Frisco and Rock Island lines had recently arrived from Oklahoma. SP's H&TC subsidiary owned the main route between Houston and Dallas (and also had a Fort Worth branch.) It was particularly galling to Yoakum that his lack of a north / south Texas rail line meant that he had to pay SP to move his own traffic between his own railroads. Yoakum obtained a Texas railroad charter authorizing Rock Island construction from Fort Worth to Galveston via Dallas and Houston. In 1903, he directed Rock Island to lay tracks from Fort Worth to Dallas. He also directed Rock Island to survey a low grade / low curve route between Dallas and Houston but he did not initiate southward construction. Instead, Yoakum negotiated a massive contract with SP to route Frisco and Rock Island traffic exclusively on SP lines to the Gulf. SP feared Yoakum's presence in Texas so much that it practically gave away the farm by granting Yoakum rights to operate over SP tracks throughout Texas subject to virtually no constraints. |
Yoakum's contract with SP was subject to approval by the Railroad Commission of Texas (RCT). An Austin Statesman story on May 21, 1903 explained that the contract does "...not require the Rock Island to build one mile of track nor one house [depot] of any kind, and still the company acquires all of the benefits and advantages as if the matter had come before the Legislature without any disguise, as a straight merger proposition." The story went on to predict that this argument would "...form the several grounds upon which the commission will refuse..." to approve the contract. The story was correct; RCT rejected the contract. Two years later, Yoakum pivoted from RCT's rejection by teaming with the C&S to acquire the T&BV on August 1, 1905.
| The T&BV served Yoakum's purposes with tracks and charter
rights located midway between Houston and Dallas. When the sale closed, the C&S sold a
half-interest in the T&BV to Rock Island. After building east from Mexia to Brewer
(which became the town of Teague, Yoakum's mother's maiden name), the T&BV built
south from Teague using the Rock Island survey. Trains began running between
Cleburne and Teague on March 16, 1906, and were able to continue on the T&BV's
new tracks to Houston by late 1906. Yoakum needed a T&BV connection at Fort
Worth with the
Fort Worth and Denver City (FW&DC) Railway, a C&S subsidiary, to
facilitate Denver - Houston service. To accomplish this, he negotiated rights
for the T&BV
to use Santa Fe's line between Fort Worth and Cleburne. Right: The morning Houston Post of January 28, 1907 announced that T&BV's first passenger train out of Houston would operate that day. Though unstated in the headline, it was Houston - Fort Worth service via Teague and Cleburne. Construction north from Teague reached Waxahachie in the early summer of 1907. From there, Yoakum was able to negotiate rights to use existing Katy tracks into Dallas. Far Right: The Waxahachie Daily Light of July 1, 1907 announced that Dallas - Houston service via Waxahachie and Teague had commenced that morning. |
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| On
the Santa Fe line between Cleburne and Fort Worth, the T&BV did not stop
at any intermediate points, but whether this was a condition of Santa
Fe's grant of trackage rights is undetermined. Regardless, RCT ruled on
December 16, 1907 that the failure to serve towns along the route
violated T&BV's state charter, and it ordered the railroad to begin
service to the communities. The T&BV did so, but it may not have mattered much.
Within a year, the T&BV would begin to deemphasize operations on the
Santa Fe route. Right: The Waxahachie Daily Light of August 11, 1908 speculated that because of grade differences, Yoakum would soon opt for a Rock Island - Katy - T&BV routing through Dallas and Waxahachie instead of sending the T&BV's Fort Worth traffic through Cleburne and Teague. |
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Left: During its
initial construction c.1903, the T&BV
tracks had crossed the Santa Fe a little over two miles south of
downtown Cleburne. To control the crossing in accordance with the 1901
interlocker law, RCT had
authorized Tower 43 to commence operation on July 7, 1904. It was almost
certainly a
manned two-story tower, possibly the one in the photo at top of page. This aerial image
((c) historicaerials.com) of the crossing, the earliest that has been found thus far, was captured in
1938, long after Tower 43 had been
abandoned in October, 1932. The north / south Santa Fe ROW is easily
seen and the T&BV ROW extending southeast from the Santa Fe tracks is
readily apparent. Across the Santa Fe to the northeast, the T&BV ROW
has a diminished appearance. The reason for the sharp difference in
visibility on either side of the Santa Fe tracks is undetermined. No remnants of Tower 43 (e.g. foundation,
cabinets, etc.) are visible but that could easily be due to the poor
quality of the imagery. The two bright spots on the Santa Fe ROW are
most likely gravel road crossings. Tower 43's first appearance in published RCT Annual Reports was in a table dated October 31, 1904. Tower 43 is listed as a 12-function mechanical interlocker located "South of Cleburne". In the 1906 list, the location became "Cleburne" and the function count remained unchanged. The 1906 list also included a comprehensive set of statistics which indicated an average of 20 trains per day had passed Tower 43 over the prior year. The 12-function interlocker implies a simple crossing consisting of a home signal, a distant signal and a derail in each of the four directions. There are no indications of any exchange tracks at Tower 43, nor should there have been given that the two railroads could more easily exchange traffic in downtown Cleburne only two miles away. Documentation archived for RCT at DeGolyer Library, Southern Methodist University describes Tower 43 as a 45-degree crossing at Santa Fe milepost 315.2 located 2.35 miles south of Cleburne. |
| Right:
The Austin Statesman of March
24, 1904 reported the construction progress of Tower 43. Significantly,
the article states explicitly that the "...work of installing the
interlocking plant..." is being performed "...by the Trinity and Brazos
Valley railway..." Far Right: On July 7, 1904, the Austin Statesman, reported that RCT Engineer Thompson was accompanying Col. R. H. Baker, the T&BV's General Manager, on a trip north where Thompson would officially commission the four interlocking towers on the T&BV line which, at the time, ran from Cleburne to Mexia. The towers were at Cleburne, Hillsboro, Malone and Hubbard. The article strongly implies that the T&BV was responsible for construction of all four towers. The tracks had been in place with uncontrolled crossings long enough for Col. Baker to claim the T&BV "...was getting a big share of the business." |
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Since the Tower 43 crossing did not exist when the
interlocker law took effect in 1901, RCT rules required the second railroad
(T&BV) to be responsible for the capital outlay for the tower and interlocking
plant. Typically, but not always, a company that was solely responsible for the
capital outlay would also take the project lead for the tower's design and
construction, plus the responsibility for staffing operations and maintenance
(O&M.) RCT's regulations required recurring tower expenses (staffing, utilities
and materials) to be shared between the railroads on a weighted function basis,
probably 50 / 50 for Tower 43. The above newspaper articles assert and imply
that the T&BV was leading the construction, and this would be the expected
situation. (In most cases, the railroad
leading the project can be deduced from the tower's architectural details, but a
confirmed photo of Tower 43 has not been found.)
Although the T&BV
carried Frisco, Rock Island and C&S traffic between north and south Texas, the
commerce was insufficient to sustain the railroad's operations. The T&BV's
financial situation deteriorated, perhaps affected by Yoakum's retirement from
the railroad industry. The T&BV served Houston, Dallas and Fort Worth, but there
were no other towns of any significant size. Cleburne,
Corsicana, Hillsboro and
Waxahachie were unable to provide the local traffic
margins needed to
achieve profitability. A lengthy receivership for the T&BV began in 1914 but the
railroad was able to remain operational under the supervision of the bankruptcy
judge.
In 1916, RCT's annual interlocker report began to include information for each tower
identifying the railroad responsible for operations. Santa Fe was listed with the responsibility for
operating Tower 43, but there are examples of O&M responsibilities changing over time (e.g.
Tower 87, Tower 112.)
Since the T&BV appears to have led the design and construction, it is very
likely that Santa Fe having O&M responsibility was not the original arrangement. The bankruptcy
court had the power to suspend contracts such as the one that governed Tower
43 operations. Doing so would have left Santa Fe in a bind if the T&BV was unable to pay tower expenses due to cash flow constraints.
Santa Fe had a much greater share of operations past the tower, and thus, the
larger interest in keeping the tower and interlocking plant 100% operational; it
could not tolerate disruptions to main line traffic. While it is possible that
Santa Fe had the O&M duties from the outset, it seems unlikely.
| Right: (San Antonio Daily Express, July 19, 1906) Though it could have been much more serious, there were no apparent injuries when a northbound Santa Fe passenger train from Galveston derailed at Tower 43 on July 19, 1906, flipping the engine, baggage car and three coaches onto their sides. An article on July 20 in the Fort Worth Record and Register quotes the tower man stating that "...the signals were against the Santa Fe and the derailing was a natural result..." |
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The T&BV finally emerged from bankruptcy in 1930 and was dissolved in favor
of the newly formed Burlington-Rock Island (B-RI) Railroad.
The B-RI was jointly and equally owned by Rock Island and the Chicago,
Burlington & Quincy (CB&Q), the two railroads that had each
possessed a 50% undivided interest in
the T&BV (the CB&Q's ownership was inherited from its acquisition of the C&S in 1909.)
The Court's plan was that the railroads would have unlimited rights to use the
B-RI tracks and would alternate managing the B-RI's assets (tracks, depots) in five-year intervals,
beginning with Rock Island in 1930. The CB&Q assigned its B-RI interests to
the FW&DC subsidiary it inherited from C&S.
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T&BV's superior north / south
route built by Yoakum in 1906-07 enabled the B-RI to operate successfully, but only by diligently
cutting routes that were not profitable. This resulted in the relatively quick
abandonment of the remainder of the T&BV tracks. The first to be abandoned
was the thirty miles
between Hillsboro and Cleburne in 1932, a track that had
likely experienced a drop in traffic anyway due
to the superior route from Fort Worth to Teague via Dallas and Waxahachie. Removing the tracks into Cleburne also eliminated the need for
(and the recurring expense of) Tower 43, which was abandoned officially on
October 11, 1932. Left: The Delta Courier (Cooper, Texas), September 20, 1932 Another 25 miles was abandoned between Hubbard and Hillsboro in 1935 followed by 23 miles between Mexia and Hubbard in 1942. Besides the Waxahachie - Houston main line, this left only a short branch west from Teague to serve a few remaining businesses in or near Mexia. |
The Mexia - Teague tracks were abandoned in 1976, about about a dozen years after the B-RI corporation had been dissolved by its parent companies. It had always been a paper railroad -- Rock Island and the FW&D (the 'C' in FW&DC had been dropped in 1951) had supplied the motive power and railcars. The extra layer of corporate accounting no longer served any purpose (if it ever did) and the railroads agreed to split all maintenance expenses. Rock Island's bankruptcy in 1980 left Burlington Northern (successor to the CB&Q) as the sole operator of the main line, which remained assigned to its FW&D subsidiary. In 1996, Burlington Northern merged with AT&SF to form Burlington Northern Santa Fe (BNSF), which continues to operate the line.
 |
 Above: Cleburne depots for the Trinity & Brazos Valley (left) and Santa Fe (right) are depicted in this post card c.1910. The Santa Fe depot had a Harvey House restaurant above it which closed in 1931. Left: This map shows historic steam railroads near Cleburne; solid lines are still intact under newer names and ownership. Besides Tower 43 at Cleburne, the only other interlocking tower was at Alvarado. The crossing at Cresson was not interlocked; the crossing at Venus was grade-separated. |
 Above: The dark solid line is the interurban route into Cleburne. It crossed the GC&SF north of Cleburne (where N. Main now crosses the BNSF tracks) and came into Cleburne parallel to and atop N. Main St. to reach the downtown station in the Wright Building. (map, Texas Historical Commission) |
The last railroad into Cleburne was the Northern Texas Traction (NTT)
Company electric interurban railway from Fort Worth. It was built in 1912 by an
NTT subsidiary, the Fort Worth Southern Traction Company. It was later
reorganized into the Tarrant County Traction Company, a component of
the NTT. Interurban service to Cleburne terminated in May, 1931. Below: The interurban station was on the northeast corner of the Wright Building which still stands in downtown Cleburne along S. Caddo Street one block south of E. Chambers Street. (Sanborn Fire Insurance Map, 1918)  |
The Dallas Southwestern Traction Company promoted construction of an electric interurban from Dallas to Glen Rose via Cleburne. The June, 1917 edition of Electric Railway Journal reported that the prior March, the company had "awarded a contract to the Creek Construction Company, Sapulpa, Oklahoma, for the construction of its proposed line from Dallas to Cleburne. The work of securing right-of-way for the proposed line has begun." The company struggled to find investors and the line was never built.
Above Left: The T&BV depot at
Cleburne closed as a railroad station in 1932, but was repurposed at various
times over many decades. Fire damaged the structure and a demolition order was
issued by the city on April 17, 1996. Attempts to preserve the building were
ultimately unsuccessful and it was razed in 2002. (Texas Historical Commission
photo, August 1, 1974) Above Right:
The Santa Fe
passenger station and Harvey House restaurant at Cleburne was built in 1894. By
the time this photo was taken in 1937, the Harvey House had been closed for six years. (J F Curry photo, Dane Williams collection)
 |
Left: Overhead imagery from 1956 ((c)historicaerials.com) and a Sanborn Fire Insurance map from 1918 correlate the locations of the three passenger stations in downtown Cleburne. Though the Katy (green) had been out of service since 1923 and the T&BV (pink) since 1932, both stations remained standing in 1956. The Santa Fe depot (orange) was still in use in 1956. |
| Below: Using the same color scheme as above, this snippet from the 1918 Sanborn Fire Insurance index map of Cleburne has been annotated to show the larger perspective of where the depots were located relative to the tracks entering Cleburne. The T&BV and Santa Fe depots were on the northwest and northeast corners, respectively, of the intersection of Chambers St. and Border St. The Katy depot was on the southeast corner of the intersection of Chambers St. with East St., now called Front St. |
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| Right: The entire structure of Cleburne's Santa Fe depot was modified into a single story facility in 1942. This building remained intact until it was demolished as part of the construction of an overpass on U.S. Highway 67 in 1994. It was still being used by Amtrak at the time, but Santa Fe no longer had any offices there. (undated photo, courtesy Cleburne Railroad Museum.) |
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Above Left: Looking southeast from the corner of
Chambers and Front streets where the Katy depot sat, the track in the
pavement would have passed in front of the station. Above Right:
Looking north along Border St. at its intersection with Chambers St., the T&BV
depot was to the left, the Santa Fe depot to the right. (Google Street View
images November, 2019.)
Above: A birds eye view (left, c.2008) and a satellite
view (right, c.2019) both show a tree line (pink arrows) as the marker for the
path of the T&BV at the Tower 43 crossing (somewhere in the yellow rectangle.)
The site is on private property, and after 90 years, it would likely take some digging
to find any trace of the foundation of Tower 43.
  |
Far Left:
Tower 63 at Mexia (DeGolyer Library
collection) Left: Tower 44 at Hillsboro (Ken Stavinoa collection) Towers 44 and 63 have similar roof designs and both have the fish-scale pattern between the floors (though it is noticeably smaller than was used by SP on many towers in Texas, e.g. Tower 17, Tower 26.) Towers 44 and 63 are significant because they both involved the T&BV but with different crossing railroads, i.e. their common design features likely stem from a T&BV design heritage, the only common railroad at these two crossings. These towers offer a design comparison for the unidentified tower at the top of page (and reproduced below) as a potential Tower 43. |
  |
Far Left:
potential T&BV tower (Dillon Mcadams collection) Left: the same photo processed by AI to improve image clarity The photo of the unidentified tower comes from a collection of items that belonged to an employee of the B-RI and / or its predecessor T&BV. This makes it a good candidate to be a T&BV tower. The semi-acute crossing angle (visible in the photo at top of page) limits the possibilities to Towers 63 and 44 because the other three potential T&BV towers, Tower 46 at Hubbard, Tower 45 at Malone, and Tower 70 at Dobbin, respectively, were nearly right-angle crossings. The unidentified tower resembles neither Tower 63 nor Tower 44 (above.) The roof is different and there is no fish-scale pattern. Tower 63 was built later than the others when the T&BV finally built across the H&TC tracks at Mexia (and yet it still resembled Tower 44) whereas Towers 43, 44, 45 and 46 were all commissioned by RCT on the same day, July 7, 1904. This implies that they were built more or less simultaneously and presumably shared common design features ... unless the other railroad at a crossing was in charge of the design. Could the unidentified tower have been a Santa Fe design? Yes, but it does not closely resemble any known Santa Fe towers. The photographic evidence doesn't point either way, although the differences compared to Towers 44 and 63 might suggest that it is not a T&BV tower. Hypothetically, the image could be Tower 43 with T&BV having managed the construction using Santa Fe's basic design. This might explain why it does not resemble Towers 44 and 63 when all other evidence points to T&BV having project responsibility. For now, the answer is unknown. |
Honoring Cleburne's
railroad heritage, the Cleburne Railroaders of the American Association of
Professional Baseball began playing their home games in 2017 at a stadium known
as The Depot at
Cleburne Station. The "Railroaders" name was first used by a Texas League team
at Cleburne in the early 1900s
for which Hall of Fame centerfielder Tris Speaker played during his minor league
days. The stadium is
now called La Moderna Field. (Above: Astroturf.com; Below:
Google Street View 2025)
